Schools’ restrictive practices exposé wins 2025 Central News Media Prize

A two-part investigation into restrictive practices used on neurodivergent students in Australian schools last night won the Central News annual Media Prize for the best piece of Australian journalism published in 2024.

Independent journalist Zacharias Szumer, working with a team from SBS, was judged the winner out of a field of six nominees that also included a guerilla street journalist interviewing Sydney’s homeless on TikTok and YouTube, a UNSW chemistry scientist who tweeted analysis of mystery ‘tar balls’ washed up on Sydney beaches, a piece in The Australian on the risk to Indigenous archaeological sites on the Nullarbor, an investigation into the Pentagon’s infiltration of Australian universities and a podcast investigation by the ABC.

The Prize, now in its second year, honours what UTS journalism students thought was the best piece of journalism in Australia in 2024 from all platforms, with an emphasis on engagement, innovation, inspiration and best practice.

Szumer’s two-part feature investigated the use of ‘restrictive practices’ towards students by teachers in schools and uncovered cases of mistreatment of a number of students across the country who are neurodivergent or disabled.

Accepting the award at a function at the Abercrombie Hotel on Broadway on Wednesday night Szumer, who travelled from Melbourne for the event, said the stories were the tip of the iceberg in terms of the amount of work put into his investigation.

There was a huge amount of work interviewing people, who had the generosity to tell me about some of the most difficult things that had happened in their lives.

“We only ended up using four or five case studies in this story but I think I would have interviewed about 20 parents, 10 teachers and did about 150 hours of interviews,” he told the audience.

“There was a huge amount of work interviewing people, who had the generosity to tell me about some of the most difficult things that had happened in their lives in the last few years, the most traumatising things that had happened to their children.

“I guess it’s ultimately thanks to them, and thanks to their generosity in sharing their stories that the piece managed to come together and result in this much appreciated accolade. If you want the moxie don’t be afraid of doing the 150 hours, most of which will never end up in the final piece.”

The awards were nominated by UTS students and judged by a panel of students including media editors Ebony Brown and Ainslie McNally, Kennedys Student Journalist of the Year Yasmine Alwakal, JERAA award winner Ike Morris and NSW Premier’s Multicultural Communications Student Journalist of the Year Caitlin Maloney.

Morris described Szumer’s investigation, headlined ‘Hannah’s son was put in a box’, as “a disturbing, well-written exposé. With extensive research and objective coverage centring the voices of students, parents and support workers who are affected the most, Szumer and the SBS team have effectively shone a light on flaws in how schools nationwide deal with neurodivergent children.”

Fellow judge and MC Maloney added: “The article demonstrates thorough reporting and research, delving further into broader issues of disability support in schools, NDIS funding, teacher training and current education policies.”

 

Amid dozens of entries, including text, video, audio and social media, the other nominees were drawn from a variety of publications, both mainstream and independent.

Tiktoker Nancy Cao, who could not attend, was nominated for a series of videos interviewing Sydney’s homeless under the tag @postmodernjournalist. Also in absentia, The Australian‘s Christine Middap was praised for her eye-catching page one exclusive on Nullabor archaeological threats headlined ‘Like dropping a brick on  meringue‘. Alicia Bridges, whose Mr Big podcast and accompanying article questioning the use of police entrapment devices, could not attend but was represented by a number of her ABC colleagues. Eve Cogan, who with Stephanie Tran, exposed the extent of Pentagon infiltration of Australian universities in an investigation for Declassified Australia was also on hand, as the night attracted more industry guests, including from Crikey, the Daily Mail, Mumbrella, the ABC and SBS, among the 80 attendees.

Chemist Jon Beves was nominated despite not being a journalist, as students felt his use of an X thread to give a comprehensive analysis of mystery objects washed up on Sydney beaches had displayed a better grasp of journalism than other reporting on the matter.

Beves, who was accompanied by his wife and some of his colleagues from UNSW, said: “I didn’t think they had the right person at first when they contacted me.”

The Media Prize itself, a 3D printed replica of the UTS tower with a bean plant growing in it, was produced by UTS’s ProtoSpace.

 

Central News editor, lecturer Martin Newman, also handed out awards to students who had published on the site in 2024 recognising hard work and best practice.

They included the Smells like Team Spirit award to the vertical video team of Mahir Munot, Amelie Zreika, Chloe Kelly, Sophie Sutherland, Seb Tan and Monique Goyen, who produced weekly TikToks and Reels on a range of subjects, as well as in depth explainers on topics such as the US elections.

Hugh Philips won the Trust Me, I’m a Journalist award for convincing competitors in an outlaw cycle messenger race through Sydney’s CBD to allow him to document the event. He also had the most number of sources for the six stories he published in 2024.

Caitlin Maloney won the Pitch Perfect award for pitching the most stories, including eight in one session on the Foreign Correspondent tour to Chiang Mai, Thailand.

Jess D’Souza and Michaela Cullen won the Long Lede award for filing a story from the furthest distance — Strasbourg, France — where they covered a press conference held by Julian Assange, casually phoning it in and filing within hours.

The US election team of Rex Siu, Sanjana Janardhan, Nova Berger, Sophie James, Sam Laurence, Gabi Ohmer, Roman de Vallance, Sienna Martyn, Amelie Zreika, Seb Tan and Ailish Dwyer, won the Who Let the Blogs Out? award for their all-day blogging, that included interviews with dozens of experts and analysts, vox popping of voters in Seattle and numerous video assets.

Genevieve Blandin de Chalain got the Scooper Trouper award for her two-part months-long investigation of Merivale’s alleged ‘toxic’ culture towards women, on which she was narrowly beaten out by the ABC, but prefaced a similar investigation a month later by the Sydney Morning Herald.

Esha Tiwana, Nathan John Dela Torre Carlos, Patrick Brischetto, Emile Kwasner-Catsi and Sarah Kang got the Gatecrashers award for muscling their way into the press conference of Thai PM Paetongtarn Shinawatra on the Myanmar border in December, while on a study tour.

Olivia Bui won the Big Picture award for the long hours of hard work she put in interviewing teachers, parents and students for an article and video package covering all the angles on Cessnock High School in the Hunter Valley turning around its poor performance.

 

 

The night started with faculty awards handed out by lecturer Cisco Corea and acting head of discipline Monica Attard for excellence in individual subjects:

Bronte Woolley, Jessica O’Bryan, Indiana O’Neill, Best Short Documentary

Amy Winslow, Best Research (Ethics) Essay

Annabelle Aisnworth, Best Digital Story

Matisse Guzzo, Best Multimedia Feature

Sienna Martyn, Rosa Griffith, William Luthje and Joel Davies, Best Entrepreneurial Project

Jacob O’Loughlin, Best Digital Journalism Research Project

Amy Batey-McManus, Best Photojournalism

Bridget Ross & Caitlin Hawkins, Best Video Journalism

Main image of Zacharias Szumer accepting the trophy alongside prize editor Ainslie McNally, left, and nominee Eve Cogan. Photo: Orlando Sagar.