The voice is calm and confident.
But what Triple J listeners across the country don't know
Is that this newsreader can't see one word of the script she's delivering.
Twenty four year old Nas Campanella is blind.
Not only that, she can't read Braille.
So Nas Campanella presents 3 minute news bulletins on the hour by listening to an audio translation of copy
through her headphones
[Screen reader] The New South Wales policeman who blew the whistle..
and then repeating what she hears..
"Senior New South Wales policeman who blew the whistle on allegations of a coverup of
"child sexual abuse has admitted he lied to colleagues because he was suspicious of their motives."
I am reading about a second or two behind.
It's hard because the speech program has an American accent
and it's a sort of computerised voice
so there's that to contend with
and it pronounces things, sort of incorrectly most of the time.
She doesn't just present the bulletins but produces them as well.
Operating the panel with the help of strategically placed velcro dots
while listening to four different streams of audio.
In the headphones I can hear myself.
I can hear the speech program telling me what to say.
I can hear the audio grab that I have to play on air.
and then on top of that I can hear a clock telling me how much time I've got left to go
It's fine usually during bulletin but at the end of the day
after reading five or six bulletins in a row
my ears are a bit kind of sore and it's all a bit much, so.
What about you're brain?
No the brain learns to deal with it.
Well I think it's quite remarkable
Heather Forbes is responsible for hiring and training
ABC cadet journalists.
Her brain can process that information in a nanosecond
and if a sighted person tries to do it
you just cant. I don't know how she does it because I've tried it myself
and I just couldn't do it.
Nas Campanella lost her sight at 6 months of age
when blood vessels burst at the back of her eyes, damaging the retinas.
It was due to a genetic condition that also affected her younger brother
Ben, but his sight was salvaged thanks to laser surgery
which wasn't available to Nas.
I think it's been a little bit traumatic
for Mum and Dad, especially early on because,
I guess they never really met someone with a vision impairment.
Had no idea about what I'd be capable of doing.
Or what services were out there in order to get me through life
but they've always been really supportive. They've never wrapped me up in cotton wool.
I've always had to do everything like, you know my brother or my cousins
Work experience in community radio sparked a passion for broadcasting.
and Nas Campanella went on to graduate with a journalism degree
from the University of Technology in Sydney.
It was difficult to find a job, any job, at all.
Because you know, I looked good on paper in terms of all the voluntary experience I had in the industry
and my resume looked great, the samples of work I had looked great.
But it wasn't until I got to the interview stage when they found out I had a vision impairment
it was like, all of a sudden, they just changed their attitude.
It was a big no basically.
And it was pretty heartbreaking.
In 2011 her luck changed and she beat a field of 700 applicants to win one of
ten cadetships on offer at the ABC.
She had determination and she doesn't take no for an answer.
and she's got curiosity
She can write very well, she's got a beautiful voice
beautiful brodcast voice
and in the end I said to myself "If I was her and I didn't have sight and I wanted to be
a journalist I'd want the cadetship." So there was absolutely no reason to not give her the cadetship.
How did you feel when you got the phone call to tell you had been given a cadetship?
There were tears. Pretty happy.
They were willing to take a chance I guess when no one else was
and they've done everything they possibly could to make it
work and I couldn't have asked for anything more
During her cadetship, Nas Campanella reported in the field,
became proficient at court reporting and spent a year, like all ABC cadets, working in a regional
newsroom, Bega, New South Wales.
Nas Campanella is the first ABC cadet journalist who is blind
and she's breaking new ground in the way she delivers the news.
I just think it's fantastic and I think, you know, she's a great
role model for anyone else out there who wants to be a journalist and
hasn't got their sight.
But Nas Campanella isn't trying to a role model, just the best journalist she can be.
I just like it. At the end of the day I go home and I feel good about my job and I look forward to it the next day.
It's a dream come true really