Twelve years on, Karen finally picks up her media award
Local
Six and a half years ago, veteran journalist Karen Ashford experienced the heartbreak of losing her home in the ferocity of the Cudlee Creek bushfires that destroyed her Adelaide Hills property. Among the ashes were her collection of career awards, earned over the span of a highly impressive four-decade career as a journalist for some of Australia’s most reputable media outlets, including the ABC and SBS Radio and Television.
Remarkably, and in a moment that felt like fate to a journalist reared on hard news, Karen was recently reunited with one of her media awards that had been gathering dust in a small cupboard near the back of the Catholic Diocesan Centre adjoining St Francis Xavier’s Cathedral.
Mary Coombe, who has worked with Catholic Charities for the past 37 years, was doing some tidying at work and recalled there was one award from the now defunct Catholic Archbishop of Adelaide Media Citations that had been tucked away near her desk for the past 12 years.
After a quick telephone call from The Southern Cross, Karen was united with her Cultural Exchange citation.
“I was lucky enough to have collected a number of awards throughout my career but they are all ashes now,” said Karen. “So, to think that this award had been tucked in safekeeping in a cupboard down in the city is pretty incredible.
“It’s amazing how these things are sometimes circular. I do recall my disappointment in not being able to be there to collect the award in 2014, but I suppose it was fortunate in a way. It’s something tangible and it makes me think fondly of the time I was sort of ‘on the tools’ as a working journalist.”
Karen won the Archdiocese citation for her story which highlighted the challenges faced by Indigenous Australian and traditional African communities as technology and the modern world increasingly affected their once unique lifestyles.
“It was an unexpected and beautiful story about positivity and challenge. The story focussed on how these traditional communities were maintaining their cultural integrity and heritage whilst embracing modernity,” said Karen who recalled talking with a group of Indigenous people in a mud hut in Tanzania – with no apparent technology whatsoever – when one of the men suddenly, and wholly unexpectedly, pulled out a mobile phone from his pocket to make a call.
“The story looked at how two very different traditional communities, from two very different traditional backgrounds, were facing similar challenges and what they could learn from each other.”
Karen wrote and published the article in 2013 during her time at the SBS, and was recognised with the Archdiocese media citation in July of 2014 for her contributions to promoting truth, integrity and fairness in South Australia’s media.
“It was very much a story of its time. It came at a really formative period when you could see there was a groundswell of a need for change in Australia,” said Karen. “So, the opportunity to look at these factors in a semi-global context was very important.”
Karen has remained grateful for the opportunity – which has been a lifelong vocation – to tell the stories of people from perhaps less fortunate, but always intriguing, backgrounds.
“Winning an award like this is a wonderful acknowledgement on a personal level but more importantly, it’s an acknowledgement of the issue that you are reporting,” she said. “These awards are really dedicated to the people behind the story and who are often the story themselves.
“The telling of the story is significant, but it’s the process of identifying an issue and connecting with relevant people to bring that issue into the public consciousness that is the most important part.
