Mark Morri

2025 Kennedy Award winner for Outstanding Crime Reporting

Josh Hanrahan & Mark Morri (right)

Mark Morri is The Daily Telegraph's Crime Editor and an old fashioned journalist thrown into the turbulent waters of the digital revolution. Not only has he survived but he’s flourished becoming one of our best and most recognisable crime reporters. His is a world of tattooed big guys, shootings and blacked out Mercedes. He now leads a bunch of young and keen reporters; he has much to teach them and us and we also have much to learn.

How many Kennedys have you won thus far?

Mark: “I've only won a couple and I think two or three nominations. I've got a passion for the Kennedys’ because I believe that they bring a whole new sphere. I think we needed something that wasn't available in other award programs - a fresh approach. The Kennedy’s just seems a lot more egalitarian in the way they operate. I'll always support them because I love, the Kennedys. I still get a buzz out of it, and I love the statuette. It's fantastic to get that Spirax notepad trophy. I've won a few of them and they are really good to have - they're revered, particularly in this office.”

How did you start your career in journalism?

Mark: “It started actually as work experience at News Ltd in the advertising department in 1978 when I was at high school and then I ended up working at a shipping company and I was totally bored. Then I saw an ad for a copy boy in the paper at Surry Hills and I applied for the job and got it. I don't know why they chose me. It was literally very ad hoc in those days, I just had a very brief interview with a guy who wasn't a journalist. There wasn't a rigorous screening process.”

With all the options in the advertisements in those days, why journalism?

Mark: “I wanted to do something in maybe the media or music industry, but I'm tone deaf and I also hated 9 to 5. I never wanted to be 9 to 5, I just think I wanted to go into something that was a little bit exciting. I had no journalistic background as my father had a tyre business, so it was just random. It was literally a bit of luck. I was just looking for something not 9 to 5 because I struggled to get out of bed mainly.”

What do you remember about those days as a copy boy?

Mark: “I walked into the News Ltd building. I think it was September 20, 1980 and I just remember coming into this amazingly smoke-filled, noisy room - the newsroom, it was just wild. Just typewriters, just people screaming copy is how I described it to one of the young kids here the other day. I said it was just like a movie that just never stopped, this rolling noise that never stopped in the building. There were trucks everywhere out the front while they were loading the papers back in those days As I said, I just had this memory of excitement, it just sticks to me to this day, just the noise and the smoke. I haven't left the building since I just love it.”

How did you move from being a dog's body to a reporter?

Mark: “Well, in those days the copy kids had to do a cadet's test if they were to get a cadetship. There were about 40 or 50 of us and now you're lucky if you have 4 cadets. We used to start at 4.30 or 5:00 in the morning at the Mirror newspaper, but by 7:00 there were 5 of us on the copy desk, 5 copy boys and girls running up and downstairs with copy and getting coffee. That was just at The Daily Mirror and then you had The Telegraph and The Australian. You had to man the radio room as well -24/7. Someone had to sit on the radio listening to police scanners. You had to do the exams to be a cadet and I remember coming in the first exam I did. I actually was so hungover I shouldn't have even driven to the office and I completely stuffed it up.The guy who ran all the copy boys and girls said I did abysmally and he said, “I also heard you fell asleep during the exam!“ That should have been that but there was another exam about six months later and after that I was told I had to go and see the managing director. He said, “You've got to get it because the amount of work you must have done to improve your score is incredible.” Well, that was because I was sober for the second test, that's why I did so well. I ended up with a cadetship on The Australian of all places.”

What is it about you that on the eve of an important test to further or terminate your career, you got on the drink?

Mark: “I don't know, it was a very silly thing to do. I probably could have just been sacked on the spot, basically, for turning up like that, but it was a very, very different atmosphere, very different environment. It was pretty reckless and it does seem that back then there was a lot of self-destructive journalists, weren't they? It was a very colourful environment and there were people going over to the Journos Club in-between the 1st and 2nd Editions to have a quick beer and then come back.

All the desks had cigarette burn stains and the ceiling was yellow from nicotine. There was a cigarette machine in the office because I remember you'd have to run down and get change for the journos to buy their cigarettes. That environment was crazy and as I often say I learnt a lot. I remember my hero was Jack Darmody, who is one of the legends of journalism; he smoked Camel plain cigarettes and drank schooners at early openers while he was waiting for stories. Occasionally if I fucked up or did something wrong, Jack would say, meet me at the Shakespeare pub for a -’keg talk’. Next thing you know, we'd have two kegs out the front of the Shakespeare and a beer and he'd educate me. You’d learn a lot of your craft in the pub from those characters as a cadet.”

Give us an example?

Mark: “Well, one of the most outrageous ones was going into an early opener, the Ship Inn, while we're waiting to get sent somewhere and Jack said, “What are you having?” It was 6.20am and I said, “Oh, I'll have a midi.” When he returned has was carrying a schooner and a double brandy. Just that drinking culture, which I'm glad to say has gone because we lost too many from drinking to excess. It was a non-stop excitement machine of just going from scene to scene, from a fire to a murder to a press conference, then to a pub and then back. It was just like that for a decade.”

