Every year, the media industry congratulates itself with various awards ceremonies. The Walkleys for journalism, the Logies for television, the ACRAs for radio. They’re fine. They recognise real achievement and give people in a struggling industry something to celebrate.

But they’re also weirdly disconnected from how media actually works now. They’re measuring things that mattered in 1995, ignoring the dynamics that actually shape what we see, read, and hear in 2025.

So here are the awards that should exist. The ones that would tell us something true about the state of Australian media. The ones that’ll never happen because they’re too honest.

The Engagement Bait Award

For the journalist who most successfully abandoned editorial standards in pursuit of clicks. Bonus points if the headline bore no resemblance to the article content. Double points if they sneered at “engagement journalism” at parties while writing seven pieces about reality TV drama.

This year’s winner: literally anyone who wrote “Aussies outraged over…” when it was actually three people on Twitter. Special mention to whoever keeps writing “this simple trick” headlines for the national broadsheets. You’re doing News.com.au’s job better than they are.

The Access Journalism Hall of Shame

Awarded to the journalist who most completely sacrificed critical distance in exchange for continued access to a powerful figure. Must demonstrate at least six months of fawning coverage followed by shocked surprise when the subject turned out to be exactly what everyone else already knew they were.

Political journalists are ineligible because that would be unfair competition. They’d win every year. Business journalists covering tech companies also need their own category for the same reason.

The Both Sides Trophy

For the most impressive feat of false balance. Awarded to journalists who found “debate” where none existed among qualified experts, or who treated fringe positions as equivalent to mainstream consensus because someone on Twitter got angry.

Climate coverage would dominate this category if we hadn’t basically given up on even pretending it’s controversial anymore. Now it’s mostly vaccine content, economic policy, and literally anything involving gender.

The Buried Lede Medal

Recognising the journalist who most successfully hid the actual story in paragraph seventeen, usually because the real story implicated someone powerful and the legal risk was too high to lead with it.

This award would be retrospective, only given after the buried information eventually became the acknowledged story. We’d be awarding 2019 articles in 2025, once it’s safe to admit what we all knew at the time.

The Productive Silence Prize

For the story that should have been covered but wasn’t, usually because it would have angered advertisers, challenged corporate ownership interests, or required actual investigative resources that no longer exist.

This year’s strong contenders: anything involving property developers in Sydney, the relationship between media ownership and political coverage, working conditions at major news organisations, and approximately seventeen stories about Amazon and Google that would have been written if those companies weren’t now major advertising clients.

The Algorithmic Captive Award

Given to the publication that most completely restructured its journalism around Facebook and Google’s algorithmic preferences, to the point where it’s unclear if anyone’s actually making editorial decisions anymore or if they’ve just outsourced to the engagement metrics.

Previous winners: everyone, every year. This award lacks suspense.

The Parachute Journalism Achievement

For the most spectacular example of metropolitan journalists descending on regional Australia for forty-eight hours, interviewing four people at the local pub, and then writing definitive pieces about “what regional Australians really think.”

Bonus points if they used the phrase “heartland” or “forgotten Australians.” Double points if they completely missed the actual story while confirming their existing assumptions.

The Press Release Verbatim Citation

Recognising the journalist who most successfully copied corporate or government press releases without adding any critical analysis, original reporting, or value whatsoever. Must demonstrate at least three examples of publishing announcements as news without speaking to anyone affected or questioning the claims made.

Excluding health and education journalists from this category because, again, it would be unfair competition. They’re under-resourced and overworked. We get it.

The Manufactured Controversy Gold Medal

For the journalist who most successfully turned a non-story into a multi-day media circus through sheer force of repetition and faux outrage. Must demonstrate measurable impact on public discourse despite the underlying story being essentially nothing.

This award would have been sponsored by Twitter, but they’re too busy having their own manufactured controversies to participate.

The Explained Nothing Explainer

Awarded to the worst example of explainer journalism—pieces that promised to help readers understand a complex topic but instead offered either condescension, oversimplification, or just more questions dressed up as answers.

Special category for economics explainers that assume readers have never heard of supply and demand, and political explainers that treat basic parliamentary procedure as arcane knowledge while explaining nothing about actual power dynamics.

The Owned by Your Source Prize

For the journalist who got so comprehensively played by a source that they essentially became a propaganda outlet. Must include evidence of the journalist defending the source against criticism, attacking other journalists who covered the story honestly, and continuing to insist they maintained objectivity throughout.

Politics, business, and entertainment journalists all eligible. Crime reporters compete in a separate category because police relationships are their own special dysfunction.

The Pivot to Video Memorial

Posthumous award for media organisations that fired journalists to invest in video content that nobody watched, lost money on every production, and eventually fired the video team too. Companies must be demonstrably worse off than if they’d just kept doing what they were good at.

Most Australian outlets avoided this particular death spiral, having watched American media companies self-immolate. But a few gave it a go anyway. They deserve recognition.

The Told You So Award

For the journalist who actually got it right when everyone else was wrong, but was ignored at the time because the truth was inconvenient, unpopular, or didn’t fit the narrative.

This is retrospective by nature. You only know who deserved it years later, when everyone else has come around to what they were saying all along. Previous retrospective winners: basically every journalist who covered housing affordability before it became a crisis, everyone who warned about aged care before the royal commission, and that one person who called how streaming would destroy local content production while everyone else was celebrating Netflix.

Why These Awards Matter

The industry won’t create these awards because they’re uncomfortable. They’d require acknowledging systemic problems that nobody wants to address. It’s easier to celebrate “Excellence in Investigative Journalism” than to confront why investigative journalism barely exists anymore outside the ABC and a handful of Fairfax mastheads.

But if we actually wanted to improve Australian media, these are the things we’d measure. Not the occasional triumph, but the everyday failures. Not the exception, but the rule.

The Walkleys and Logies have their place. We should celebrate good work. But we should also be honest about the bad work, the compromised work, and the work that just never happens because the incentives don’t support it.

Until we’re willing to do that, we’re just pretending the emperor has clothes while he writes another “Aussies outraged” headline about something nobody actually cares about.

At least that would win him an award.