Louise Williams - JPP Project Officer

Project officer and student supervisor for the 2010 JPP program is Louise Williams. Louise is former foreign correspondent, columnist, and foreign editor for Fairfax Media. She now lectures in journalism/writing, works as an international communications and academic consultant in the university sector and is a contributing editorial writer for the Sydney Morning Herald.

Louise has extensive experience in the Asia-Pacific and Southeast Asian regions, and in covering international affairs. She spent more than a decade as a foreign correspondent for Fairfax newspapers (the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, Melbourne) based in Manila, Bangkok and Jakarta, and continues to travel regularly in the region. In 1996 Louise negotiated the re-opening of the Sydney Morning Herald bureau in Jakarta, a decade after the newspaper had been banned from the country by the Soeharto regime. She was the first Herald reporter to get residency and during this time she witnessed the collapse of the New Order regime, and the economy, and later saw Xanana Gusmao walk out of jail and East Timor gain its independence.

Louise has written or contributed to a number of books on regional issues and was the recipient of an Australia Council Asia Pacific Writers’ Fellowship. Louise also won a Walkley Award for Excellence in Journalism, the John S. Knight Fellowship for Journalism at Stanford University and the Citibank Pan Asia Journalism Award (in conjunction with Columbia University) for her work as a foreign correspondent. She returned to Jakarta in 2007 to set up and run an in-country journalism elective for Australian and New Zealand undergraduate and post-graduate journalism students. Louise is also a Research Associate of the Australian Centre for Independent Journalism (ACIJ) at the University of Technology, where she has developed new media courses and currently teaches magazine feature writing.

Professional experience

2008-Current:

• Project coordinator, Jakarta Professional Practicum, Australian Consortium for In-Country Indonesian Studies, based at Murdoch University, Perth
• Consulting writer and International Communications advisor, University of NSW
• Consultant to the Director of Strategy, University of NSW
• Lecturer, ACIJ short courses, University of Technology, Sydney: http://www.acij.uts.edu.au/shortcourses/magazine.html
• Contributing Leader writer, Sydney Morning Herald
• Consulting writer, Global Fund for AIDS, TB and Malaria (China country report)
• Research Associate, Australian Centre for Independent Journalism, UTS: http://www.acij.uts.edu.au/about/honorary-appointments.html

2007:    

• Editorial and feature writer, Sydney Morning Herald
• Project coordinator, Jakarta Professional Practicum, Australian (universities) Consortium for In-Country Indonesian Studies, based at Murdoch University, Perth
• Consulting writer, Global Fund for AIDS, TB and Malaria (India country report)
• Lecturer (casual), Faculty of Communications, University of Technology, Sydney, teaching journalism and feature writing. She also designed and ran a print to digital media course for senior Chinese newspaper publishers and editors.

2006:    

• Editorial and feature writer, Sydney Morning Herald
• Lecturer (casual), Faculty of Communications, University of Technology, Sydney, teaching journalism and feature writing. Plus new media course for senior Chinese newspaper editors.

1999-2005:

• Leader writer and columnist, Sydney Morning Herald.
• Responsible for analysis and editorial comment on a wide range of issues plus a regular column published in the foreign pages. Reporting assignments including Europe and the EU, NZ and India.

1996-1999:

• Indonesian correspondent, Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, Melbourne.
• Regular guest on the BBC. Major stories: the fall of the Soeharto regime, independence in East Timor, East Asian economic crisis.

1995:

• Asia Pacific Writer’s Fellowship, Literature Board, Australia Council. Publications Editor, Research Institute of Asia and the Pacific, University of Sydney.

1992-1994:

• Asia Editor, then Foreign Editor, Sydney Morning Herald.

1988-1991:

• Regional correspondent, Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, Melbourne, based in Bangkok covering South-East Asia and the Indian sub continent.
• Numerous major stories such as the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi, the crushing of pro-democracy movement in Burma, Vietnam’s withdrawal from Cambodia, the end of military rule in Thailand, the rise of the jihad forces in Afghanistan, the fall of Benazir Bhutto in Pakistan.

1986-1988:

• Philippines-based correspondent, the Sydney Morning Herald.
• Regular contributor to The Observer, London and The Independent, London. Major stories: Cory Aquino’s "people's power" victory in the Philippines, the end of military rule in South Korea, political crackdowns in Malaysia and Singapore.

1984-1986:

1981-1984:

Books

Losing Control, Freedom of the Press in Asia, 2000, co-editor with Roland Rich, Asia Pacific Press. ISBN 0 7315 3626 6
Indonesia After Soeharto, 1999, New Zealand Asia Institute, contributor, ISBN 0 908689 63 2
Wives, Mistresses and Matriarchs, Asian Women Today, 1998, author, Phoenix, a division of Orion Books, London, ISBN 0 75380 710 6 and Allen and Unwin, Sydney, ISBN 1 86448 914 6
Hotel Asia, an anthology of literary travelling to the East, 1995, contributor, Penguin Books, Australia, ISBN 0 14 024542 1
On the Wire, on the frontline in Asia, 1992, author, Simon and Schuster, Australia, ISBN 0 7318 0213 6

Major Awards

Walkley Award, coverage of the Asia Pacific region, winner, 1999
Citibank Pan Asia Journalism Award, in conjunction with Columbia University, winner, 1994
Walkley Award, feature writing, finalist, 1994
John S. Knight Fellowship, Stanford University, offer, 1991-1992. Unable to take up fellowship due to maternity leave
ASEAN-DFAT Scholarship, 1986
The Educator’s Prize for best published work by a journalism student, 1982

Academic and teaching

Bachelor Arts (Communications), University of Technology, Sydney, awarded 1984. Please note this was then a pass/fail degree
Masters of Arts (Government), University of Sydney, commenced 1985, deferred due to overseas posting in 1986
Lecturer, International Communications, 1999, University of Technology, Sydney
Guest Lecturer, International Communications, 2000-2004, Macquarie University
Lecturer, Advanced Feature writing (post-grad course), Journalism 2, University of Technology, current

Languages

French, conversational Indonesian