Guardian Australia's Gay Alcorn wins prestigious Quill award

Guardian Australia Melbourne editor Gay Alcorn has won Victoria’s most prestigious journalism accolade, a Melbourne Press Club “Quill” award. It is the first time since launching five years ago that Guardian Australia has won a Quill.

Alcorn was nominated for the Keith Dunstan Quill for Commentary for her comment piece on the AFL’s ‘patronising moralism’, about the forced resignations of two senior AFL officials for inappropriate relationships with young women.

Guardian Australia’s David Marr, Miles Martignoni and Melbourne bureau chief Melissa Davey were also nominated in the podcasting category for “The Reckoning,” which followed the child sexual abuse royal commission. The ABC won in that category for the “Trace” podcast, which followed the unsolved murder of Maria James.

The major prize, the Gold Quill, was won by Fairfax and the ABC’s Four Corners program for coverage of Chinese influence in Australian politics. A total of 29 individual Quills were awarded on Friday night at the Crown in Melbourne to recognise the best journalism in 2017 in print, television, radio and online.