Islander scribe Gorton the epitome of local journalism
Kangaroo Island lives a stunning yet rugged existence.
It’s also an isolated existence despite there being only 120 kilometres between Adelaide and Kingscote — the de facto capital of Australia’s third-largest island.
While the ferry from the tip of the Fleurieu Peninsula to the island’s port in Penneshaw is a pleasant one, the time-consuming journey is usually enough to deter mainland media coverage.
This isolation leaves KI’s approximately 4500 residents with a reliance on the island’s only newspaper, a weekly masthead aptly titled The Islander.
Stan Gorton has been the sole journalist at The Islander for the past three years, the latest stage in an eclectic career which began in the United States before spells at regional papers in Port Lincoln and Narooma on the New South Wales far south coast.
For Gorton, the island’s remoteness and natural beauty lends to his journalistic preferences, as well as his love for the outdoors.
“I don’t like living in the city,” Gorton explained.
“I like living in small towns and I like doing the whole paper myself. I like fishing, the outdoors and nature so it’s just the natural thing to do.
“I think you could say I like being a big fish in a little pond.”
The Islander has somewhat of a media monopoly on the island which leaves Gorton in the privileged (and pressurised) position of being the key trusted source of news on Kangaroo Island.
“It’s quite unique. We have nothing except The Islander,” he said.
“Facebook is quite big here so I guess I see that as the main media competition really, the local Facebook groups. There’s a radio station though they don’t really do news.
“There’s no ABC on the islands. I really hate when The Advertiser shows up every now and then. I am surprised the ABC don’t do more. The Advertiser do a bit, but I don’t read it.”
Despite more than 20 years in written journalism, Gorton hasn’t been one to shy away from using more modern media platforms in order to tell a story — a practice which held even greater significance during the devastating 2020 bushfires which burnt through half of Kangaroo Island’s 4405 square kilometres.
“I have always been an early adopter of technology,” Gorton said.
“I remember back in the day at Narooma I was one of the first to start using Facebook and live streaming and all that kind of stuff. I saw it as the natural progression of things and the way [journalism] is going.
“I’ve always had a Youtube channel, but now I am trying to focus a bit more on it so whenever I go out somewhere I’ll try and do a video as well.
“During the bushfires, it was all Facebook. That’s how people were keeping updated.
“People said they really liked what I did and I kept them up to date with everything through my channels and my connections. It’s just another example of how technology is changing the way people get their news and interact with it.”
The Kangaroo Island bushfires, which burned from late December of 2019 through most of January, proved to be a defining period in Gorton’s career with his reportage of the hellish event earning him a nomination for a prestigious Walkley award in the category of coverage of a major news event or issue.
The ABC ultimately took out the gong for their coverage of the bushfires nationwide, however, the nomination was just reward for Gorton’s commitment to his adopted community.
“My first day of leave was when the fires started and then it just kept going,” Gorton recalled.
“I felt an obligation [to return from leave] because it felt like the whole world was burning down. People here in Kingscote were worried [the fires] were going to come here and then I looked at my family who live down on the south coast [of NSW] at Tathra and Bermagui and they were literally digging trenches on the beach.
“I received a lot of positive feedback at the time and that made me enter the Walkleys because I never would have really thought about entering, but people said I really should.
“It was a perfect example of how local journalists can really do their bit. We don’t always have disasters [to report on], but it’s also true of the smaller weekly stories like development and things like that — if I’m not reporting on it people probably won’t know about it.
“I was amazed [to be nominated]. One of my old editors texted me at 6 am [the day the nominees were announced] and I was like, ‘Oh wow,’ because I had forgotten about it. I was up against the whole ABC who ended up winning it which is fair enough because I was watching them constantly through that time, but I say being nominated is the highlight of my career.”
Bushfires aside, Gorton’s time on Kangaroo Island has had its challenges from transitioning to working from home well before it became the norm due to Covid-19, to staying onside with everyone in a tight-knit community.
“It’s a very small community. There’s only 4500 people here so you actually know everybody,” Gorton said.
“You can’t burn any bridges. I have strong feelings on certain things. I am very anti-development, I want things to stay as they are and that means I can clash with certain people who want it to develop a bit more.
“But, I think I have earned the respect of the community and I don’t have any problems going into the supermarket or anything like that.
“When we lost the office people were worried we were going to lose the paper. I’ve been working from home for almost three years and I really like it. I knuckle down on a Monday and Tuesday when I am actually doing the print edition and it gives me the rest of the time to have the choice of being at home or going out.”
Gorton’s experience with tiny newspapers makes him more qualified than most to offer an opinion on the significance of town, or in this case, an island, having their own masthead and the journalist, who has journeyed a long way from his birthplace in the West Australian Pilbara, believes the role of the reporter is just as important now as it has ever been.
“[A local newspaper] is the barometer of the health of a community, a bit like a canary in a coal mine,” he said.
“If you have a local newspaper, you have a debate. A paper is going well when you are getting letters to the editor because people are having their say.
“I think newspapers are still very important. The younger generation may not read it as much, but when you rock up to the footy they still want their photo taken.
“They used to have these surveys about the most trusted professions and journalists, used car salesmen and real estate agents were on one end and nurses and cops were on the other.
“It’s the Fourth Estate so if you don’t have journalists, you don’t have democracy. That’s on a grand scale, but at a local level, if you don’t have a journalist I think the community is missing something.”
