Caro Meldrum-Hanna has been named the 2016 Graham Perkin Australian Journalist of the Year for her reporting on Don Dale Youth Detention Centre.

Other Perkin Award Finalists

Linton Besser, ABC Four Corners, for investigative reporting in Malaysia and Australia

Dan Box, The Australian, for reporting on the Bowraville murders

Adele Ferguson, The Age, for reporting on the CommInsure claims scandal

Visit the Perkin Honour Roll.

The Graham Perkin Australian Journalist of the Year Award is sponsored by The Age and Virgin Australia.

Caro Meldrum-Hanna has won the 2016 Graham Perkin Australian Journalist of the Year for her reporting on the Don Dale Youth Detention Centre scandal.

Read the judges' citation:

Amongst a collection of outstanding journalism in 2016 Caro Meldrum-Hanna’s contribution was exceptional. Although much of the shameful saga of the Don Dale Youth Detention Centre had become common knowledge over recent years in the Northern Territory - and across wider Australian media - Meldrum-Hanna managed to pull it together into a powerful and compelling story. As a result of her dogged, uncompromising pursuit of the crucial, incriminating video footage, Four Corners viewers – and indeed the world – saw evidence of boys being held in isolation, tear-gassed and brutalised, with no attempt at rehabilitation. What her journalism revealed was the torture of Australian children, in what has since been described by one NT Government reviewer as "a human storage facility”. As a direct result of Meldrum-Hanna’s story, the Federal Government was forced to order a Royal Commission into Australia’s entire juvenile justice system.  It was an exceptional, ground-breaking piece of journalism.  

Watch the Four Corners piece "Australia's Shame"