Tony Koch began work as a shorthand writer in the Hansard and Court Reporting Bureau, and joined Queensland Country Life newspaper in 1976. He spent fifteen years as chief parliamentary reporter with the Courier-Mail, ten of of them as president of the Parliamentary Press Gallery. He has won numerous journalism awards, including multiple Walkley and Dalgety Australia awards, and an Australia/Japan Foundation Scholarship. In 2007 Koch was named Journalist of the Year for his coverage of the death on Palm Island of Mulrunji Doomadgee.
