Piper Duffy Wins the 2025 Caroline Jones Young Journalist of the Year Award
- Women in Media
- Oct 30
- 3 min read
Women in Media is delighted to announce the winner of the 2025 Caroline Jones Women in Media Young Journalist’s Award is Piper Duffy from Western Australia.
Piper is a 24-year-old ABC journalist based in Geraldton where she covers the Midwest and Wheatbelt region. She is the ninth recipient of the award since its inception in 2017.
Piper is a journalism graduate from Curtin University and works as a multi-platform reporter whose strong body of work shows tenacity and a commitment to social justice. Her winning entry included packages on unscrupulous practices in the retirement village sector, ways in which regional football clubs handle the mental health issues of young players, and the impact on long-term residents of a caravan park closure amid a housing crisis.
Her stories all feature strong human elements and are published online, in radio and video form, reaching wide audiences.
Runner-up for this year's award is Neave Duff from Queensland Country Life, who has produced a body of extraordinary work in reporting several in-depth and vastly diverse pieces from Quilpie during the record-breaking floods where she was the only journalist on the ground, having caught a lift in a mustering plane, not knowing how she would get home or where she would sleep that night.
The Caroline Jones Women in Media Young Journalist’s Award recognises tenacity and passion for the craft of journalism from young women working across rural and regional Australia. It is run with the support of the National Press Club of Australia and Bond University.
This year’s judges included Women in Media national board member Danielle Cronin, former Women in Media national co-convener Cath Webber and Women in Media Canberra convenor Emma Macdonald.
Danielle Cronin said Piper has presented an extremely strong application despite being relatively early on in her career.
“Piper’s work shows admirable tenacity, meticulous research and a commitment to highlight issues affecting the community.”
Cath Webber said Neave showed enormous commitment and potential, taking any opportunity she could to unlock stories from a community amid the crisis of a natural disaster.
Emma Macdonald praised the strong field of entrants this year for “doing the legacy of Caroline Jones proud”, and noted both Piper and Neave “report with passion and heart.”
Now in its ninth year, the award is the first of its kind in encouraging young women and rural and regional journalists to experience first-hand the complexities of the media and political landscape across the nation’s capital.
It seeks to immerse the award winner in an intensive experience of journalism, politics and government in Canberra and to open doors to the experience and generosity of some of the country’s top women journalists.
The Award includes:
$3000 personal learning fund
Travel and accommodation to Canberra for five nights
National Press Club event attendance and question
Mentorship from members of the Canberra Women in Media Committee
Experience in a variety of Canberra and Press Gallery newsrooms
This award seeks to foster commitment and passion for journalism among young women practitioners in rural and regional Australia.
It is named in honour of Caroline Jones AO, a ground-breaking journalist who joined the ABC in 1963 and became the first woman reporter on This Day Tonight. She hosted Four Corners from 1972 - 1981 before presenting Radio National’s The Search for Meaning (1987 - 1994). In 1996, Caroline became the presenter of Australian Story. She was the inaugural national Patron of Women in Media, the national not-for-profit advancing gender equity across Australia’s media industries through research, advocacy, mentoring, and professional development.
The award bearing her name is a life-changing, horizon-broadening and immersive prize, exposing the winner to the institutions of Canberra, including the Press Gallery and National Press Club. It also brings them into contact with the Women in Media network – providing mentorship, guidance, and insights from Canberra’s most prominent women journalists.
“This award is offered as a tribute to the women who, sometimes far from colleagues or mentors, choose to cover regional or remote areas of our country, reporting on local issues which are often of vital national interest,” Jones said.
The award is presented annually and is open to any rural and regional journalist working in a non-metropolitan area. Applicants must be 30 years and under, and have at least one year of full-time industry experience.
