Jane Cowan is a photojournalist based in Melbourne, where she works on digital storytelling for ABC News. From 2010 to 2015 she was one of the ABC's North America correspondents, stationed in Washington DC. In 2015, she was part of the Foreign Correspondent team that exposed an unscrupulous surrogacy operator exploiting women in Mexico and defrauding American couples — an award-winning investigative report which was subsequently followed by the New York Times on its front page. But it was in country New South Wales, on Queensland's Gold Coast and in the Northern Territory that Jane cut her journalistic teeth. On Black Saturday in 2009, she was the first television reporter into the destroyed town of Marysville where many of the bushfire's 173 victims perished. Her coverage of the devastation and the resultant inquiry won multiple rewards, including for sensitive reporting of traumatic events. Over her 15-year career, Jane has reported for the ABC from India, Argentina and Mexico as well as across the United States. With a degree in social work and undertaking a masters degree in photography, Jane was recognised as a 2016 finalist in the documentary/photojournalism category of Australia's Top Emerging Photographer awards. She spent the summer of 2016 photographing and telling multimedia stories at newspaper The Virginian-Pilot. Her interest is in the power of photography to move audiences and get beneath the surface of stories.
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| UpdatedHannah Macdougall was once rejected from a school because of her prosthetic leg — but it later was used as an unofficial class mascot. She's since gone on to represent Australia in both swimming and cycling.
Topics: youth, community-and-society, sport, paralympics, disabilities, cycling, bentleigh-3204, vic, melbourne-3000
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| UpdatedMelbourne is planning for hundreds of new apartments in the inner city, and more than a dozen new suburbs in the outer sprawl. So how does family life in the booming centre compare to the expanding fringes?
Topics: urban-development-and-planning, community-and-society, family-and-children, family, southbank-3006, mernda-3754, melbourne-3000, vic
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| UpdatedEven in its dying days, Victoria's 52-year-old Hazelwood power station contains a few surprises for the uninitiated. The ABC takes a look inside as hundreds of workers deal with the impending shutdown, and the loss of the place where they've spent decades of their working lives.
Topics: unions, government-and-politics, unemployment, community-and-society, morwell-3840, moe-3825, vic
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Francis Ventura says running projects overseas is "the most unsexy work you can imagine". But that hasn't stopped him from founding a school in Pakistan from the suburban home he shares with the women who inspire him: his mother — a domestic-violence survivor — and the "queen of the household", Nonna.
Topics: community-and-society, charities-and-community-organisations, reservoir-3073, melbourne-3000, vic, italy, pakistan
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| UpdatedAs research suggests homelessness is costing Victoria $194 million a year, we speak to some of the hundreds of people sleeping rough on Melbourne's streets about how they ended up there and what they do with their days.
Topics: homelessness, community-and-society, drugs-and-substance-abuse, mental-health, melbourne-3000, vic
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| UpdatedHairdressing pays the bills for Zebulen Howell, but his passion is music. The former X Factor contestant didn't even expect to get past the reality TV show's auditions, but the 23-year-old now dreams of winning a Grammy.
Topics: community-and-society, social-media, internet-culture, information-and-communication, youth, st-kilda-east-3183, melbourne-3000, vic
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Imagine a future where you use an app to order a driverless car. It knows the traffic conditions and avoids congestion, adjusts its speed to catch all the green lights and allows you to read or watch TV while it takes you to your destination. It might not be that far away.
Topics: community-and-society, computers-and-technology, science-and-technology, urban-development-and-planning, lifestyle-and-leisure, lifestyle, automobile-enthusiasm, melbourne-3000, vic, australia
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| UpdatedAt 24, Danielle Weber still pinches herself when she says she paints for a living. Working from a studio in her parents' suburban home, her portfolio ranges from a logo on a barbershop wall, to a painting of a fighter jet pilot done for a client in the Middle East — but she keeps the dark self-portraits she painted as a teenager hidden away.
Topics: contemporary-art, arts-and-entertainment, community-and-society, social-media, mount-waverley-3149, vic, melbourne-3000
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| UpdatedGet ready Melbourne. The massive $10.9 billion Metro rail project will deliver two nine-kilometre rail lines from South Kensington to South Yarra via the CBD, and five new stations. But what will it mean for the grand southern entrance to the city?
