Hedley Thomas Explained

Hedley Thomas
Nationality:Australian
Occupation:Journalist and author
Known For:Walkley Awards
including two Gold Walkleys

Hedley Thomas is an Australian investigative journalist and author, who has won eight Walkley Awards, two of which are Gold Walkleys.[1]

Personal life

Thomas is married and lives in Brisbane. He has two children. In 2002 Thomas and his family were victims of a death threat and a drive-by shooting.[2] [3]

Career

Soon after completing high school, Thomas started his career as a newspaper copy boy for the Gold Coast Bulletin in 1984.[4]

After nine months as a copy boy he started a journalism cadetship at the Gold Coast Bulletin, then in 1988 moved to The Courier-Mail in Brisbane.[5] After a year, he moved to London as a foreign correspondent for News Limited Australia for two years. As a 22-year-old journalist there he covered historic events such as the Fall of the Berlin Wall and the Romanian Revolution.[6]

Thomas returned to The Courier-Mail in late 1991, working there for 18 months. Thomas then moved to become the News Editor at the Hong Kong Standard for six months, before moving to the South China Morning Post in late 1993. There Thomas served in a variety of roles, including Senior Reporter, Deputy Features Editor, and Senior Writer.

In 1999 Thomas returned to Brisbane and The Courier-Mail.

In 2005 he won a Walkley Award for a series of articles on Bundaberg Director of surgery Jayant Patel, which he later used a base for the non-fiction book Sick to Death, published in 2007.[7] The book also won the Queensland Premiers Literary Award for "Literary Work Advancing Public Debate".[8]

In 2006 Thomas moved to the Brisbane bureau of The Australian, and in 2007 won a Gold Walkley for a series highlighting the flawed police pursuit of Mohamed Haneef, an innocent doctor accused of being a terrorist.[9] After winning the award, Thomas left journalism in early 2008[10] to work in the resources sector, with a role in communications, investor and government relations.[11]

He returned to journalism and The Australian around 2010, notably covering aspects of the AWU affair during 2012.[12]

Thomas won a second Gold Walkley in 2018, along with producer Slade Gibson, for podcast series The Teacher's Pet, a 14-episode investigation of the unsolved disappearance of Sydney mother Lynette Dawson in 1982., the podcast series was downloaded 28 million times, and was the only Australian podcast to hit the number one spot in the US, the UK, Canada and New Zealand.[13] [14] As a result of its success, the investigative depth of the show was also criticised as potentially complicating, or compromising, witness testimony and ongoing police investigations.[15] [16] In 2022, following a guilty verdict in the murder trial of Dawson's former husband, Chris Dawson, Thomas received the Sir Keith Murdoch Award for his work on the podcast series.[17] Two follow-up series, called The Teacher's Trial and The Teacher's Accuser were aired 2022-2023.[18]

Since the success of The Teacher's Pet, Thomas has hosted (and regularly appeared in) a number of other podcasts[19] including The Night Driver (2020);[20] Shandee's Story and Shandee's Legacy (2021-2023).[21] In February 2022, revelations from Shandee's Story prompted the coronial inquest into her disappearance to reopen[22] alongside a wider inquiry into Queensland's state-run forensics lab.[23]

He was inducted into the Melbourne Press Club’s Media Hall of Fame in November 2018.[24]

Awards

Awards include:

