Coming from his final 7:30 Report, Kerry O'Brien has been honoured at last night’s Walkley Awards. O'Brien was awarded the Walkley for journalistic leadership as well as the prize for best interview for confrontations with Kevin Rudd and Tony Abbott.
The ABC reported O'Brien appeared to lose his characteristic cool during his acceptance speech: “I’m stunned. I did not expect this. Tonight was my last show for 7:30, as you know, and I was determined to play a straight bat and I managed to, and now you’ve got me, you bastards,” O'Brien said.
Also honoured was Channel 9’s Laurie Oakes, who used his acceptance speech for the Gold Walkley to nudge Julia Gillard for her stance on Wikileaks. The Sydney Morning Herald quotes Oakes on Julia Gillard’s response to Wikileaks as “ridiculous”. Oakes went on to tell the crowd of media professionals, “To brand what the WikiLeaks site has done as illegal when there’s no evidence of any breach of the law, I think is demeaning… I think as journalists we should make that our view.”