Brian White Scholarship applications open for 2022

Commercial Radio Australia is now accepting applications for the 2022 Brian White Scholarship, which awards a final year university student with an eight-week paid internship at four of Australia’s leading radio newsrooms.

The scholarship is designed to help talented aspiring broadcast journalists gain a foothold in the industry through on the job experience working with the news teams at ARN, Nine Radio, Nova Entertainment, and SCA.

The scholarship is named after legendary radio broadcaster Brian White, who was Australia’s first commercial radio cadet journalist in 1953. He became a dominant figure in radio for more than three decades and was a pioneer of the newstalk format.

Final year broadcast, media, communications, and journalism students and recent graduates can submit their applications at www.bhwscholarship.com from now through to 22 April 2022.

Entries will be judged by a panel of commercial radio news directors, who will narrow applicants down to 10 finalists across two rounds of judging.

The finalists will then attend a one-day workshop with the news directors in Sydney, where they will undertake a range of news tasks and develop their on-air presenting skills. From there, the scholarship recipient will be selected, with the winner announced in June.

Joan Warner, chief executive officer of CRA, said: “The Brian White Scholarship is an ideal entry for a career in broadcast news and we encourage all graduates with a passion for radio to enter.”

Last year, University of Sydney student Dona Sirimanne was named the winner of the 2021 Brian White Scholarship. 

In her final year of a Bachelors of Secondary Education/English Literature, the student from Dundas, New South Wales, was selected as the recipient of the award from among 10 finalists from five universities, following a workshop with leading radio news directors.