By Ned Stevens, Elsa Pritchard and Orlando Sagar
An eye-opening multimedia feature about human trafficking and fraudulent texts used to entrap workers has claimed the top prize at the 2026 Central News Media Prize.
The winning series of three stories entitled ‘Scam Factories‘ by Ivan Franceschini and Ling Li, published by The Conversation, tells the harrowing story of people who have been forced to work in phone scam facilities across Southeast Asia.
While The Conversation took home the trophy, the judges said it was a close race with impressive nominees like Matt Gazy and Jennifer Luu from The Feed for their series on the housing crisis, Cam Wilson from Crikey for his exclusive series detailing links between a lobby group behind the social media ban and a gambling ad company, and ABC’s Laura Lavelle’s shocking investigation into sexual assaults in the Australian Defence Force. TikToker Alison Turner, nominated for her explainers on religion, and citizen journalist Aaron Smith’s X thread documenting the lack of transparency in a digital article rewrite, were also praised by judges for their innovation, as was the election data analysis of the ABC’s Casey Briggs, Simon Elvery and Ben Spraggon.
Franceschini and Li, along with The Conversation’s Digital Storytelling Team, produced an original multimedia feature that unveiled life inside forced labour facilities, including several interviews, detailed maps, and exclusive documents.
Although not present at the awards night, Victoria-based Franceschini, a Chinese studies lecturer at University of Melbourne, told Central News he hoped the win would raise further awareness of the problem.
The scam factory industry is one of the largest humanitarian crises of our time, yet it remains poorly understood.
Ivan Franceschini, Media Prize winner
“This award belongs as much to the survivors who trusted us with their stories as it does to the reporting team,” he said.
“The scam factory industry is one of the largest humanitarian crises of our time, yet it remains poorly understood.
“I hope this recognition helps keep public attention where it is needed: on the hundreds of thousands of people still trapped in these compounds across Southeast Asia.”
The Media Prize, now in its third year, celebrates great journalism, from mainstream outlets, independents and citizen journalists, recognising their contribution to the public record.
This year’s nominees were lauded for their roles in documenting abuses of power in the highest reaches of the Australian government or simply explaining the world around us.
Nominees stand with Media Prize hosts, from left to right, ABC’s Jennifer Luu, SBS’s Matt Gazy, Media Prize editors Ned Stevens and Chloe Kelly, The Conversation’s Drew Rooke and Sunanda Creagh, and Crikey’s Cam Wilson. Photo: Mia Boccalatte
Gazy said it was important to recognise outstanding journalism.
“A lot of journalism right now is the stuff that is rage bait and going in for really strong sensational headlines,” he said. “So in my eyes, great journalism is impartial.
“It’s hearing both sides of stories, it’s going a bit deeper, so I think it’s more important than ever with the amount of misinformation there is out there on the internet.”
Discussing the issues facing modern journalism, he added: “We’re competing with more journalists than ever in terms of influencers, content creators, even citizen journalists, and a lot of them are doing amazing jobs, sometimes better than what the mainstream media can do.
About 80 students, staff and industry guests attended the Student Awards and Central News Media Prize on Wednesday night at the Abercrombie Hotel. Photo: Central News.
“With the rise of TikTok and algorithms, it’s harder than ever to really cut through a lot of that noise.”
The awards took place for the third year at the Abercrombie Hotel, across the road from UTS, on Wednesday night.
As well as recognising outstanding journalism from media outlets, faculty awards were also given out in recognition of the accomplishments of UTS students, with prizes awarded by lecturer Cisco Corea and acting head of school Monica Attard.
Awards for Outstanding Performance in an Individual Subject were given in each of the school’s 12 core subjects, recognising the top students from 2025.
Best Social Media Package winner Halle Masters accepting her award from acting head of school Monica Attard. Photo: Mia Boccalatte
Central News editor Martin Newman also recognised the good work of students published by this masthead in 2025, handing out pun-filled best practice awards to Ted Schief for news photo of the year, Eva Greifeneder for having the best attitude to her journalism, which has seen her given her own show on 2SER, Chris McCarthy for impartial, objective reporting on the March for Australia, Leo Chau for his multilingual reporting on the federal election and for never compromising or conforming with his journalism, Sarah Goff-Tunks for anticipating content needs with her dedicated gathering of b-roll shots that enriched her videos, the Harbour Bridge Peace March reporting team of Amelie Zreika, Ned Stevens, Caitlin Maloney, Jess O’Bryan, Zaryab Ahmad, Zac Nikolovski, Sarah Goff-Tunks and Sanjana Janardhan for authentic reporting, Emile Kwasner-Catsi for showing with his Iron Chin documentary he was not afraid to ditch something that took a lot of hard work, to make something even better, and Christine Lee for both sensitivity and all-round excellence in news reporting for her article ‘Amy moved 50 times in three years‘.
Ted Schief’s winning photo of Dutch long-distance runner Sifan Hassanon crossing the finish line of the Sydney Marathon in August.
Central News Media Prize Winner
Ivan Franceschini & Ling Li (The Conversation) for “Scam Factories”
Nominees
Matt Gazy (The Feed SBS) for a series on TikTok about the housing crisis
Aaron Smith (Independent) for a collection of X posts about misinformation
Cameron Wilson (Crikey) for a series on the social media ban in Australia
Casey Briggs (ABC) for “Labor’s landslide victory obscures a disturbing trend for the major parties”
Main image of Sunanda Creagh from The Conversation accepted the award on behalf of the winners Ivan Franceschini and Ling Li. Photo: Central News.
