By Beattie Tow
Two-time Walkley Award-nominated journalist Nathan Morris has built a career fuelled by a genuine passion for regional storytelling.
Morris has been a regional reporter and video journalist for the ABC for over a decade.
“I want to prove that we can actually make career in regional Australia, as opposed to just a stepping stone,” said Morris, who grew up on a farm in Moree, a north-western NSW town of less than 8000 people.
“I’m still very true to my roots.”
All about the hustle
Morris started out in the film and TV industry as a production assistant. The skills he developed in this early part of his career would ultimately serve him well in journalism.
“In the film industry you just hustle,” he said. “If you’re no good at networking … you don’t get another job.
“That’s what journalism is right? You hustle and pester and try to get to the bottom of something.”
Morris had always been drawn to documentaries and long-form videos. With a film degree and unfinished post-graduate diploma in journalism, he started applying for jobs with the ABC.
Initially, he had little success.
“Didn’t get that job, but that was enough for me because I had a few emails by then … I had some names.
“I had an in.”
True to his word, Morris hustled and kept his name top of mind.
“The door didn’t completely shut on me.”
Morris played to his strengths and found his in by applying for ABC Rural.
“That’s my edge, because I can walk in two worlds. I can do city and I can do country.”
After proving himself while on work experience with the ABC in Hobart, he landed the role of open producer in Kalgoorlie. In this remote gold mining town of Western Australia, Morris launched his journalism career in earnest.
A decade on and now based in Toowoomba, Queensland, Morris admits that rural reporting is a “great training ground”, but also passionately makes the case that regional journalism can be your long-term career.
Working with community
As a regional journalist, he sees a different side to Australia then most. While filming his latest story, Morris found himself down an opal mine studying plant fossils in Lightning Ridge.
His recent feature, Rainbow Bones, saw him spending a week among this mysterious community, where miners and palaeontologists alike study fossils that are hundreds of millions of years old.
Beyond the story, Morris has a personal connection to this remote NSW town.
“As a kid in Moree, Gran would pick us up on the way out and we’d go there [to Lightning Ridge] all the time, and spend hours and hours as kids trying to find opals and going down holes.”
When asked how he gains trust and insight into a community such as this one, Morris points to his childhood as where he learned to talk to just about anyone.
“I learnt to do that hanging out with my Pop as a kid … we’d just talk to strangers, Pop would talk to anyone and have a yarn.
“I’m just insatiably curious, I want to know everything about everyone. Sometimes it can be interpreted as being a busybody.
“I can read that.
“I think I’ve always been a good read of people, I can go with my gut. If I sense something is not right or someone is not up for it I just back off or I confront the problem, like ‘are you okay, is there a problem?’.”
His frankness and candid approach are a key ingredients to his success in gaining trust and access into otherwise isolated communities, including First Nations people during some of their darkest moments.
“You can’t just get in the office, make a phone call and shoot that day. Like that takes weeks and months, and sometimes it takes me driving hours and hours and having a yarn and a cuppa with someone … they’ve just got to get a feel for you. Otherwise they’re not going to talk to you, or share with you, or give you anything meaningful.
“I’ll defer to all the old people, if they don’t want me there, I’m not there, or if they don’t want something filmed.
“We have a yarn about it afterwards and talk about how we’re going to present it, and make sure everyone is cool.”
Morris’s final piece of advice is to “be on the ground and meet people where they’re at”.
“To get those relationships you just gotta be there … prove you’re in it for the community.”
Featured image: Nathan Morris sets up a camera on location. Photo: Nathan Morris
