198: Gabriel Morris

Nostalgia Interviews with Chris Deacy

My guest this week is Gabriel Morris, Video Journalist at KMTV. We begin by talking about our Cardiff connection, and learn that Gabriel, who is originally from Hertfordshire, studied Geography in Liverpool and went into broadcast journalism. We find out where the spark for broadcast journalism came from, having grown up as a child with watching BBC Breakfast News each morning.
Like me, Gabriel used to pretend he was reading the news from teletext. We also learn why Gabriel likes to watch himself back, and he gives away one of his tricks of the trade.
Gabriel talks about his hospital radio work in Liverpool which he did for nearly two years up until the pandemic, and about the music he played and the on-air puzzles he did with the listeners. He has also done student radio, and he built his own studio in his student bedroom and was involved with ‘mission impossible’ challenges.
We learn that he would like one day to return to radio, and we hear Gabriel’s thoughts on zoo radio and find out what happened once when Gabriel left the station without handing in the key.
We talk about the intimacy element of radio and the role of podcasts. I explain too why I prefer live radio, and Gabriel talks about why it can work even better when things go wrong.
We find out that one of Gabriel’s reports was once picked up by The Sun and Gabriel reflects on how at the age of 15 he had interviewed James Cleverly, Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell.
Then, towards the end of the interview, we discuss whether Gabriel knew what path he was on when he was younger (we find out that his dream job was to be a pilot) and we learn whether he is a looking back or forward type of person and how doing the interview has made him rethink his answer to that question.