Later in the show, her husband Mike Hosking came on to add his own derision to the mix.
“What we’ve done is whip ourselves into this extraordinary frenzy,” he said, adding that in Wellington 100km/h winds is just “a breezy day”.
“We panic,” Hawkesby replied. “We’re almost in a state now where we want to be told what to do all the time, and we almost enjoy it where it’s like ‘hunker down, don’t go to school, don’t go to work’. We almost enjoy the panic.”
The pair did go on to concede the possibility of some damage in coastal areas.
Around the same time as Hawkesby and Hosking were guffawing at the “hysterical” reaction to the cyclone and scoffing at the media telling people it would cause destruction, TVNZ Breakfast’s newsreader Chris Chang was informing people of the damage it had already done.
“Cyclone Gabrielle is already causing major disruptions across the North Island,” his bulletin began. “Many homes are without power. Transportation across Auckland has been limited, and many schools have opted to close.”
Over on Newstalk ZB, the hosts continued to poo poo the cyclone’s impact as the day wore on.
On her mid-morning slot, Kerre Woodham lambasted those schools for deciding to close for the day.
“What message does this send to our children? Yet again their education must be sacrificed for the greater good, be it Covid, be it floods, be it cyclones, there are greater priorities than education.”
Her talkback caller Tim couldn’t have agreed more.
“The morons plead it’s for the health and safety of our little poppets,” he said. “What are they going to do next: say that counselling’s available because we know your children will be very anxious about all the water.”
“Thank you Tim,” replied Woodham.
She went on to side with a caller who complained his daughter’s school was closed on Monday and Tuesday in Napier.
“I was madly refreshing that stupid cyclone app all over the weekend and then I thought ‘what’s the point in doing this’,” she said.
“If it’s going to happen it’s going to happen,” the caller replied.
“Exactly,” Woodham said. “I don’t need to know.”
Napier was one of the hardest hit areas in Cyclone Gabrielle. Homes were destroyed and several people died in the area, including a 2-year-old who was washed away just north of the city.
Despite Woodham’s pronouncement that “nothing has happened” on Monday morning, the headlines on TVNZ’s Midday bulletin immediately after her show ended were quite decisive in saying things were in fact happening.
Jenny Suo led the show with the announcement that 58,000 people were without power across the top of the North Island.
Thousands of those homes without power were in Woodham’s hometown Auckland, with the majority north of Orewa.
The situation was worse in Northland. Nicole Bremner crossed live to the show, standing in front of a growing expanse of floodwater.
“It’s very wet. It’s very cold. People are being asked to stay off the roads. We know there’s a lot of problems with communication. We’re having problems getting people on the phones. We know one of the big cellphone towers is out, and of course there is electricity cuts to homes too,” she said.
Unfortunately some couldn’t watch that informative, responsible reporting from Bremner and the TVNZ team.
People in homes that had lost power could only get the radio – and some were relying on Newstalk ZB for information.
One of Mediawatch’s listeners, who asked to be named only as Jim, said he could only pick up the talk station’s signal at his home in Northland.
He was alarmed to hear its hosts were more focused on Auckland school closures than the escalating flooding, power outages, and dangerous winds people were experiencing in his area.
That obsession with schools persisted into the following day, even as New Zealand woke up to the wreckage left by Gabrielle overnight.
Hawkesby’s editorial early on Tuesday morning once again honed in on school closures.
“So the rain is hitting Auckland city now, but yesterday between 8.30 and 3pm when there was hardly any rain or wind and I wondered why kids in all the unaffected areas couldn’t have been at school,” she said.
“Yesterday turned out to be an average rainy day. Yes I get it, precautions. It’s better to be safe than sorry, but seriously, if this is a pattern of weather we’re going to get more of, then we need to adjust our attitudes to it.”
Twenty minutes later, TVNZ crossed to reporter Tessa Parker, who delivered the news that landslides had destroyed homes and buried people in Muriwai.
“Fire and Emergency has already told us that two houses have collapsed in this coastal suburb this morning, and we understand that people are currently trapped.”
Both of those trapped people – volunteer firefighters Dave van Zwanenberg and Craig Stevens – died.
Meanwhile on her Newstalk ZB show, Kerre Woodham relitigated her earlier point about school closures, in esponse to a listener criticising her earlier stance.
“Where areas are affected, they can make their own decisions, and where areas are not affected, they too can make their own. You clearly disagree and that’s fine, but I just don’t believe all of Auckland should be shut down because some suburbs have been terribly affected and some have no and that is the very nature of storms.”
