Kate Lyons appointed Pacific editor for The Guardian Australia
The Guardian Australia has announced Kate Lyons will take up the newly-created role of Pacific Editor which will see her lead the Pacific journalism project enabled through a Judith Neilson Institute grant.
The Guardian was named as a recipient of the grant in July, in the first round of funding from the institute, and announced it would use the funds to appoint a Pacific editor, establish a network of independent journalists, and to commission major investigations to expand reporting on Australia’s immediate neighbourhood.
Lyons has been appointed as Pacific editor for The Guardian Australia
At the time, editor Lenore Taylor said the Pacific was a region the title had been interested in doing more work in for a while.
“We’ve wanted to do more reporting in the Pacific for a long time and this grant will make it possible. The region receives relatively little sustained reporting even though there are globally significant security, environmental and social stories to be told. We know these topics are of strong interest to our readers in Australia and around the world,” said Taylor.
Lyons is currently a reporter and live-blogger on Guardian Australia’s foreign desk, where she anchors live coverage of breaking world news and reports on Asia and the Pacific. She has previously worked at the Guardian UK and won a Drum Online Media Award and been long-listed for the Orwell Prize for exposing Britain’s social evils.
Through the Pacific journalism project Guardian Australia will establish a network of Indigenous Pacific journalists and collaborate with publications across the Pacific, including Vanuatu, Tonga, Fiji, Papua New Guinea, the Marshall Islands, the Solomon Islands, Samoa, French Polynesia and New Caledonia.
The aim is to increase public discussion of the social, geo-political, environmental, and economic issues relevant to the region. Lyons will also commission major investigations and present stories in new and engaging ways, including through collaboration with other Australian media organisations.