Topics: urban-development-and-planning, community-and-society, st-kilda-road-melbourne-3004, melbourne-3000, south-yarra-3141, south-melbourne-3205
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| UpdatedBusinesses and residents around part of Melbourne's St Kilda Road are nervous about the impact of the city's Metro rail project, which will see trees ripped out, trams re-routed and a giant construction pit dug in the ground.
Topics: states-and-territories, state-parliament, community-and-society, urban-development-and-planning, st-kilda-road-melbourne-3004, south-melbourne-3205, south-yarra-3141, melbourne-3000
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With abs, an uncanny likeness to actress Alicia Silverstone and one million-plus followers on Instagram, Steph Smith has a life that glows on social media. And not just because of the backlit screen.
Topics: community-and-society, social-media, youth, melbourne-3000, vic
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| UpdatedA mother tells her story about raising a baby inside Victoria's Tarrengower Prison, where the other inmates are the child's immediate family, if only temporarily.
Topics: prisons-and-punishment, law-crime-and-justice, family, family-and-children, community-and-society, babies, drug-offences, crime, maldon-3463
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| UpdatedIn the wake of yesterday's fatal crash, locals say they are concerned suburbs around Essendon Airport do not have enough of a buffer zone if planes have problems.
Topics: disasters-and-accidents, air-and-space, essendon-3040, vic, melbourne-3000
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| UpdatedA Melbourne man says he and his wife were lucky not to be hurt after a plane that crashed into the side of a shopping centre exploded just 20 metres from his car.
Topics: disasters-and-accidents, accidents, air-and-space, essendon-3040, melbourne-3000, vic
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As locals on Melbourne's south-western fringe fight plans for a youth justice centre in their suburb, the ABC speaks to residents of Ararat, in Victoria's west, about what it it is like to live near a prison.
Topics: prisons-and-punishment, community-and-society, regional, law-crime-and-justice, crime, ararat-3377, vic, melbourne-3000, werribee-3030
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| UpdatedHardcore Guns N' Roses fans come out in droves to see the rock 'n' roll heroes of their youth together on stage again.
Topics: music, community-and-society, melbourne-3000, vic
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| UpdatedFormer Supreme Court judge Bernard Teague, who chaired the 2009 Victorian Bushfires Royal Commission, reflects on how he coped with being confronted with devastating evidence about the disaster.
Topics: bushfire, royal-commissions, community-and-society, royal-commission-victoria-2009-bushfires, vic
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Gary Hughes had a distinct experience of Black Saturday, as both a reporter and a victim. The journalist won awards for his coverage of the disaster, but struggled with the way the media treated people who had lost everything.
Topics: bushfire, community-and-society, st-andrews-3761, vic
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| UpdatedAs Victoria's Police Commissioner during Black Saturday, Christine Nixon says she never tried to avoid the public scrutiny that came her way after a scathing assessment of her leadership on that fateful day.
Topics: bushfire, police, community-and-society, vic
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| UpdatedAs one of the fire chiefs in charge on Black Saturday, Ewan Waller was hit hard by the tragic events that unfolded and says he is yet to fully recover from the emotional toll.
Topics: bushfire, community-and-society, vic
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| UpdatedThe accounts of loss and bravery that lawyer Jack Rush uncovered during the Black Saturday royal commission are no less heart wrenching with the passage of time.
Topics: bushfire, community-and-society, royal-commissions, vic
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| UpdatedMeet the under-12 girls from the Flemington Junior Football club, who are following in the footsteps of their AFL Women's heroes and say they're "probably a little bit better" than the boys.
Topics: australian-football-league, sport, women, melbourne-3000, vic
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| UpdatedVeteran bushfire scientist David Packham fears Victoria is more vulnerable to a bushfire tragedy than ever before, despite what the state learnt in the years following Black Saturday.
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| UpdatedEight years after Australia's worst natural disaster, bush has reclaimed the bare hills and the collective memory is fading. But what about the healing? In part one of a seven-part series, the ABC speaks to Joan and Leon Davey, who lost four loved ones in Victoria's Black Saturday fires.
Topics: bushfire, fires, disasters-and-accidents, kinglake-3763, vic
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| UpdatedAs the Victorian Government prepares for a conscience vote on assisted dying, one woman fights for her right to have a choice.
Topics: euthanasia, health-policy, ethics, death, melbourne-3000