Adele Ferguson NSW journalist of the year as CBA investigation dominates Kennedy Awards

Fairfax Media’s Adele Ferguson was named New South Wales journalist of the year at Friday night’s Kennedy Awards for excellence in NSW journalism.

Ferguson’s work  was recognised for exposing problems at the Commonwealth Bank where financial planners were in a “boiler room” culture and failed to provide responsible planning advice to customers. A later joint investigation between Fairfax and the ABC’s Four Corners led to calls for a Senate Inquiry into how the failures were allowed to occur.

The joint Four Corners investigation “Banking Bad” swept the awards, winning the categories for outstanding television current affairs reporting, outstanding finance reporting, outstanding investigative reporting, plus Ferguson being recognised with the top gong of the awards, which honour the late crime reporter Les Kennedy. 

The ABC’s Four Corners program also won in the categories of outstanding consumer affairs reporting and the Les Kennedy Award for outstanding crime reporting.