Quill Awards 2021 recognise two Greek Australians in media

The Age reaped a bagful of Quill Awards 2021 and had many highly commended entries. Of the 12 winners from The Age there was Greek Australian cartoonist for Jim Pavlidis.

Pavlidis won the 2021 Cartoon Quill for ‘Net Zero, Zero Net’, for his October 2021 cartoon. It depicts Prime Minister Scott Morrison as a trapeze artist reaching for a lump of coal, but missing, and about to fall into a burning earth, with the caption ‘Zero Net’. In a panel adjacent is the earth on a net, safe from the fire with the caption, ‘Net Zero’.

The Judges said Pavlidis’ “work is clean and bold, his text sparse and pithy and his subject is as topical as you can get.”

The Age investigative journalists, Nick McKenzie and Joel Tozer won the Grant Hattam Quill for investigative journalism for their series “Neo Nazis Exposed”, with judges lauding it as the “clear winner” for the category.

“The investigation was sustained over eight months, exposing the reporter and undercover informant to serious personal risk,” the judges said.

The Age’s Tom Cowie and Rachael Dexter won the 2021 Quill for Coverage of Women in Sport. The judges said, “Tom and Rachael’s piece shone a light on a little publicised sport of powerlifting and the entrenched bullying, sexist harassing behaviour at the very top.”

Liam Mannix also of The Age won the inaugural 2021 Excellence in Science, Medical and Health Reporting. The judges said, “Mannix’s reports challenged expectations that vaccines signalled the end of the pandemic, outlined the real impact of Delta on children and investigated the rise of new variants.”

Michael Warner of the Herald Sun took out the coveted 2021 Gold Quill for his scoop on Collingwood Football Club’s racism. The judges said Warner’s “scoop set in train a series of events that rocked Australia’s biggest sporting club and its high-profile president to the core.

Warner’s expose of racism in the club led to the Do Better Report and “forced the AFL to reassess its efforts to combat racism in the sport.”

Bang Xiao, Jarrod Fankhauser, Steven Viney of ABC News won the 2021 Quill for Reporting on Multicultural Affairs. The judges said the winning entry – explored “wage theft through a migration lens – skilfully highlights the lives of those who have borne the brunt of systemic racism and exploitation in Australia during and long before the pandemic began.”

Greek Australian, Casie Zervos from 7News was highly commended for her report ‘Greg Lynn arrest.’

Fotis Kapetopoulos, Helen Zahos and Christopher Gogos.

Neos Kosmos publisher Christopher Gogos, Neos Kosmos writer and Melbourne Press Club Board Member, Fotis Kapetopoulos, and ABC Radio Melbourne and ABC Victoria Operations Manager Melbourne Kon Karamountzos were at the Awards. Helen Zahos Tedx Speaker, Registered Nurse, Paramedic, who has done much Humanitarian and Disaster Relief Response work across the world was also at the awards.

The 33 categories of the Quill Awards include Podcasting, Innovation in Media, Young Journalist of the Year, Business News, Feature Writing, Radio Current, Coverage of Women in Sport, Reporting on Multicultural Affairs, the 46th Graham Perkin Australian Journalist of the Year, and more.