Emily Bissland

Emily Bissland is the Senior Features Reporter for South West Victoria, based in Warrnambool.

Emily has worked as a visual content maker since 2007. She began as a stop-motion animator, studying Animation and Interactive Media at RMIT.

Her student film 'In The Same Boat' was an animated documentary about a hospitalised Nauru refugee and a Vietnam war veteran. It won the RMIT prize for 'Best Concept' and the Heart of Gold Festival's Juror's 'Bright Future' award. The film had an extensive international festival tour.

Subsequently, Emily worked for three years at Arts Project Australia as an arts-worker, assist animators with intellectual disabilities.

Emily's first posting with the ABC was to Mount Isa in North West Queensland. After two years of the mining-town life, she secured the same position in Warrnambool in 2012.

In 2015 she was awarded the Best Multi-Media by the Victorian Rural Press Club for her video and article 'Remembering Forgotten Aboriginal Soldiers'. In 2018, two of Emily's online videos went viral on Facebook. The 'Warrnambool Wombat Mural' is still well-loved, and the 'Old Man and The Wood' had a surprising impact, watched over 20 million times.

Emily is now a Senior Features Reporter in Warrnambool, where she documents the people, events, issues and human-centred stories from South West Victoria. She is a multi-media reporter, producing written articles, short-form video, and layered radio packages.

She has produced stories for ABC TV Back Roads, Australian Story, ABC Partnerships, Heywire, Radio National's 'Earshot', and Awaye! Podcast.

In her spare time, she plays the banjo and makes audio documentaries.