Samantha Maiden 2021 gold Walkley award another high mark in journalism career started in Adelaide
Samantha Maiden began her journalism in 1992 writing for the Adelaide University newspaper On Dit.
Adelaide-born-and-trained journalist Samantha Maiden won the 2021 gold Walkley award for excellence in Australian journalism for her reporting on sexual assault and harassment in Parliament House, Canberra. Maiden and the news.com.au team also took out the Walkley award for best coverage of allegations that Brittany Higgins had been raped in parliament house.
Maiden’s work on the Higgins’ story also won journalist of the year, scoop of the year, outstanding political reporting and outstanding investigative journalism at the Kennedy awards in 2021. The Walkley judges said Maiden’s powerful reporting on the Higgins story “revealed significant new angles that built a disturbing picture of the mistreatment of women in Australian politics and fuelled a national discussion about gender relations that dominated public affairs in 2021”.
Maiden began her journalism in South Australia, where she edited Adelaide University's student newspaper On Dit in 1992 and covered state politics for The Advertiser newspaper in Adelaide. She was based in Canberra as a political correspondent from 1998. She was previously the political editor of Sunday News Corp Australia newspapers including The Sunday Telegraph, Sunday Herald Sun and Sunday Mail.
In 2016, Maiden said that federal immigration minister Peter Dutton had inadvertently sent a text message directly to her describing her as a "mad fucking witch". This became internationally significant when Marvel films’ dark hero Jessica Jones tweeted encouragement to Maiden "welcoming her to the club (of mad fucking witches)".
Maiden worked for Sky television news in 2017-18 before moving to The New Daily online newspaper. She returned to News Corp Australia as political editor in 2020. Maiden was a regular guest on the ABC’s (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) Insiders and Channel 10’s The Project programmes. Her first book, Party Animals, was published in 2020.
