Herald’s ‘backbone and heart’ honoured at Kennedy Awards

Her name may be unfamiliar to daily readers, but few stories make it into The Sydney Morning Herald without the input or guidance of Kathryn Wicks.

The Herald’s associate editor received the award for Outstanding Team Player or Mentor at Friday night’s Kennedy Awards, an accolade Herald editor Bevan Shields said was a fitting recognition of the woman who is “the backbone and the heart of the Herald”.

“She might not have a shelf groaning with awards, but there is no doubt Kath has significantly contributed to the awards of many other Herald journalists over the decades through her expertise, editing and wise counsel,” Shields said.

Columnist Peter Hartcher said that over decades of working with Wicks, he had never witnessed anyone who worked as hard or skilfully to facilitate others’ success.

“We writers get our names on the product, but Kathryn, as editor and producer, does not receive public recognition. And does not seek it,” he said.

Starting at the Herald as a cadet in 1987, Wicks was a junior reporter before working as a sub-editor on The Sun-Herald for a decade.

A mad cricket fan, Wicks moved to the sports desk in Sydney’s Olympic year. By 2003, she was chief sub-editor of the Herald’s sports pages, a role she held for seven years before becoming the section’s deputy editor.

In 2012, Wicks flipped roles to edit the community and then state topics. Despite starting her career in print, Wicks has enthusiastically embraced new ways of getting stories to readers. It was this passion that led to her appointment as digital editor in 2018. The following year, she became managing editor.

Nine’s managing director of publishing, and former Herald executive editor, Tory Maguire, fondly remembered Wicks as a digital editor who “so successfully combined ferocious digital publishing ambition with old-school journalistic values”.

Since 2023, Wicks has been the Herald’s associate editor, managing projects and training, as well as overseeing the state news topic – which includes NSW politics, education, health, urban affairs, and, as of this year, the new Parramatta bureau – pursuing the local stories that matter so much to readers.

Among them, the Herald’s HSC coverage, for which Wicks each year oversees a team of reporters, live bloggers, data gurus, designers and programmers to produce leading coverage of the year 12 results across digital and print.

She approaches the HSC with the mentality of a woman who spent years on the sports desk, guiding her reporters through live coverage, analysis and trends, and finding that hero’s journey that steals the show. One might joke that the battle between James Ruse and North Sydney Boys to top the Herald‘s HSC rankings is her State of Origin. But Wicks’ enthusiasm for the HSC is matched by that of the Herald’s readers, with whom she is deeply attuned.

Thirty-five years after she was a cadet herself, in 2022, Wicks redesigned the Herald‘s trainee program to include video, audio and data journalism alongside old-school “go to this suburb and bring me back a story by end of day” training.

The revamped 12-month program received third place at the 2023 International News Media Association awards, a testament to Wicks’ commitment to fostering the next generation of Herald journalists.

“It’s not often you come across someone who has spent three decades in the media industry and still loves it as much as they did on day one – but Kathryn Wicks is that person,” wrote Herald sports reporter Billie Eder, health reporter Angus Thomson, science reporter Angus Dalton, economics writer Millie Muroi and Parramatta bureau chief Anthony Segaert, a recent intake of trainees managed by Wicks, in their submission to the Kennedy’s judging panel.

While that group may have been the first to be formally shepherded into their careers by Wicks, she has provided dedicated, ongoing support to countless young journalists in the Herald newsroom in their professional and personal lives, from calmly picking through a complicated story on deadline, to crafting the perfect headline, providing invaluable career advice, and even hosting bridal and baby showers in the office kitchen.

The Herald‘s North America correspondent Michael Koziol, one of Wicks’ mentees, said she was the “archetypal office mum”, but a multifaceted one: gentle and caring as she welcomes the youngest journalists into the newsroom, then, soon enough, their pushy soccer mum, driving them hard for sharper angles, better lines and “just one more phone call”.

“Of anyone I have met in this industry, Kath is the person who is truly at her happiest when the people she has helped train and mentor succeed,” he said.

Luke McIlveen, executive editor of Nine’s metro mastheads, including the Herald, said he hadn’t seen anyone push the careers of young journalists so selflessly in any newsroom.

“She fights for the splash all day every day and makes us all better,” he said.

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