Entries for the 2021 Samsung Australia IT Journalism Awards will be closing at 11.59pm on Friday 7 May.   To enter the awards click here. All entrants receive a free ticket to the night.   The Samsung Australia IT Journalism Awards will be held in the Crystal Ballroom of Luna Park, Sydney on Friday 16th July 2021. Doors open at 6.30pm. Tickets for the awards can be purchased here.   The awards will also be live streamed with details to be released closer to the event.   MediaConnect is also looking for judges across the journalism, PR and tech industry sectors. All judges receive a complimentary ticket for the night.   To volunteer for judging or to ask any questions about entering the awards, please email Elliott Richardson at elliott@mediaconnect.com.au. Sponsorship opportunities also remain available. Contact Mike Woodcock at mike@mediaconnect.com.au if you would like to be a part of IT journalism’s night of nights.

Australian Community Media’s Matthew Welch has settled in at Murray Bridge, SA, as senior journalist at the Murray Valley Standard. He will be on the news, sports, and crime/court beats. Welch was previously in Bowral, NSW for the Southern Highlands News. Follow Welch on LinkedIn

American broadsheet The Washington Post is establishing a new bureau office in Sydney, with Michael Miller (pictured) as the bureau chief, effective July 2021. The office is part of the paper’s new overseas expansion plan. Miller will settle in with his wife, Mila, a native Sydneysider.  “Adding a new base in Australia will allow The Post to deepen its coverage of an important and increasingly complicated part of the world whose many challenges – from China to migration to climate change – carry global resonance,” explained the Post’s editorial board.  Follow Miller on Twitter @MikeMillerDC

Claudia Vrdoljak is now with PRIME7 News Central West, in Orange as a senior reporter.  She came to the network following roughly two years with Nine, where she was reporter and associate producer for Nine Regional NSW, and reporter for Central West News. Follow Vrdoljak on LinkedIn

HIT 100.9 in Hobart has welcomed back Matt Newell into the fold. He will be the weekdays host at 1PM. Newell left the station in 2016 to pursue other opportunities, one of them being breakfast host with 7HOFM. "It’s great to be back at Hit100.9 where my radio journey first began back in 2013.Tassie is my home, and I love it dearly, so to be speaking with my fellow Tasweigans again is a privilege and I am very grateful. Call me on 13 10 60 and say hey!,” said Newell. Follow Matty on Twitter @MattsNewell.

The NBN sub-contractor protest that kicked off earlier this week and saw hundreds of technicians walk off the job has continued, with a group demonstrating outside the CommsDay Summit on Wednesday morning.   Organised by the CEPU, protestors gathered outside the Fullerton Hotel in Sydney ahead of a keynote address given by NBN Co CEO Stephen Rue.   Workers are protesting over what they call “sham employment arrangements”, a pyramid-style contracting model and a poorly operating booking system.   Joining the demonstrators was Federal Labor MP and Shadow Communications Minister Michelle Rowland, who was also attending and speaking at the CommsDay Summit.   Rowland’s Facebook page took aim at NBN’s executive payouts while cutting workers’ rates during the pandemic.   “NBN technicians kept the network running during the height of the pandemic. Yet despite their essential role, a devious NBN contracting scheme was used to cut

Dean Mellor has assumed the editor role at Citrus Media title Australian Motorcycle News.    He took up the post following a year as editor of Unsealed 4X4.  The move marks Mellor’s return to two-wheeler content, having been editor of Australasian Dirt Bike back in 2012. Ride along with Mellor on LinkedIn