Thom Cookes
Director
Thom Cookes is an award-winning journalist and filmmaker based in Melbourne, Australia. He has worked for the BBC, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, and the Fairfax newspaper group. Since 2002 he has been with SBS TV’s Dateline program, Australia’s longest-running international current affairs program.
In 2002, he won a Walkley award, the highest prize in Australian journalism, for his coverage of the chaotic 2002 Papua New Guinea elections, in which more than 60 people died. He has continued to cover Melanesia and the South Pacific for Dateline, interviewing many of the region’s main political figures.
Like all Dateline journalists, Thom is a solo operator, both filming and reporting long-form (18-30 minute) stories from remote, and at times hostile locations. In January, CNN launched its new documentary series, World’s Untold Stories with Thom’s film, A Very Thin Blue Line, about the difficulty in recruiting and training Iraqi policemen despite staggering casualty rates.
