Congratulations to us!!
The Westsider recently attended the Community News Association of Victoria Awards and has walked away with six accolades!
Huge shout out to sports writer Kel Rowe who won Best Sports Reporting for her story Breaking Through The Sound Barrier about Deaf footballer Michelle Rowlands. And our amazing designer Jean Anselmi who won Best Design and Layout. Again!
Applause also to our second and third place getters Peter Dewar for Best History Story, Miles Thompson-Kendall for Best Writing by a Person Under 18, and the whole team for coming in second in the Best Newspaper category. We were pipped at the post by the fabulous team from Dunolly who took out First Prize for their paper The Welcome Record. Congratulations to them, and all of us!
In this edition we’re featuring the first of a series of investigative stories created by journalism students at RMIT. We asked you what issues you wanted them to explore so the stories have been inspired by your ideas.
We kick off this collaborative project with an article about the housing crisis and its impact on the western suburbs, with a focus on Techno Park Drive as a case study. This is a critical issue for the west which has some of the worst homeless statistics in Australia.
The second story we publish this month explores the murky influence of far-right conspiracy groups on local council meetings, and the repercussions for democratic process in the western suburbs.
Read on to find out more, and don’t forget to let us know what you think, about these or any other stories from the west.
Barbara Heggen
