Zac Nikolovski, an undergraduate student at University of Technology Sydney, is the winner of Democracy’s Watchdogs’ 2025 award for student investigative journalism.

You can read his story here about a publicly-accessible online system complete with interactive maps for locating and buying cannabis and other drugs. It describes how a US site for medical cannabis was converted into a digital operation to make buying cannabis as easy as ordering a pizza. Interesting. Well done Zac!

Congratulations also to highly commended students Madaleine Mansfield from Ara Institute of Canterbury – New Zealand Broadcasting School and Katherine Everest from University of Melbourne. You can read their stories here.

Thanks to all the students who entered this year. The judges were impressed by the quality and variety of the stories and were delighted that so many students are doing journalism that matters.

We’ll be back next year so please keep us in mind and don’t be shy – you never know.

Best wishes for a happy, relaxing and peaceful festive season.