Congratulations to 3AW and the Herald Sun’s Neil Mitchell, winner of the 2011 Graham Perkin Australian Journalist of the Year Award. Neil Mitchell is a broadcaster on 3AW, writes a weekly column for the Herald Sun, and comments daily on the Sunrise Program on Channel Seven.
Mitchell won the esteemed prize for excellence in radio journalism over a quarter of a century, particularly in 2011, becoming the first radio journalist to win the coveted prize.
At the 2011 Quill Awards dinner, the Graham Perkin Australian Journalist of the Year, Neil Mitchell, referred to a speech made by Perkin 40 years earlier. It was the 1972 Wilkie-Deamer lecture in which Perkin described why newspapers deserved criticism, but also needed defending. Mitchell said it was a relevant warning about bad journalism but also a powerful reminder to dismiss some of the sillier critics of the media.
His work in 2011 included breaking the story that led to the resignation of Victoria’s Chief Commissioner of Police, exposing a crisis in the health system and conducting several heated interviews with the Prime Minister.