Adele Ferguson has won Journalist of the Year at the annual NRMA Kennedy Awards for journalism, honoured for her work as part of a joint ABC-Fairfax Four Corners crew that exposed wage fraud at 7-Eleven stores and unscrupulous tactics used by CommInsure.

Last year, ABC's Four Corners program and Fairfax revealed workers at the convenience stores were systematically paid about half the minimum wage. Many of those affected were foreign workers.

The convenience store chain set up an independent panel to assess the claims of about 20,000 past and present workers from the convenience store's franchises.

Four Corners also revealed a culture at CommInsure of doctors being pressured to change their diagnosis of terminally ill customers, customer files mysteriously going missing, genuine claims of people in desperate circumstances being refused and a whistleblower being sacked.

The 7-Eleven story won the Outstanding Investigative Reporting Award, while the CommInsure investigation took out the Outstanding Finance Reporting Award.

The ABC figured strongly in the awards, claiming another several honours including regional broadcast reporting with Joanna Woodburn, radio reporting with Giselle Wakatama and TV current affairs with Caro Meldrum-Hanna, Clay Hichens, and Mario Christodoulou.

Sarah Dingle, Joel Tozer and Jaya Balendra were recognised for consumer affairs reporting and Bill Code won for outstanding online video.

Retired 7.30 producer Phil Kwok was also recognised with an outstanding team player award.

Kennedy Foundation chairman Simon Dulhunty congratulated all finalists for setting exceptionally high standards with their entries, saying the awards celebrated the very best in journalism.

"This Kennedy Awards is now something very special and significant for the state and country's media and their families," he said.

"They have grown beyond a tribute to a special person and are today unique event, celebrating the best of professionals making their best of journalism."