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Paul McGeough

Biographical Notes from The Walkley Awards website for 2006

All Media: Commentary, Analysis, Opinion and Critique Winner

Paul McGeough , The Sydney Morning Herald, “Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran”

Paul McGeough is The Sydney Morning Herald's chief correspondent.

A journalist since the mid-1970s, McGeough started his career as a cadet on The West Australian. He went on to become editor of The Sydney Morning Herald in the late 1990s.

With about half of his working life spent as a foreign correspondent, McGeough's work and travels have taken him to more than 60 countries. From his first assignment offshore to cover the 1990-91 Gulf Crisis, he's been going to Iraq ever since. McGeough was also in New York during the events of September 11, in Afghanistan for the subsequent war, and has reported conflict and crisis from four continents.

He has also won five Walkley Awards, including the 2003 Walkley Award for Journalism Leadership.

Paul McGeough continues to be a strong, independent voice working in an extremely dangerous region, often at high personal risk. His commentary and analysis revealed the gulf between Washington's wish list and actual events on the ground in various corners of the world.

Judges' comments
An excellent fusion of reporting, analysis and commentary from the field. McGeough's sharp incisive writing gives readers a road-map through the complicated politics of the Middle East and Afghanistan, bringing enormous clarity to a smoke-ridden circumstance.

All Media: Best Use of the Medium Winners

Matthew Absalom-Wong, Darren Connell, Paul McGeough, Kimberley Porteous,The Sydney Morning Herald , “The Iraq DVDs and the War of Ideas”

Through this series of multimedia reports, international correspondent Paul McGeough took readers into the violence at the heart of the Iraqi insurgency and the shocking reality of life for ordinary Iraqis as the sectarian conflicts escalates. Published on smh.com.au and theage.com.au, the Herald team made use of video and audio to give readers and viewers a glimpse inside the conflict and the ideological war being waged by Washington across Iran, Iraq, Lebanon and the occupied Palestinian territories.

Matthew Absalom-Wong has designed and produced multimedia pieces for both The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald websites and was part of the Walkley-winning team for this category in 2004. Darren Connell has worked as a video producer with Fairfax Digital since 2000.

Paul McGeough is one of Australia's most distinguished foreign correspondents. He has won five Walkley Awards, including the senior award for Journalism Leadership in 2003.

Kimberley Porteous worked for The Australian Financial Review and The Sydney Morning Herald before joining smh.com.au.

Judges' comments
A valuable, accessible and ongoing resource that backed up and gave depth to news stories printed in the Herald. Both elements of the entry, together with audio and video, showed an interesting use of the media and brought a difficult story to Australian readers and viewers.