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Tim Palmer

In 2008 will be executive producer of Lateline. In 2007 producer of Media Watch. Former foreign correspondent for ABC current affairs.

Biographical Notes from The Walkley Awards website for 2006

Radio: News Reporting Winner

Tim Palmer, ABC Radio , “Bali Suicide Bombings”

As the ABC's Indonesia correspondent, Tim Palmer was the only Australian broadcast journalist to cover the triple suicide bombing at restaurants at Bali's Jimbaran Beach and Kuta Square in October 2005.

Arriving in Bali in the early hours of the morning, Palmer attended the bomb sites and each of the hospitals receiving victims.
Palmer went on to produce a series of live crosses with detailed analysis of previous attacks in Indonesia. His reporting also provided the basis of the first detailed picture of the scene in Kuta and Jimbaran.

Palmer is a multiple Walkley Award winner and in 2005 was honoured with the Gold Walkley for his coverage of the tsunami
disaster in Aceh and reporting in Indonesia.

Prior to his Indonesian posting in 2002, he was based in the Middle East for three years, winning his first Walkley Award for his coverage of the peace process that collapsed into the second Palestinian Intifada.

He returned from his posting in Jakarta in April and is now the executive producer for The World Today.

Judges' comments
Palmer's work was distinguished by his vivid eyewitness descriptions, powerful on-the-spot interviews and seamless narrative. His unswerving attention to factual detail and precision gave Australians a clear and informative early account of a chaotic and terrifying event.

Biographical Notes from The Walkley Awards website for 2005

2005 GOLD WALKLEY AWARD
Television: News Reporting - Radio - News Reporting Winner

Tim Palmer , ABC, "Aceh Tsunami"and "Jakarta Embassy Bomb"

Tim Palmer was the first Western reporter to reach Aceh, where an estimated 140,000 people died in the Boxing Day Tsunami. He arrived on the night of the disaster and was the only reporter from any network in the world to file TV stories for three days. Travelling with producer/translator Ari Wuryantama, Palmer shot the pictures, then edited and filed stories from a laptop computer, milking power from car batteries. He broadcast from an ISDN satellite phone. Later joined by ABC cameraman David Anderson, he went on to report on a story about the west coast town of Leupung, which had a less than 5 per cent survival rate. He also filed around the clock for ABC Radio.

Four months earlier, when the Australian embassy in Jakarta was the target of a bombing which killed 11, Palmer broadcast a live radio report within 25 minutes, just metres from the bombed embassy gates. Two days later, he broke the story that the suspected bombers had earlier been foiled in a plot to kill President Megawati Sukarnoputri, the Australian justice minister Chris Ellison and Federal Police Commissioner Mick Keelty at the opening of an anti-terror centre in Central Java. He later filed the first reports on the pursuit and capture of the bombers in Central and West Java.

Tim Palmer has been the ABC's Indonesia correspondent since 2002. In 2001 he won the Walkley for Radio Current Affairs.

Judges' comments

Tim Palmer beat the rescue services and his journalistic competitors into the worst areas of the tsunami disaster. He walked in, showing courage and stamina. Then he cleverly used his camera and computer and satellite phone for his remarkable reports. The world was exposed to the true enormity of this disaster far sooner than would have been possible without him combining journalistic initiative with pioneering technology. It was a display of initiative, endurance and skill which combined to produce superb journalism. His year in Indonesia was truly remarkable.

2005 GOLD WALKLEY AWARD
Television: News Reporting - Radio - News Reporting Winner

Tim Palmer , ABC, "Aceh Tsunami"and "Jakarta Embassy Bomb"

2005 GOLD WALKLEY AWARD
Television: News Reporting - Radio - News Reporting Winner

Tim Palmer , ABC, "Aceh Tsunami"and "Jakarta Embassy Bomb"