By Ellie Harvey
The Herald dominates the list of finalists for this year's Walkley Awards with 15 nominations.
The reporters Linton Besser and Paul McGeough and the photographer Andrew Meares, each received two nominations.
Besser is a finalist in the investigative journalism category for his defence spending story, ''The wrong stuff''.
He is also nominated with Sean Nicholls and Nick O'Malley in the print news division for the story "Freebies for Labor minister" about the NSW minister Ian Macdonald.
Also in the print news category is the chief Herald correspondent, McGeough, for "Prayers, tear gas and terror".
He is also nominated in the international journalism category for "Humanitarian flotilla heads to Israel".
Meares is a finalist for best online journalism for his "Phonearoids@mearesy" series. Paola Totaro, Robert Wainwright and Simon Rankin were also nominated in this category for their piece "Pheasant Wood - The Lost Diggers of Fromelles", which appeared on theage.com.au and smh.com.au.
Along with Tim Lester, Meares is also nominated in the broadcast and online interviewing category for "Bishop's passports", "Gillard challenge", and "Hockey's costings".
Lenore Taylor's piece "ETS off the agenda until late next term" has been nominated for best scoop of the year, while Tom Allard and Jason South are finalists in the social equity journalism category for "Chained to a life of madness".
John Garnaut has been recognised for outstanding continuous coverage of an issue or event, for his work "Revealed: life inside the prison cell of Stern Hu".
And Nikki Barrowclough was nominated in the newspaper feature writing category for her piece ''Julian Assange: Keeper of Secrets''.
The Herald photographer Quentin Jones has been nominated for "Smoke" in the daily life and feature photography section. Edwina Pickles was commended in this category for "Backstage at Circus Oz". And Glen McCurtayne was commended in the general news category for "Rudd Tear".
Two photo essays that appeared in the Herald also made the finals: Jack Picone's "Battle for BKK" and Jason South's "Chained to a life of madness".
In the magazine feature writing category, David Marr has been nominated for his Quarterly Essay piece, "Power trip: The political journey of Kevin Rudd", while a piece in Good Weekend, "For the love of Niki", by The Age's Andrew Rule, also made the final.
The business reporter Paddy Manning was commended in the business journalism category for "The planet-saver that's still just a pipe dream".
From The Sun-Herald, Adrian Proszenko has been nominated for best sports journalism for his story "Melbourne Storm rorts salary cap".
The winners will be announced on December 9.