Evan Whitton
Evan Whitton was an Australian journalist.
Whitton was raised in Murgon in Queensland, and went away to boarding school at age eight. He worked as a reporter for the Melbourne newspaper Truth before going to work for the new Sunday Australian in 1971. Whitton was assistant editor of The National Times from 1975 to 1978 and editor from 1978 to 1981, before going to the Sydney Morning Herald as chief reporter. After a later period as Reader in Journalism at the University of Queensland, he was as of 2018 a columnist with the online legal journal Justinian.
He won five Walkley Awards, for Best Newspaper Feature Story in 1967 and 1975, Best Piece of Newspaper Reporting in 1970, and Best Story Published in an Australian Magazine in 1973 and 1974. His 1970 award was for his coverage of Bertram Wainer's allegations of police extortion from abortion clinics, which led to the Kaye Inquiry.
In 1983 he was awarded the Graham Perkin Australian journalist of the year award for "courage and innovation".
Whitton died on 16 July 2018, aged 90.
