Hedley Thomas is an Australian investigative journalist and author, who has won seven

Walkley Awards The annual Walkley Awards are presented in Australia to recognise and reward excellence in journalism. They cover all media including print, television, documentary, radio, photographic and online media. The Gold Walkley is the highest prize and ...

, two of which are

Gold Walkley The Gold Walkley is the major award of the Walkley Awards The annual Walkley Awards are presented in Australia to recognise and reward excellence in journalism. They cover all media including print, television, documentary, radio, photographic ...

Personal life

Thomas is married and lives in Brisbane. He has two children. In 2002 Thomas and his family were victims of a death threat and a drive-by shooting.

Career

Soon after completing high school, Thomas started his career as a newspaper

copy boy A copy boy is a typically young and junior worker on a newspaper. The job involves taking typed stories from one section of a newspaper to another. According to Bruce Guthrie, the former editor-in-chief of the '' Herald Sun'' who began work ther ...

for the ''

Gold Coast Bulletin The ''Gold Coast Bulletin'' is a daily newspaper serving Australia's Gold Coast region. It is published as ''The Gold Coast Bulletin'' on weekdays and the ''Weekend Bulletin'' at weekends. It is owned by News Corp Australia. History The ...

'' in 1984. After nine months as a copy boy he started a journalism cadetship at the ''Gold Coast Bulletin'', then in 1988 moved to ''

The Courier-Mail ''The Courier-Mail'' is an Australian newspaper published in Brisbane. Owned by News Corp Australia, it is published daily from Monday to Saturday in Tabloid (newspaper format), tabloid format. Its editorial offices are located at Bowen Hills, ...

'' in Brisbane. After a year, he moved to London as a foreign correspondent for News Limited Australia for two years. As a 22-year-old journalist there he covered historic events such as the

fall of the Berlin wall The fall of the Berlin Wall (german: Mauerfall) on 9 November 1989, during the Peaceful Revolution, was a pivotal event in world history which marked the destruction of the Berlin Wall and the figurative Iron Curtain and one of the series of eve ...

and the

Romanian Revolution The Romanian Revolution ( ro, Revoluția Română), also known as the Christmas Revolution ( ro, Revoluția de Crăciun), was a period of violent civil unrest in Romania during December 1989 as a part of the Revolutions of 1989 that occurred i ...

. Thomas returned to ''The Courier-Mail'' in late 1991, working there for 18 months. Thomas then moved to become the News Editor at the ''

Hong Kong Standard ''The Standard'' is an English-language free newspaper in Hong Kong with a daily circulation of 200,450 in 2012. It was formerly called the ''Hongkong Standard'' and changed to ''HKiMail'' during the Internet boom but partially reverted to '' ...

'' for six months, before moving to the ''

South China Morning Post The ''South China Morning Post'' (''SCMP''), with its Sunday edition, the ''Sunday Morning Post'', is a Hong Kong-based English-language newspaper owned by Alibaba Group. Founded in 1903 by Tse Tsan-tai and Alfred Cunningham, it has remained ...

'' in late 1993. There Thomas served in a variety of roles, including Senior Reporter, Deputy Features Editor, and Senior Writer. In 1999 Thomas returned to Brisbane and ''The Courier-Mail''. In 2005 he won a

Walkley award The annual Walkley Awards are presented in Australia to recognise and reward excellence in journalism. They cover all media including print, television, documentary, radio, photographic and online media. The Gold Walkley is the highest prize and ...

for a series of articles on Bundaberg Director of surgery

Jayant Patel Jayant Mukundray Patel (born April 10, 1950 ) is an Indian-born American surgeon who was accused of gross negligence whilst working at Bundaberg Base Hospital in Queensland, Australia. Deaths of some of Patel's patients led to widespread publici ...

, which he later used a base for the non-fiction book ''Sick to Death'', published in 2007. The book also won the Queensland Premiers Literary Award for "Literary Work Advancing Public Debate". In 2006 Thomas moved to the Brisbane bureau of ''

The Australian ''The Australian'', with its Saturday edition, ''The Weekend Australian'', is a broadsheet newspaper published by News Corp Australia since 14 July 1964.Bruns, Axel. "3.1. The active audience: Transforming journalism from gatekeeping to gatew ...

'', and in 2007 won a

for a series highlighting the flawed police pursuit of Mohamed Haneef, an innocent doctor accused of being a terrorist. After winning the award, Thomas left journalism in early 2008 to work in the resources sector, with a role in communications, investor and government relations. He returned to journalism and ''The Australian'' around 2010, notably covering aspects of the AWU affair during 2012. Thomas won a second Gold Walkley in 2018, along with producer Slade Gibson, for podcast series ''

The Teacher's Pet ''The Teacher's Pet'' is a 2018 Australian crime podcast that investigated the disappearance of Lynette Dawson. Published by ''The Australian'' newspaper, the podcast was hosted by journalist Hedley Thomas and produced by Slade Gibson. As of ...

'', a 14-episode investigation of the unsolved disappearance of Sydney mother Lynette Dawson in 1982. , the podcast series was downloaded 28 million times, and was the only Australian podcast to hit the number one spot in the US, the UK, Canada and New Zealand.Hedley Thomas, Slade Gibson win Gold Walkley for true crime podcast

ABC News Online ABC News, or ABC News and Current Affairs, is a public news service produced by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Broadcasting within Australia and the rest of the world, the service covers both local and world affairs. The division of ...

, 23 November 2018 He was inducted into the

Melbourne Press Club The Melbourne Press Club, commonly referred to as MPC, is a not-for-profit association of journalists in the city of Melbourne, Australia. The Melbourne Press Club provides awards in the State of Victoria for outstanding journalism, presenting th ...

s Media hall of fame in November 2018. In 2022, following a guilty verdict in September in the murder trial of Lynette Dawson's former husband, Chris Dawson, Thomas received the Sir Keith Murdoch Award for his work on the podcast series.

Awards

Awards include: * 1999 Walkley for Best Investigative Writing (with Paul Whittaker) for exposing the "Net Bet affair" *2003 Walkley for Best Print Feature, "Court in Crisis" on

Di Fingleton Diane McGrath Fingleton (born 11 January 1947) is a former magistrate in the Queensland Magistrates Court, most notable for being appointed Chief Magistrate and later being convicted of the offence of intimidation of a witness, before the conv ...

, jailed Chief Magistrate of Queensland *2005 Walkley for Best Print News story, "Exposing a Sick System" regarding Dr

, Bundaberg Director of Surgery *2005 Sir Keith Murdoch Award, for the Patel story *2007 Walkley for Best Print New story, for the Mohamed Haneef story and Gold Walkey *2012 Queensland Clarion Award for Queensland Journalist of the Year for highlighting evidence overlooked by the judicial inquiry into the operation of the Wivenhoe Dam during the 2011 Queensland floods * 2012 received an Honorary Doctorate of Journalism from John Henningham's Jschool School of Journalism in Brisbane *2018 Gold Walkley for ''The Teachers Pet'' podcast *2022 Sir Keith Murdoch Award for ''The Teachers Pet'' podcast

Selected published works

References

External links

Hall of Fame BiographyInterview with Thomas
{{DEFAULTSORT:Thomas, Hedley Living people Year of birth missing (living people) People from Brisbane Walkley Award winners