Supported by the National Press Club and the Media, Entertainment & Arts Alliance.

Open for 2018 Entries

This award recognizes tenacity and passion for the craft of journalism from young women working across rural and regional Australia. It seeks to immerse the award winner in an intensive experience of journalism, politics and government in Canberra.

The annual award will include:

•      $2500 personal learning fund
•      Travel and accommodation to Canberra for five nights
•      National Press Club lunch attendance and question
•      Mentorship from members of the Canberra Women in Media Committee.

The winner will spend time in a variety of Canberra and Press Gallery news rooms throughout the week.

This award seeks to foster commitment and passion for journalism among young women practitioners in rural and regional Australia. It is named in honour of Caroline Jones, AO, a ground-breaking journalist who joined the ABC in 1963 and became the first female reporter for This Day Tonight. She reported for Four Corners between 1972-1981 before presenting Radio National’s Search for Meaning program. In 1996 Jones became the presenter of Australian Story. She is the Patron of Women in Media, a networking initiative for Australian women in media modelled on a successful group first established in Western Australia in 2005.

This award is the first of its kind in encouraging young female rural and regional journalists to experience first-hand the complexities of the media and political landscape across the nation’s capital.

It is a life-changing, horizon-broadening and immersive prize, exposing the winner not only to the institutions of Canberra, including the Press Gallery and National Press Club, but also bringing them into contact with the Women in Media network – providing mentorship, guidance, and insights from Canberra’s most prominent female journalists.

Awards submissions must be delivered via email to caroline-jones-award@meaa.org and received by July 1.