It's very, very hard to replace the adrenaline and the fact that every day you get up, you don't know what's going to happen next, the excitement of that, there's almost no other job like it,

Mark: “No, there isn't. You can never get over it.”

At that time being first with the story have been one of the key lessons you learnt?

Mark: “Yes, that's right. The competition between The Daily Mirror and The Sun was ferocious - there were four editions a day. You could have drop-ins, which means you could actually change between those editions, but getting it first was so, so important. The anxiety of being beaten by the opposition felt like you'd go out to The Gap. Sometimes you were filing to a copy taker while you were on a two way radio and the story was being put into the paper while you were moving to another story.

But today I have that same anxiety because of the Internet. Now I call the Internet ‘newspapers on steroids.’ It's funny how it has come a full circle in a lot of ways. I'm still petrified that someone's going to beat us and sometimes it's by seconds. Being first is so important.”

What goes with all that in the digital revolution is that the business model of the legacy media has collapsed and people have grave doubts about the future of the profession. What do you think?

Mark: “I'm still surprised newspapers are here. I'm glad as I still love them. I think it's inevitable, particularly with daily newspapers, as their shelf life is very finite. I think maybe the weekend papers may survive in some shape or form.”

How have you responded to that digital revolution?

Mark: “I can file a story and have it up in 20 minutes from phone call to being available to the public. Having learnt all that speed of news gathering back in those days has helped me now. The most amazing thing that struck me, even though I'm not very technologically savvy, was when I filled about four paragraphs on my phone. while I was in court and 5 -10 minutes later was able to look up what I'd thought about while I was still in court. There’s my story published, and I haven't moved out of the courtroom- now that's astounding.”

At 64 you’re now even on Tik Tok!

 Mark: ”I didn’t’ t even have it on my phone. Josh (Hanrahan) downloaded it, but I don't use it. They just come over and film it once a week.”

You have a team now you work with that are much younger, from your vast experience what advice would you give to young aspiring journalists?

Mark: “Don’t lose the fact that we are reporting. The story is about people and that face-to-face contact and it's about building contacts.

It's getting off your arse and going out there, you don't have to get pissed anymore. I'm claiming more money for coffee than I am for booze nowadays.

Social habits have changed these days and that includes the police force and even the crooks.”

What about having a passion for telling stories?

Mark: “I would think that nearly everyone that enters this profession has a passion for telling stories innately, that’s why they're here.  I'm driven more by curiosity than a passion for writing stories. The writing part is not my passion, which is funny - getting the story is my passion. I absolutely love it.  I consider myself a reporter, not a writer.

As for passion, I think it’s passion for the truth and for curiosity. Curiosity is what drives me and I think that's what should drive people.

At one of those schooner classrooms when I was a cadet, old Jack Darmody looked at me and told me of the five rules of journalism;

• First, you're hired for what you want to know, your curiosity - who, what, when, where and why

• Then you're paid for what you know and that you know how to ask those questions.

• Then you're paid for who you know because you've built up all those contacts. 

• Then you're paid for who you are because people know you.

• Then you're paid for who you were.

I just think, Christ, that's bleak. Luckily, I'm not at that final stage yet. I think new technologies has made me who I am and it's given me longevity”

One would assume that in your line of work one of the essentials of good journalism is contacts.

Mark: “It’s a foundation stone of the craft and you’ve got to go out and actually meet the people. Because of the Internet and social media, there are less and less reporters going out and going face to face or going to news events or meeting the people. I've got contacts that I've had for 30 years and they're now in very senior spots. I've built the trust by going and speaking to them personally -you get to know them.

Likewise, I have what I call cyber contacts now that are people invariably from the underworld who I've never met, who are giving information, invariably they'll have their own agenda or sometimes it's just narcissism. So it's the old and the new, you know?  I try and communicate with them on the Internet the same way I  would communicate over a beer. I had this one person contact me, this is at the height of the gangland war and they said, do you have ‘wicker’? And I'm thinking, what the fuck is ‘wicker’? I mean, I thought it was a broom.

I had to get my son and he downloaded Wickr for me and I ended up having like this relationship with this person, obviously a very serious crook .On the other hand I still get the odd guy go, mate, why don't you meet me and we'll have a coffee or a beer and I'll get my stories.

Again, it's that grounding from the 80s, learning how to build trust. It was a lot easier over a beer, I'm telling you, than it is over the Internet, but those skills you have to have , they're still there, but they're different.

Invariably, anytime someone says, oh, send me some questions, fuck that. Why can't I just talk to the fucking bloke? So they're the challenges for all the young people now, is not to lose those skills and not to rely so heavily on sitting in the office - you've got to get out. Face to face contact is so important.”

One could argue that newspapers are the leaders in crime reporting. How did you get into something that has now well and truly made your reputation?

