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Caroline Overington

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Caroline Overington
Born1970 (age 53–54)
Melbourne
OccupationJournalist, author
NationalityAustralian
Website
carolineoverington.com

Caroline Overington (born 1970) is an Australian journalist and author. Overington has written 13 books. She has twice won the Walkley Award for investigative journalism, as well as winning the Sir Keith Murdoch prize for journalism (2007), the Blake Dawson Waldron Prize (2008) and the Davitt Award for Crime Writing (2015).

Life and career

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Overington was born in Melbourne, Victoria in 1970.[1]

She began her journalism cadetship with The Melton Mail Express, and other titles in The Age Suburban Newspaper Group, covering courts, local council, and school fetes. Melbourne businessman and editor, Alan Kohler, recruited Overington to write for The Age in 1993, where she became a sports writer. Several of her pieces were selected for the Best Australian Sports Writing and Photography anthologies, published by Random House in the 1990s. She was awarded the Annita Keating Trophy for Female Journalism in Sport.[citation needed]

In 2002, Overington assumed a position as foreign correspondent in New York for The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age. Her first book, Only in New York, published by Allen & Unwin in 2006, is a comedy based on her family's experiences with young twins in the United States.[2] While based in the US, Overington's work included an investigation into an Australian literary scandal involving Norma Khouri's book Forbidden Love. Together with Malcolm Knox, Overington won a Walkley Award for investigative journalism in 2004 for her research into the mysterious life of Jordanian-American-Australian author Norma Khouri.[3] Both Overington and Knox appeared in Forbidden Lie$, a documentary on the scandal by Anna Broinowski that won a Walkley Award and two Australian Film Institute (AFI) Awards.[4]

Following her return to Australia in 2006, Overington gained a position as senior journalist with the News Limited newspaper The Australian.[5] She covered the AWB scandal, in which AWB Limited (formerly the Australian Wheat Board), owned by the Australian Government, paid $290 million in kickbacks to the regime of Saddam Hussein, in contravention of the United Nations Oil-for-Food Humanitarian Program. Overington's book Kickback: Inside the Australian Wheat Board Scandal, released by Allen & Unwin in 2007, provided an account of the scandal.[6]

During the 2007 federal election campaign, Overington made headlines for her conduct in the Wentworth electorate although no adverse findings against Overington were made.[7] Overington was said to have been involved in an altercation with the Labor candidate George Newhouse, who claimed Overington had "whacked" him, while Overington said she had pushed him away with an open hand. The Australian published an apology to Newhouse from Overington over what as described as "an encounter" in December 2007.[8][9][10]

Overington's first novel, Ghost Child was released in 2009 to both literary and popular acclaim. The book was short-listed for the Davitt Prize for Best Adult Crime Novel.[11] Her second novel, I Came To Say Goodbye, was short-listed for Book of the Year and Fiction Book of the Year at the Australian Book Industry Awards in 2010.[11] The novel Matilda is Missing, released in 2011, told the tale of a divorce custody case, through the eyes of a court-appointed psychologist.[12]

In 2014, Overington's book Last Woman Hanged was released, documenting the results of her five-year investigation into the conviction and execution of Louisa Collins in New South Wales in 1889. In the book, Overington claims that Collins, who was tried four times for murder, suffered a miscarriage of justice and may well have been innocent.[13] Overington linked the trial to Australian colonial history and to the early suffragette movement in Australia.

In 2017, an article that Overington had written about Rebel Wilson for Woman's Day was found to be libellous.[14]

Her book, Missing William Tyrrell (2020), concerns the real-life case of William Tyrrell, who disappeared from Kendall on the Mid North Coast of New South Wales in 2014. Overington has said she wrote the book because "now is not the time to give up" looking for him.[15] The book was inspired by a 9-part Australian crime podcast called Nowhere Child she hosted on the Tyrrell case, produced by The Australian, that aired from July to September 2019.[16]

In 2021, she was appointed literary editor at The Australian newspaper.[17]

Personal life

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Overington has homes in Bondi, Australia and Santa Monica, California.[18]