Selected published works

External links

Notes and References

  1. Web site: Spotlight on: Hedley Thomas. Fletcher. Clare. 18 December 2018. Medium. 1 April 2019.
  2. Web site: Journalist relocated after shots fired at home. 24 October 2002. The Sydney Morning Herald. en. 14 January 2019.
  3. Web site: Journalist shaken after attack on home. 25 October 2002. The Age. en. 2020-01-17.
  4. News: Stalker shoots at journo. The Courier-Mail. 25 October 2002. Paula Doneman. Amanda Watt. 1.
  5. News: Hedley Thomas . The Australian . 3 September 2012 . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20120903010054/http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/investigations/reports/hedley-thomas . 3 September 2012 .
  6. Web site: Sick to death. Allen and Unwin. 25 October 2013.
  7. Web site: Sick to Death- Hedley Thomas. 20 May 2010. Kirkus Reviews. 14 January 2019.
  8. Web site: Queensland Premier's Literary Award. Queensland Literary Awards. https://web.archive.org/web/20080724023225/http://www.literaryawards.com.au/qldpremiers.html. 24 July 2008. 14 January 2019.
  9. Web site: Past Gold Walkley award winners. 20 November 2009. SBS. https://archive.today/20120911121627/http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/1136392/Past-Gold-Walkley-award-winners. 11 September 2012. live. 3 September 2012.
  10. Web site: Hedley Thomas: Quitting at the top of his game. 26 February 2015. SBS News. en. 1 April 2019.
  11. Web site: Journalists & Editors, no. 6: Hedley Thomas. Knott. Matthew. The Power Index. Crikey.com.au. https://web.archive.org/web/20140720145515/http://www.thepowerindex.com.au/journalists-a-editors/hedley-thomas. 20 July 2014. 16 July 2014.
  12. Web site: Scandal-mongering or good reporting?. 27 August 2012. ABC Media Watch. 14 January 2017.
  13. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-11-23/walkley-awards:-hedley-thomas,-slade-gibson-win-gold/10546658 Hedley Thomas, Slade Gibson win Gold Walkley for true crime podcast
  14. Web site: The power of the podcast — in Lynette Dawson's case was it a help or hindrance?. Cockburn. Paige. Sas. Nick. 6 December 2018. ABC News. en-AU. 3 January 2019.
  15. Web site: Cockburn . Paige . Sas . Nick . 6 December 2018 . The power of the podcast — in Lynette Dawson's case was it a help or hindrance? . live . https://web.archive.org/web/20181229080555/https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-12-06/lynette-dawson-breakthrough-and-teachers-pet-podcast/10586864 . 29 December 2018 . 3 January 2019 . ABC News . en-AU.
  16. News: 2019-08-08 . Magistrate says Teacher's Pet podcast so popular it could prejudice Chris Dawson murder trial . 2022-09-06 . ABC News . en-AU.
  17. Web site: 8 November 2022 . News Awards: Lachlan Murdoch presents trophies to Herald Sun & Australian journalists . 9 November 2022 . Media Week.
  18. Web site: 2023-12-19 . The Teacher's Trial on Apple Podcasts . 2024-03-24 . Apple Podcasts . en-AU.
  19. Web site: Hedley Thomas . 24 March 2024 . Podchaser.
  20. Web site: 2023-11-10 . The Night Driver on Apple Podcasts . 2024-03-24 . Apple Podcasts . en-AU.
  21. Web site: 2023-12-19 . Shandee's Story on Apple Podcasts . 2024-03-24 . Apple Podcasts . en-GB.
  22. News: 2022-02-09 . Coroner reopens inquiry into Shandee Blackburn's murder . 2023-01-21 . ABC News . en-AU.
  23. News: 2023-10-04 . Thousands of serious crime and sexual assault cases to be reviewed in Queensland forensic lab inquiry . 2023-11-24 . ABC News . en-AU.
  24. Web site: More media greats inducted into Australian Media Hall of Fame. Mediaweek. 19 November 2018. Mediaweek. en-AU. 14 January 2019.
  25. Kirkpatrick. Rod. News media chronicle, July 1999 to June 2000. Australian Studies in Journalism . 9. 2000. 168. 3 September 2012.
  26. Web site: Walkley Foundation – Past winners. The Walkley Foundation. https://archive.today/20130205163313/http://www.walkleys.com/past-winners//past-winners/4433/. 5 February 2013. live. 14 January 2019.
  27. Web site: Hedley Thomas. The Walkley Foundation. https://archive.today/20130205205813/http://www.walkleys.com/past-winners//past-winners/4503/. 5 February 2013. live. 19 September 2012.
  28. Web site: Haneef story gets Thomas a Gold Walkley. 29 November 2007. Sydney Morning Herald. 14 January 2019.
  29. Web site: 2012 Queensland Clarion Awards. clarions.org. 3 September 2012.
  30. News: Fairfax in talks . The Australian . 22 October 2012.

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