Fresh from a win at the ABC Local Radio Awards, 1233 ABC Newcastle’s Jill Emberson, Ben Millington and Lucia Hill have now been nominated for a Walkley.

Their investigative series “Hooked on Heroin” is one of the finalists in the Coverage of Community and Regional Affairs category. See our earlier story with the full list of finalists.

The three-part Hooked on Heroin series explored drug treatment in the Hunter region including the extensive waiting time for addicts to receive treatment and the impact this has on crime.

1233 ABC Newcastle station manager Phil Ashley-Brown is thrilled that the team has been nominated for the award:

“This nomination is great news for 1233 and shows clearly that the mornings program is leading the way in breaking local stories. Jill, Ben and Lucia saw this story as a critical one that needed to be told and the series received a massive response from our audience, many of whom were unaware of the problem.

“I’m thrilled for the team. They put in a huge amount of investigation and were able to shine a light onto an aspect of Newcastle life that few people knew about. This is at the heart of what we do in the ABC and it’s wonderful that the mornings team has been recognised.”

As an indicaton of the response to the story, since the series aired the wait for methadone treatment in the Hunter has reduced from two years to two weeks.

The team was recently acknowledged at the ABC’s Local Radio Awards, winning a national award for the series in the Outstanding Coverage of a Local Story category. The series also won an award in the Radio News and Current Affair Report category at the Northern NSW Journalism Awards earlier this year.

Jill Emberson’s program covers local current affairs issues every weekday from 8.30am on 1233 ABC Newcastle.