By Grace O’Rourke
Palos Verdes High School

A young girl sitting in front of a camera for her middle school’s morning show broadcast had no idea she would be setting the course for her future and the time to come. Years later, that girl would go on to co-produce a Student Emmy Award-winning documentary about one of the most devastating school shootings in Georgia history, where she would overcome the difficulties of sitting face to face with grieving families, asking the questions that nobody wanted to answer, so that she could tell the story that needed to be told.

“The first thing that drew me to journalism was communications,” said Morgan Hardy, a second-year graduate student at the University of Georgia’s Grady college of Journalism and Mass Communications, “and for me, communication is learning about other people.”

Hardy who earned her bachelor’s degree in journalism and mass communication from Grady, along with a minor is sociology and a certificate in news literacy, has spent years turning that curiosity about people into a career. From broadcasting daily news announcements in high school to launching her school’s newspaper, Hardy has never stopped chasing stories.

At Grady, those instincts were put to the test in the deepest way possible. Hardy served as a producer and social media producer for “We Will Rise: The Story of the Apalachee High School Shooting,” a documentary that earned a Student Production Emmy Award. The project required her to interview grieving families and community members who witnessed the tragedy firsthand, something she describes as one of the hardest things she has worked on.

“Interviewing those families and people in that town was really tough,” Hardy said. “What they saw firsthand was really hard to swallow.”

As someone who feels deeply, Hardy had to find a way to keep going. “I’m an empath so when people are really upset I kind of feel that too, just hearing the graphic details, that was really tough: to set my emotions aside and ask the questions, knowing its gonna hurt.”

She learned quickly that there was only one way through it.

“I really learned you can’t go in head first,” Hardy said. ” My toughest thing was going in small and taking baby steps, making them feel comfortable to even talk about something like that.”

That same patience and willingness to adapt has defined how Hardy approaches journalism as a whole. When asked about figuring out what kind of journalist she wants to be, her answer was simple. “You won’t know until you try,” she said.

That openness to trying led her to UGA, a decision she says changes everything. “If I didn’t go to UGA, I don’t think I would’ve had as many opportunities,” Hardy said. “It’s so incredible that a school has so many connections.”

For someone who simply started wanting to connect with others, the journey has exceeded every expectation.

“So far so good,” Hardy said. “It’s opened so many doors I never knew could be opened.”