Ben Hills (1942 – 10 June 2018) was an Australian freelance journalist and author.

Early life and career

Hills was born in

Grassington Grassington is a market town and civil parish in the Craven district of North Yorkshire, England. The population of the parish at the 2011 Census was 1,126. Historically part of the West Riding of Yorkshire, the town is situated in Wharfedale ...

, England and migrated with his family to Australia in 1959. He worked on various regional newspapers before being hired as an investigative reporter by '' The Age'' in Melbourne in 1969. He worked for ''The Age'' and ''The Sydney Morning Herald'' as a London-based foreign correspondent in the mid-1970s then as a Hong-Kong based publisher during the 1980s. Returning to Melbourne, Hills became assistant editor of ''The Age''. He spent four years as a producer for ''

60 Minutes ''60 Minutes'' is an American television news magazine broadcast on the CBS television network. Debuting in 1968, the program was created by Don Hewitt and Bill Leonard, who chose to set it apart from other news programs by using a unique styl ...

''. Hills became the

Fairfax Fairfax may refer to: Places United States * Fairfax, California * Fairfax Avenue, a major thoroughfare in Los Angeles, California * Fairfax District, Los Angeles, California, centered on Fairfax Avenue * Fairfax, Georgia * Fairfax, Indiana * Fa ...

Japan correspondent from 1992 to 1995 and then lived in Sydney. He wrote six books, and after leaving Fairfax worked as a freelancer for SBS TV and other media outlets. Hills died from cancer in Sydney on 10 June 2018.

Awards

*2016 – John Newfong Award for Outstanding Indigenous Reporting *2010 – Alex Buzo Prize for Excellence in Research. *1991 – Walkley Award for investigative reporting *1989 – Highly Commended,

Graham Perkin Australian Journalist of the Year Award The Graham Perkin Australian Journalist of the Year Award, often known simply as the Graham Perkin Award, is one of Australia's pre-eminent prizes for journalism. It was established and named in honour of Graham Perkin, who was editor of ''The ...

Bibliography

*''Stop the presses: how greed, incompetence (and the internet) wrecked Fairfax''. ABC Books, Sydney, 2014. * ''Breaking news: the golden age of Graham Perkin'' Scribe, Melbourne 2010. About the Australian editor Graham Perkin. * ''The island of the ancients: the secrets of Sardinia's Centenarians'' Murdoch Books, Sydney 2008 * '' Princess Masako: Prisoner of the Chrysanthemum Throne'' Tarcher/Penguin, New York 2006 * ''Japan behind the lines'' Sydney : Hodder Headline, Melbourne 1996 * ''Blue murder: two thousand doomed to die, the shocking truth about Wittenoom's deadly dust'' Sun Books, Melbourne 1989

References

External links

Official website
1942 births 2018 deaths Australian freelance journalists English emigrants to Australia People from Grassington Deaths from cancer in New South Wales {{Australia-journalist-stub