Guardian photographer stripped of award after organisers sent wrong name to engravers
The charity behind NSW journalism’s biggest awards will launch a major review of its processes after telling The Guardian to return an award it was incorrectly given because the wrong name was sent to the engravers.
Last Friday night’s Kennedy Awards show was plagued with a series of technical glitches including the wrong winner videos being played in both the turf and racing writer category and incorrect winners being tweeted from the official account.
This week the Kennedy Foundation, named in honour of legendary crime reporter Les Kennedy, was forced to ask Guardian photographer Mike Bowers to return his award for outstanding photographic essay, which should have been given to Fairfax’s Nic Walker.
However it appears the wrong name was sent to the engravers and then the wrong name announced on the night.
To say it took five days to inform Mike Bowers is a blatant lie, regards Peter Kogoy, Kennedy Foundation Trustee!
Disappointing for both photographers but they probably understand mistakes happen. However, the response from the organisers falls well short of the mark. If that Peter Kogoy is real and actually a trustee, his comment is completely inappropriate, regardless of it being true or not. It says a great deal about the haughty culture and goes a long way to explaining how they stuffed up. Sounds like a clean sweep of trustees required.
I have been a friend of Michael’s for more than 20 years and he is not a liar. He is one of the most genuine respectful people I am glad to call my friend and he is utterly professional in all his work dealings.
Peter Kogoy you do realise that’s defamatory?
you were the first person to contact me from the Kennedy Board, that was at 16.51 on 12th August, the call lasted 8 minutes. I have placed a frame grab of the call time stamp on twitter. As the awards were on the 7th I make that 5 days. You can be as nasty as you want, you know the truth, you all messed up. Please go away I want nothing more to do with you or your awards
Mike Bowers
The Insiders should be fun this Sunday.