Nas Campanella: ‘I do not need to be cured or fixed’
Nas Campanella has never shied away from talking about her disability. But after landing her dream job, the vision impaired journalist wants to shift the conversation from disability to discrimination.
Stellar
Don't miss out on the headlines from Stellar. Followed categories will be added to My News.
- Deborra-lee Furness: ‘I don’t want to be judged as Mrs Jackman’
- Why Elizabeth Gilbert knows what her obituary will say
Nas Campanella is a respected journalist, has just landed her dream job, is happily married and has an adoring network of family and friends.
And yet, on a regular basis, the 31-year-old is confronted by strangers on the street, desperate to offer their condolences.
“I’ve had people get on their knees and start praying for me,” Campanella tells Stellar. “[But] every time someone does say something inappropriate, or whatever it might be, I use it as an opportunity to explain to them that having a disability does not mean my life is terrible. I do not need to be cured or fixed.”
Campanella has been vision impaired since she was six months old, when the blood vessels in the back of her eyes suddenly burst, causing her retinas to detach and leaving her only able to make out some light and shadows.
But, Campanella says, growing up in Western Sydney with a “very big, loud Italian family” quickly taught her that having a disability didn’t mean she should be treated differently.
“I had parents who did not wrap me up in cotton wool at all,” she laughs. “Anything that was expected of everyone else was expected of me.”
Afternoons were spent listening to audio books and the radio, or sitting beside her brother in front of the television, hanging on every word as he described the details of the movie playing on the screen.
But in the outside world, it was another story. Campanella was conscious of the stigma attached to her disability; and as a result, she was reluctant to use the cane that helped her navigate her surroundings.
“I already felt different and I thought the cane made me look different,” she explains. “Especially as a young girl, you just want to fit in.”
Still, Campanella loved school and while she was “pretty switched on, very curious and always asking questions”, she hit a roadblock as she tried to learn to read braille. “I did have periods of feeling down about being stupid,” she says.
It wasn’t until Campanella was around 10 years old that she was diagnosed with Charcot-Marie-Tooth, a hereditary neurological muscle condition that explained the near-total lack of sensitivity in her fingertips and hands, and her subsequent struggle to learn braille.
With new systems in place that utilised aural technology instead, Campanella excelled. Her desire to make a difference in the world coupled with an insatiable hunger for news, propelled her towards a journalism career.
Graduating from the University of Technology, Sydney with a Bachelor of Communications, Campanella had top marks and a wealth of internships on her CV.
But when she would reach the interview rounds of prospective jobs, she grew dismayed at how many potential employers were unwilling to hire her.
“It was frustrating and also depressing at times because I’d worked really hard,” she says. “Lots of people in the disability community had told me about the d-word – you know, discrimination – so I always kind of knew that I had to work hard because there was this added layer of complexity that I was going to face.”
She went on to win a cadetship at the ABC in 2011, and after a year was sent to Bega on the NSW south coast for a regional placement. There, she met her future husband Thomas Oriti in the newsroom.
“We hit it off straight away,” Campanella recalls. “He was incredibly supportive from the second I met him, and has been there for some really tough stuff. I think what’s especially great is that he has never seen my disability.
“He’s always just seen me as a person – as the journo and the silly, funny person at home who loves yoga and fashion and cooking and travelling. We talk about everything, and we laugh a lot.”
Once back in Sydney, Campanella began work as a newsreader on Triple J radio from 2013, her dulcet tones becoming a familiar and reassuring sound for thousands of Australians. Behind the desk, she honed a wildly intricate method for delivering bulletins, which involved simultaneously listening to four audio streams while also producing.
MORE STELLAR
EXCLUSIVE Ben Fordham: ‘I’m asking for trouble’
Why Carrie Bickmore is already missing iso
“There was lots going on,” she says. “I had to be good at multitasking. But it became a habit – just another day in the office. I’m a newsreader like others; I just do it in a different way.”
Campanella made the decision to leave the station earlier this year, and her departure was understandably bittersweet.
“I underestimated how emotional I would be,” she says. “I sort of felt ready, but then I walked into the studio and it was filled with flowers, balloons and champagne, and people physically distanced to watch my last bulletin. I found it hard to hold it together. Triple J is where I grew up.”
She now steps into a role as disability affairs reporter for ABC News, bringing stories and issues on the topic to the country. “I almost feel bad that I’ve gone from one dream job to another,” she laughs.
“But I could not be more honoured to take this on. For too long, there have been these low expectations of people like me, and having these stories out there ensures they aren’t invisible.”
Given that one in five – or more than 4.4 million – Australians live with a disability, Campanella hopes the tales she shares can provide a counterpoint to what she refers to as the “inspiration porn” that often dominates media coverage of disability.
“There are still a lot of people who find it baffling that those with a disability want to be working, or want a relationship or children – that they want the same things every other person wants.
“Being blind is a big part of me, but it’s not who I am. It was only later on that I felt like I could embrace that part of me, and love it. I wouldn’t change anything.”
Nas Campanella is the disability affairs reporter for ABC News.