Here’s the best weekend reading/listening/viewing list going around: the 2013 Walkley Award finalists.

The media’s jaundice over awards is well-placed. But we can put our bitterness aside at not getting a nom (robbed!) to acknowledge some bloody outstanding work. It’s been a stellar year.

Like the forensic reporting of Gerard Ryle’s International Consortium of Investigative Journalists and its offshore trusts database; Patrick Carlyon’s powerful Herald Sun yarn on the aftershocks of war; Kathy Marks’ elegant Griffith Review essay on Tasmania’s indigenous history; Sarah Dingle’s heartbreaking Background Briefing documentary on child sex abuse; ABC Beijing correspondent Stephen McDonell’s compelling work out of China; a litany of scoops from crack Age pair Nick McKenzie and Richard Baker; Kate McClymont’s relentless digging into NSW Labor; Caroline Wilson’s vindicated pursuit of the Essendon drugs scandal; the probing interview technique of Ten’s John Hill in bringing down a Liberal dud; the multimedia storytelling of The Guardian; and stunning images from our best photographers and camera operators.

And all that in a year that delivered two monumental scoops that shook Australia and even foreign diplomacy: Foreign Correspondent‘s Prisoner X revelations and the extraordinary work of Newcastle Herald reporter Joanne McCarthy that led to a royal commission into institutional child abuse.

Newsrooms are sacking more journalists than they’re hiring. But the ones that remain continue doing important, inspiring work.

And at least the Walkleys aren’t the News Awards.