New Zealand-based journalist, Jamie Morton, has joined The Conversation ANZ as Deputy Section Editor and told Influencing, “I’m really enjoying it. It's working with academics in a whole new way. In my past role at the NZ Herald, I was still collaborating with an academic. Here, I’m working directly alongside them and interacting with them every step of the way.” Morton said the move to The Conversation marked a significant change as he departed the NZ Herald after 14 years as a science, energy and sustainability newspaper journalist.  He says in the new role, his job is to help craft what academics have written into a piece that's going to be accessible to wider media. “In the end, it is the academic who has to approve and sign off on the piece because it’s their name on the piece. So my job is very much in the background, giving it journalistic flair.” He’ll be joining Editor Finlay MacDonald and Veronika Meduna as NZ-based scribes at The Conversation, with his

Adele Ferguson and Chris Gillett have won the 2025 Gold Walkley, Australian journalism’s highest honour for a series of stories on 7.30, Four Corners and ABC online. The Walkley Judging Board unanimously selected the pair’s multi-month multi-platform investigation into the systemic failures in childcare as the story of the year. Ferguson and Gillett won three Walkley categories: TV/Video: Current Affairs Short, TV/Video: Current Affairs Long, and All Media: Investigative Journalism (the latter two with colleagues Ben Butler and Lara Sonnenschein). In addition, they were finalists in the All Media: Coverage of a Major Event category and Scoop of the Year. The Walkley Judging Board unanimously described their work as the investigation of the year, noting its impact was continuing amid wide public interest. The 70th Walkley Awards for Excellence in Journalism were presented in 30 categories. Christopher Hopkins was named the Nikon-Walkley Press Photographer of the Year fo

Welcome to Thursday and while there is no one major story across all our dailies, The Australian Financial Review stands out as it announces its Business Person of the Year and what is really excellent about the four page feature - and the grab on the front page - is the use of not pictures of each of the top biz folks, but rather brilliant illustrations drawn by the very talented David Rowe. It's a wonderful way - and a different way - to tell the story.   Yes, pictures would have been easier for the AFR team, and almost certainly quicker, so all credit to them for going with the coloured pencils. James Thomson leads the editorial story and each profile is penned by a different reporter - Anthony Macdonald, Lauren Sams, Angela Macdonald-Smith, Michael Smith, Nick Lenaghan, and Carrie LaFrenz.  'Rates fears' Meanwhile, most of the News Corp papers go big on interest "rates fears", as The Australian puts it in its f

  A Parliamentary panel has recommended stronger measures to tackle the growing menace of deepfakes and misinformation, including cancelling the accreditation of journalists or creators found guilty of publishing or telecasting fake news. The proposal was tabled in Parliament on Tuesday, December 2, as part of the report Review of Mechanism to Curb Fake News. The Standing Committee on Communications and Information Technology, chaired by BJP MP Nishikant Dubey, also urged the government to clearly define “fake news” and incorporate safeguards within the media regulatory framework to ensure freedom of speech is not compromised. The report advised the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting to consult all stakeholders before finalising the definition, The Telegraph reported. Reacting to the recommendations, Akshaya Sahoo, State Head of The Asian Age and Deccan Chronicle in Odisha, said ethical journalists should not be penalised. “I don’t think journalists who work within

    Picture Courtesy: Deccan Chronicle                        In a moving act of compassion, two journalists in Odisha’s Cuttack district stepped in to perform the final rites of an elderly woman after no villagers came forward to cremate her. Speaking to Influencing, Bhairab Sethy, a journalist with The Samaja newspaper, said he received a call on Sunday, November 30, from a resident of Lendura Bhagawanpur village under Kalamishri panchayat in the Cuttack Sadar Assembly constituency. The caller informed him that a 102-year-old woman, identified as Rangalata Sadangi, had passed away. With no family members to take responsibility, the caller sought help to conduct the last rites.      Bhairab Sethy                                                                    Chitranjan Behera Understanding the gravity of the situation, Sethy, along with fellow journalist Chitranjan Behera of Prameya newspaper, immediately travelled to

  The Bombay High Court will begin final hearings in the appeals filed by gangster Chhota Rajan and eight others from January 3, 2026, as they challenge their conviction in the 2011 murder of senior journalist Jyotirmoy Dey (J Dey). A division bench of Justices Bharati Dangre and Shyam Chandak scheduled the matter for January, following directions from the Supreme Court during earlier bail proceedings. On Monday, the High Court confirmed the case was ready for a full hearing and ordered it to be listed after the Christmas break. All the accused remain in jail, except one who was acquitted earlier. In 2018, a special MCOCA court had sentenced Rajan and others to life imprisonment, convicting nine people in connection with the killing. The court also noted that several convicts had previously sought bail. Four applications were rejected in October 2024, while another accused withdrew his plea in July. In the latest plea, judges observed that this was the applicant’s third attemp

Image source: ET and TOI; Edited by Dinesh Raj M   The government’s mandate on Monday (December 1, 2025) for smartphone makers to pre-install the Sanchar Saathi app sparked backlash from the Opposition and from digital rights activists. Sanchar Saathi is an app that the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) launched initially as a website in 2023 to allow users to flag fraudulent phone calls. The app also integrates other tools the DoT has launched in the past, such as a feature to check the “genuineness” of the International Mobile Equipment Identity (IMEI) number assigned to a device, and to block a stolen phone by barring telecom operators from working on a blacklisted IMEI. Hot off the Press Leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge wrote on X, formerly Twitter, that “unilateral directions to preload this app without taking into confidence various stakeholders and citizens is akin to dictatorship,” and that the app was