Yaara Bou Melhem

Yaara Bou Melhem is a multi-award winning broadcast journalist who has worked in the remotest corners of Australia and around the world.

In 2011, she was named the Young Australian Journalist of the Year by the Walkley Foundation for her reporting from Syria, one of the highest honours that can be bestowed on young journalists working from Australia. Yaara also took out the International Journalism category at the prestigious Walkley Awards that same year for her series ‘Struggle for Freedom’ on the Arab uprisings.

Yaara’s first short documentary saw her awarded the Young Australian Television Journalist of the Year in 2009. She was nominated again for the award in 2010 for her stories on asbestos contamination in an Aboriginal community. She won the2011 UN Australia Media Peace Award for best TV Current Affairs and has previously been a four-time finalist for best TV reporting from the Middle East.