Guardian Australia’s Ben Smee joint winner of Queensland journalist of the year award

The Guardian’s Queensland correspondent and three SBS journalists win top award for investigation into children locked up in police watch houses

Guardian Australia’s Ben Smee and a team from SBS have been named joint winners of the coveted journalist of the year award at Queensland’s annual media awards – the Clarions.

Smee, the Guardian Australia’s Queensland state correspondent, and SBS journalists Jennifer Luu, Jodie Noyce and Chloe Angelo, won the top award for their exclusive investigation, In the Box: Inside the Isolation Cells where Australian Kids are Imprisoned. Smee also picked up two other awards at a ceremony on Saturday night.

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SBS resists calls to join EU boycott of Eurovision 2026 if Israel allowed to compete

Israeli media had reported nation had been asked to step aside or compete under a neutral symbol due to controversies over Gaza war

SBS has indicated it will not follow the lead of a growing number of European Union countries and boycott next year’s Eurovision song contest if Israel is permitted to compete.

The decision on Israel’s inclusion will be made by the contest’s governing body in December, but SBS told the Guardian on Tuesday it intended to participate in the 2026 event in Vienna, regardless of December’s decision.

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SBS’s Insight accused of betraying people living with chronic fatigue syndrome who appeared on program

Broadcaster receives hundreds of negative comments including claims it presented a potentially harmful and unscientific narrative

People living with ME or chronic fatigue syndrome who appeared on SBS’s Insight program have accused the broadcaster of betraying them in the final cut, which presented what they claim is a potentially harmful and unscientific narrative and favoured a person who said she had “cured herself” by “listening to her body”.

The SBS ombudsman is investigating their individual complaints, as well as one from Emerge Australia, the national advocacy body for patients with myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS).

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Labor to consider ways to protect ABC and SBS from future funding threats

Michelle Rowland says review into security of national broadcasters will consider options to support their independence

A review into the security of ABC and SBS funding will examine ways to protect the public broadcasters from future threats of privatisation and arbitrary funding cuts, the communications minister Michelle Rowland has said.

Rowland told an ABC Friends dinner the communications department review would consider options to support the independence of the ABC and the SBS and it was open for public submissions.

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Liberal-led Senate inquiry into ABC and SBS abandoned

Ita Buttrose previously branded investigation of complaints handling ‘an act of political interference’

A Liberal-led parliamentary inquiry into the complaints handling processes of the ABC and SBS will not go ahead.

The environment and communications Senate committee officially dropped its inquiry on Thursday after the completion of an independent review of the procedures.

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