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Jo Puccini

Biographical Notes from The Walkley Awards website for 2005

All Media: International Journalism

Winners Sally Neighbour, Lin Buckfield, Jo Puccini, Four Corners, ABC TV, "The Kilwa Incident"

"The Kilwa Incident" uncovered an Australian mining company's complicity in a massacre in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The report generated worldwide news coverage and led to investigations by the Canadian government, the Australian Federal Police and the World Bank. The product of a two-month investigation, it culminated in a gruelling two-week trip to the country, where the team verified reports that dozens of innocent civilians had been killed. Harassed by the Congolese government's intelligence agency, the journalists were forced to film survivor and eyewitness accounts in secret and to smuggle the footage out of the country.

Sally Neighbour is a reporter with ABC TV's Four Corners and the winner of two previous Walkley awards.

Lin Buckfield started her career at Nine, before moving to Seven in 1995 as a reporter. She joined Four Corners in 2000 as a producer and has won two Walkleys for her television journalism.

Jo Puccini began her television career in 1995 at the Seven Network and moved to the ABC in 2000 to work on Media Watch. In 2001, she joined Four Corners. She has received two previous Walkley awards.

Judges' comments

This was an outstanding piece of journalism. The story took careful investigation and research to uncover a massacre that had received little international attention. Working under difficult conditions, the team completed a story that would otherwise have not been aired.