How one photo can make a $1000 difference

Photos have been in the news around the world over the past week. Well, let me tell you the photo above is very special to us here in the Daily Liberal newsroom, and there was no use of Photoshop involved.

For International Women's Day last week, offices around the ACM network were asked to mark the day by sending in a photograph of their team displaying the IWD symbol.

Deputy editor Landy Ruming whipped the newsroom into action and along with one of our photographers, Belinda Soole, they made the picture above happen.

We weren't alone though. The response from around the ACM network was phenomanal and in the end the judges could not decide between our photo and another taken of ACM's Ag Features & Special Publications team. So we were one of two joint winners.

ACM has donated $1000 each to both team's nominated women's charities. Our local women's refuge, The Orchard, was our charity and we're thrilled to be able to support them in this way.

Meanwhile there was plenty happening in news this week.

Among the stories that were my favourites was the Sarah Falson's report that looked at the latest data on Dubbo Base Hospital. It was concerning to learn that emergency waiting times were getting longer, when the number of patients presenting to emergency was lower than the previous period, which it was compared against.

Sarah had another interesting story that parts of Dubbo will be included in an upgrade to the NBN network, set to see internet speed increase massively.

Two journos, Ciara Bastow and Allison Hore, have spent the last month looking into the issue of youth crime Dubbo in an effort to bring readers more information than just the superficial reporting on the problem.

Their first youth crime story was published this week, coinciding with an announcement from the state government that it plans to take action, and it provided some fascinating perspectives on the problem.

Finally, I'd like to remind you we encourage readers to have their say on our stories by leaving comments beneath the stories online. We love hearing from you!

Thanks for reading and have a great week.

Laurie Bullock

Editor, Daily Liberal

Pictured above (from left) are editor Laurie Bullock, deputy editor Landy Ruming, Ciara Bastow, Sarah Falson (on the screen), sports editor Nick Guthrie, Tom Barber and Allison Hore.