Hannah Higgins spent much of her first month at The Area News “crying her eyes out”.
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She didn’t mind the long hours – she wanted to thoroughly research her work, give both sides a far go and present a creative slant on every story.
But then she got home and faced Facebook.
“I don’t think the Internet brings out the best in people,” she said.
For the first time in her life, her work faced scrutiny on the most public of forums, and the trolls were brutal. They’d pick out the slightest thing – perhaps a “p” that should’ve been capitalised – and tear her work to shreds.
Her mum Denise Higgins said, “she called me one day, sobbing, and told me ‘mum, I don’t want to be a journalist anymore’”.
But Hannah Higgins wouldn’t be defeated. She gave up reading Facebook, and worked even harder on her articles.
Her talent and work ethic were quickly recognised by her editors – just months into her first journalist job she was covering the supreme court murder trial of Marianne Parker.
“I don’t think many cadet journos get to do that,” she said.
Blending glamour and rigour, Higgins called herself “journalist barbie” – and would tackle the toughest assignments.
“I remember covering the floods in Barellan, and a farmer piggy backing me to his house because I wore heels.”
Hannah grew up in Goolgowi, and her mum Denise predicted her future early.
“At the age of three she would walk around with a note pad and pen asking questions. When she was four she wrote to John Howard expressing her support for gun reform,” Denise said.
“I knew she’d be a journalist or a lawyer – she loves to argue and she can do that in both”.
Hannah got her law degree, but the rigidity of legal work was never going to satisfy her thirst for storytelling and creative expression.
After 18 months at The Area News, she is set to go out on top – with an ability to write six quality stories a day, and go home and make lunch for the other journalists she sees struggling with deadline.
Next week, she moves to Sydney to take up a job at AAP. We hope she’ll be back one day. A country girl who has lived in Turkey, France and England, Hannah will always call Griffith home.