Mark: “It just grew, the afternoon papers were very, very heavy on police rounds, we didn't call it crime. We were doing a lot of that when one of the crime/police reporters, Wayne Greer, died. Then Billy Jenkins, the legendary police reporter was basically retired just working a couple of days a week, when they said to me, we want you to become the police reporter basically because I drank. I hate saying that now but it's the truth. They said, look, you're going to go out and start drinking with cops,and if you're not claiming $100 a week expenses drinking with cops, then you're not doing your job. Today, that would be a work and occupational safety issue . They basically gave me a license to drink and that's what I did.

But I love crime and I love the law. I would have loved to have been a lawyer but I was too lazy and not smart enough to do the work. Let's face it, the crime reporting back then, the police- it was a glamour round. Not only could you drink and get to know what was going on in the city, hopefully, you were going to impress the young women around the town, especially back then when I had hair.”

As a beat it’s still up there as one of the most popular with audiences?

Mark: “That's right. Crime is going through an absolute resurgence now. It's always been there, let's face it, from our original TV crime shows like Homicide, Division Four and Cop Shop, there's this fascination with crime and police and mysteries. It hasn't gone away, if anything, it's increased.”

Has it also increased because crime has become more organised, more omnipresent and the people that are involved in it have become far more violent and aggressive?

Mark: “And a hell of a lot richer too. They're making so much money out of the drugs. The big problem now for us is not to glamorise these guys, which is very hard not to do. People keep saying, ‘Oh, it's so much worse now’- but I don't think it is. With the digital age you can see burning cars and people being shot on CCTV- now you can see it all. So people go, ‘Wow this is bad!’

Mark Morri and convicted murderer and disgraced former NSW detective sergeant Roger Rogerson

 I remember back in 1984-1985 where I think 8-9 people killed in a gangland war but the video imagery wasn't around then. That's why I think people have this huge perception that crime is so much bigger and worse now than it was. There's certainly a lot more money in it, there's certainly a lot more drugs, there's certainly a lot more perceived violence, but back then people disappeared and let's face it, back then, it was covered up so much more, we weren't getting to the truth anywhere near, like now. Today, you may have a police media machine worth millions of dollars trying to control what’s being told or being done. However they're being usurped by social media and now people are getting images the police tried to stop us from getting. Another reason for people thinking crime is worse today is that we're actually exposing crime more than we ever did.”

You might have a problem convincing the people of Melbourne that crime is no greater than it used to be.

Mark: “Well maybe, they seem to have a problem there but don’t forget the decades of gang wars that town had while in the past in Sydney we had the Bidwell riots, the Macquarie Fields riots, we had the Cronulla riots, there was seriously some out of control, violent confrontations going on around this city and there was the Milperra bikie shoot out.”

You must have seen some pretty horrible things in your time?

Mark: “Well the Milperra Father’s Day shootings was one. I was a junior reporter and was sent out there as most of the other reporters were celebrating Father’s Day and were half cut. I was a bit bewildered, I just remember bikies roaming around everywhere because no one had been arrested -it was quite intimidating.

The bodies had been removed but I do remember a copper taking me over to a part of the car park that hadn't even been sealed off. There was this huge blood stain with a little bit of matter and he told me he thought that's where Leanne Walters, one of the young girls who was next to the bike, was shot and killed. He said that's part of her body matter and that sticks in my head very much.

I remember the chief of staff sending me to Bankstown Hospital and said, “Oh mate, just go in and try and talk to some of the bikies who are there because their mates are dead or injured.” So there I am trying to strike up conversations with these massive, tattooed guys, who are either very angry or distraught or both and just being told to fuck off!”

You mentioned the narcissism of some of the criminal outlaws, but I suppose it could work both ways in the sense that you're famous now, and they'd be quite happy to talk to you or meet you.

Mark: “It's good and bad. I get recognised all over the place, like the time I got put in the headlock at the Strawberry Hills Hotel after a Kennedy’s Award night, by a bikie at 02:00 in the morning. That part wasn't all that good. I've been stopped a number of times by rather large men with lots of tattoo but I also get lots of compliments.”

Have you been threatened often?

Mark: “A lot more than you ever would have, you know? And the other thing is now they can threaten you via social media. It's not massive, but it's scary! Once the cops, said that they had some credible information that maybe Josh Hanrahan(fellow journalist) and I had a few problems and maybe it'd be best to leave our homes for a little while, which we did. Rupert (Murdoch) paid for a couple of nights in the Intercontinental Double Bay. It was lovely.”

Do you do you check your car though?

Mark: “I don't, but there was a time when you did. I have a lot more apprehension now about black Mercedes and Audis that are around me. I'm apprehensive and I'm a lot more vigilant than I ever was, I am careful. There was a Merc in around the corner from me that was there for days and days and I actually ended up ringing a mate in the cops. I said- hey, I know I'm being paranoid, but can you check the rego? And it was nothing.”

So how is it you're still alive?

Mark: “I just believe that the crooks aren't stupid enough yet to take out a journalist because they know the ramifications on a business level- it would not make it worthwhile. Having said that, they are so much more reckless now, they have so much more money that you know they'll spend $2,000,000 getting someone knocked off; I take comfort the fact that I don't think I’m worth $2,000,000 to anyone.”