Tyla Harrington
Tyla Harrington is editor of the Gold Coast Bulletin and covers education with a focus on how school life connects to the broader community. Her work brings together newsroom leadership experience and on‑the‑ground reporting about students, schools and their local institutions. A background in regional newspapers and recognition through the Hegarty Scholarship shortlist give her a firm grounding in community‑driven coverage.
School Formals and GC at Large
In her GC at Large coverage of the Trinity Lutheran College Class of 2026 formal, Harrington reports on a senior school cohort marking a key milestone in their education journey. The story is anchored in a specific college and year group, emphasising the students and their formal event as part of the lived experience of schooling rather than treating it as a generic social occasion.
This visible strand of her education coverage leans into student milestones and the social side of school life, making the atmosphere and participants of particular events central to the narrative.
Education and Community Institutions
Harrington’s role includes building relationships with key local institutions, such as spending time on site at the city’s airport to understand its operations, accessibility initiatives and future growth plans. She moderates public conversations about the future of the region and innovation, including a Future Gold Coast 2026 event and a panel at a global drone show that brought together civic leaders and university experts. These engagements inform an education lens that treats schools as part of a wider ecosystem of infrastructure, technology and opportunity shaping the paths available to students.
Her education reporting sits in this context, connecting what happens inside classrooms and school communities to the civic, economic and technological environment around them.
Regional Newspaper Background
Harrington has built her career in regional newspapers, with experience across titles such as the Riverine Herald and the Cairns Post and recognition through industry awards programs. That background underpins her approach to education reporting, keeping attention on local stories, named schools and real student cohorts rather than abstract debates.
As editor of the Gold Coast Bulletin, she brings that community focus to the masthead, shaping front‑page treatments and ongoing coverage while continuing to write pieces on schools and young people. The combination of senior editorial responsibility and hands‑on work with education stories means her coverage reflects both the priorities of a news leader and the detail of everyday school life.
4 more education journalists.
Bridie Short
Bridie Short reports on how learning environments shape young people’s experiences and their engagement with wider issues. She writes about education for Lynn News, a local news publication with a focus on community stories. Her coverage centres on classrooms and other learning settings, with attention to the people and events that define daily life there. She has written about drama students paying homage to the climate emergency with a performance, framing their creative response as part of their educational experience and blending arts coverage with an education lens. Her education reporting sits within a broader community news agenda, linking school and college stories to general news. Her pieces are grounded in concrete events and activities, showing what students and staff are doing rather than focusing on abstract policy.
Catherine Strohfeldt
Catherine Strohfeldt reports how education policy, money and behaviour collide in Queensland classrooms and childcare services, focusing on what government decisions mean for students, families and teachers day to day. She is an education reporter at Brisbane Times covering schools, universities and early learning alongside related state policy. She often starts with a single school, subject or provider to explain shifts in funding, discipline and workforce conditions, treating suspension statistics, surveys and on-the-ground accounts as complementary evidence. Her work links school fees, capital funding and teacher pay deals to who can access which schools and on what terms. Her beat extends into childcare chains in crisis and university leadership and governance. She also covers Queensland government, planning and environmental issues, showing how housing, health and coastal decisions reshape the communities in her education reporting.
Charles Bliss
Charles Bliss is a features-led reporter at the Eastern Daily Press whose distinct focus is education told through human stories about schools, pupils and the adults who work with them. He writes about what it feels like to be in a classroom or school community, using specific events, characters and concrete activity to show how reading, creativity and wellbeing are encouraged in young people. His education coverage centres children and teachers rather than policy, turning visits, campaigns and workshops into narrative pieces with practical detail. He gives particular weight to wellbeing, mental health and sensory learning, linking health, psychology and horticulture through tangible examples. Alongside education he covers health, environment, behaviour, everyday guidance and local innovation, using plain explanation, step-by-step advice and narrative structure to show how people learn, adapt and look after each other in their communities.
Conor Duffy
Conor Duffy stands out for linking education policy to the daily lives of students, parents and teachers, treating the classroom as part of a wider social system. He is the ABC’s national education and parenting reporter. His beat spans schools, universities and family life. He covers education policy, test scores, rankings, funding, teacher workload, behaviour, school refusal, student wellbeing and parenting stress. He reports on NAPLAN, university rankings, the Job Ready Graduates legislation and the cost of humanities degrees. He also covers privacy and school data. His reporting combines hard data, policy detail and personal stories. He has also done foreign, environment and investigative work for the ABC, including as North America correspondent, and has worked across Lateline, 7.30 and AM.