For the second year in a row Walkley Award-winning journalist and Griffith’s journalist-in-residence Nance Haxton is a finalist in the New York Festival’s World’s Best Radio Program awards.
Nance is a finalist in the Histories and Community Profiles categories for her radio documentary on Blackbirding which tells the story of the more than 60,000 South Sea Islanders forcibly brought to Australia to work as labourers on sugar cane and cotton farms in the 19th century. In 2017 Nance took out the Bronze Award for her radio documentary on Stradbroke Island.
“I am beyond thrilled to have this recognition for my doco, with the publicity from this hopefully shedding more light on this shameful chapter of Australia’s history, with some calling it Australia’s slave trade,’’ Nance says.
She said it was a wonderful validation as she begins her PhD on Blackbirding at Griffith University this year, supervised by DrKasun Ubayasiri and ProfessorChris Lee.
“I hope to continue the work I started on this documentary by interviewing more descendants of people deceived or brought against their will to Australia to work in appalling conditions on sugar and cotton farms at the turn of the 20th century. The ramifications of this are still being felt today.”
Nance’s interviews will become podcasts on a specially-create website forming the creative basis of her doctorate.
NYF’s International Radio Program Awards for the World’s Best Radio Program honour radio programming and promotions in all lengths and formats from radio stations, networks and independent producers from around the globe.
Nance is the host of Griffith’s Remarkable tales podcast and a contributor to Griffith’s policy and politics podcast ‘A Middle Ground.
She spent more than 20 years as radio current affairs correspondent for AM,PMandThe World Today.Nance won the2016 Clarion Award for Best Sports Reportingfor her investigative series of stories on ABC Radio Current affairs titled “Why are Boxers dying in Queensland”, and is a dualWalkley Awardwinner (2012 and 2001).