Awards and prizes

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  • 2004 – Joint winner of the Walkley Award for Investigative Journalism for the Norma Khouri Investigation[19]
  • 2006 – Awarded the second annual Sir Keith Murdoch Award for Journalism[20]
  • 2007 – Winner of the Walkley Award for Investigative Journalism for coverage of the AWB Kickback Scandal[19]
  • 2008 – Winner of the Blake Dawson Waldron Prize for Business Literature[21][22]
  • 2015 – Winner of the Davitt (Non-Fiction) Award for Crime Writing[23]

Works

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Non-fiction

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  • Only in New York: How I took Manhattan (With the Kids). Allen & Unwin. 2006. ISBN 1741149614.
  • Kickback: Inside the Australian Wheat Board Scandal. Allen & Unwin. 2007. ISBN 9781741751949.
  • Last Woman Hanged. HarperCollins. 2014. ISBN 9780732299729.
  • Missing William Tyrrell. HarperCollins. 2020. ISBN 9781460758687.

Fiction

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References

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  1. ^ Harrison, Penny (4 April 2012). "Inside story with Caroline Overington". Herald Sun. Melbourne.
  2. ^ Gambotto-Burke, Antonella (11 November 2006). "Baby love in the Big Apple". The Weekend Australian. p. 10.
  3. ^ List of 2004 Walkley winners from official Walkleys website Archived 12 May 2006 at the Wayback Machine
  4. ^ "Forbidden Lie$ wins two AFI Awards". Macquarie University. 27 November 2007. Archived from the original on 14 May 2016.
  5. ^ Davidson, Darren (4 March 2016). "Caroline Overington to rejoin The Australian". The Australian.
  6. ^ Cica, Natasha (18 May 2007). "Kickback". The Sydney Morning Herald. Fairfax Media. Archived from the original on 14 May 2016.
  7. ^ Danielle Hoare (13 November 2007). "Wentworth independent claims journalist offered inducements for preferences". ABC NewsRadio. Retrieved 1 December 2022.
  8. ^ "Apology to George Newhouse". The Australian. 4 December 2007. p. 2. On Saturday morning, 24 November 2007, Caroline Overington had an encounter with the Labor candidate for Wentworth, Mr George Newhouse, in circumstances that she sincerely regrets. She hopes that she and Mr Newhouse can put this incident behind them and she wishes him all the best.
  9. ^ "Journo Sorry for striking candidate". Brisbane Times. Fairfax Media. 4 December 2007. Archived from the original on 4 March 2016.
  10. ^ Simons, Margaret (4 December 2007). "First jokes now apologies". Crikey.com.au. Archived from the original on 3 March 2016.
  11. ^ a b "AustLit: Caroline Overington (69 works by)". Archived from the original on 4 March 2016.
  12. ^ Clark, Blanche (28 October 2011). "Divorce and all its pain". news.com.au. Archived from the original on 14 May 2016.
  13. ^ Kingston, Beverley (5 December 2014). "Review: Story of last woman hanged in NSW a grim indictment". The Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved 11 May 2019.
  14. ^ Davidson, Helen (13 September 2017). "Rebel Wilson wins $4.56m damages from Bauer in record libel settlement". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 1 February 2024.
  15. ^ Overington, Caroline (24 February 2020). ""Why I Can't Rest Until I Find William Tyrrell"". whimn.com.au. Retrieved 8 March 2020.
  16. ^ "Nowhere Child". The Australian. 13 September 2019. Retrieved 2 September 2020.
  17. ^ "Overington appointed literary editor at The Australian". Books+Publishing. 2 July 2021. Archived from the original on 2 July 2021. Retrieved 9 July 2021.
  18. ^ "Kevin's Comeback". Q&A. Australian Broadcasting Corporation. 10 October 2011. Archived from the original on 12 October 2011. Retrieved 2 February 2017.
  19. ^ a b Walkley Winners Archive, The Walkley Foundation
  20. ^ "The Australian's team snares four News Awards". The Australian. 18 November 2006.
  21. ^ Wilson, Lauren (11 April 2008). "Overington receives top honour for book on AWB scandal". The Australian. p. 5.
  22. ^ Ashurst business literature prize: Past winner and nominees, archived from the original on 22 March 2016
  23. ^ Savage, Angela (9 September 2015). "Davitt Awards 2015". Angela Savage. Retrieved 4 December 2015.
  24. ^ Overington, Caroline. "One Chance". Audible Originals. Retrieved 14 December 2021.
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