Brilliant student work catches judges' attention

Two student journalists whose stories have featured on mojonews.com.au are finalists in the Walkley Young Journalist of the Year Awards and the Jacoby-Walkley Scholarship. 

The news comes as mojo's online audience has blossomed. Mojonews.com.au this week reached the milestone of 100,000 views since the site was relaunched 18 months ago.

A few weeks ago mojo also launched Mojo TV,  produced entirely by Monash University's journalism students. This year, mojo also has revitalised Generation J, a regular podcast on media issues, also created by students. 

Jack Paynter's story Cricket willow tree project drives investors bats was co-published in The  Age. It told the story of a group that offered investments in willow trees to make cricket bats, and continued to demand fees from investors despite no sales over 16 years. 

His story earned him a place among the top three in the Student Award section of the Walkley Young Journalist of the Year.

Nicola McCaskill is a finalist for the Jacoby-Walkley Scholarship, which is a paid internship working with some of Australia's best TV news and current affairs journalists.  She entered three stories, two of them published on mojonews.com.au – a highly original and award-winning photo essay about a day in the life of a Melbourne sex worker and a story on record numbers of European wasps in Victoria. The third was written for SBS Science.