That is the nature of storms, and unless Woodham is sitting on a method of perfectly predicting their path, timing, and intensity, then there’s an argument that it’s better to be safe than sorry.
“They can thrive on contrarianism if they wish but in times of crisis, they have a responsibility to concentrate on clear concise comprehensive information rather than their commercial interests,” former New Zealand Herald editor-in-chief Gavin Ellis told Mediawatch this week.
“To switch that culture off may be very difficult for (Newstalk ZB) but I think they’ve got to try. By and large the media concentrated very much on what is happening to people and what they need and how can they be helped to recover,” he said.
“I think that those are the imperatives that need to be concentrated on this week and maybe next week. If you’ve got information that can help people, let’s hear about that,” he said.
Our news organisations likely saved lives over the last few days by taking that fact into consideration, informing and warning people about what turned out to be the most destructive cyclone in a century.
In its aftermath they’ve navigated technical challenges to tell the stories of those hit hardest by the disaster.
The Gisborne Herald put out a paper to every house in the city despite not having power in its building. Newstalk ZB’s NZME stablemate Hawkes Bay Today overcame similar difficulties to put out free editions of its own. Newstalk ZB itself scrambled to broadcast Civil Defence information and news updates in Hawke’s Bay on 96.7FM after its regular FM and AM frequencies were knocked off air.
They all provided a vital public service.
But in a storm that killed people and destroyed homes, some front rank hosts in key time slots at our most popular national talk radio network obsessed about a missed day of school.
Education is a wonderful thing. But perhaps it’s not our students who most need to sit down and take on board some information from people better informed than they are.
RNZ
I whole heartedly agree .This was brought up on the National Radio on Sunday and they played extracts of what was said on the radio by these puffed up,idiots. zThe messages they gave out were wrong and as you say people could have died .They should be called to acvount
talk radios constituancy is dumb fuck conspiracy theorists so they cater to them…hoskins would say the world is flat if they paid him to.
Radio NZ is my main choice for serious listening .The only host I find worth listening to is Marcus Lush in the evening.
Some of the callers do confirm Darwin’s therory of evolution .
The rot set in after 1987/88 when 1ZB moved from being a community middle of the road focused station to copying the US talkshow format.
Hawkesby is an utter light weight who should stick to her level of expertise. The Royal Family. As for Hosking, he’s an insufferable know everything so expecting him to admit he was wrong here just won’t happen. As for the rest of them, they operate in a sad echo chamber of boomer moaning and groaning. They probably need to replace Marcus Lush though as he seems to be the only ZB host with any ability to think critically. Liz Gunn should do nicely.
Tim Roxburough has been good pushing back somewhat, as well as Marcus
“Mi Cockskin” and “perma tan Kate” really are the ultimate media channel pests. It appears they are well paid by their masters to basically push a right wing political line, but under the guise of populism.
Hoskings, Hawkesby, and Woodham. Sounds like a firm/partnership dealing in absolutely worthless opinion. At the end of the day that’s all their delusional rantings are. Worthless opinion. Trouble is, somehow this is branded like they have a clue, which couldn’t be further from the truth.
ALL stations were useless during ChCh earthquake. We’ve only had 13 years to do nothing about it.
Meanwhile civil defences own website doesn’t even desribe the scope of this cyclone emergancy. Their first post since the 14th was yesterday, and about mayoral funds. They do tell you to go regional, but they don’t link to any of them – and in this multi region national emergency the only region they mention is Auckland.
Yeah fwits saying saying there is no problem is a whole new level, but the people whose job it is to organise disaster response and inform the public don’t inform the public at all. And idk about the cyclone, but chch CD just took down sector post signs – that was CDs “response”. Loathe as I am to admit it churches did a better job.
And what came of the ChCh CD fuck up? Cell phone screeching. Which subsequently has gone off either at the wrong time, or not when it should. Not that it’s useful: can’t read it while it’s screeching, can’t get the message back after stopping the screeching. But at least we don’t have a national radio station to tune into, and no govt dept updates their own website so I have to try Stuff/socials to get announcements. When it comes down to Chris Lynch and Reddit having the fastest inform times… phew.
tbh I’d rather stay home and die than deal with any of this useless shit.
This won’t get by the mods. Traumatised friend in Napier, electricity-less, said Civil Defence there were useless, likewise the Mayor, and that the police did all the hard rescuing and safety stuff. Has access to police comms, and tracked what was happening and it has been harrowing. The above media behaving like spoilt self-absorbed brats have some explaining to do, the public deserve better.
if we had german style civil defence it would help but it costs money so not happening in NZ
Gagarin. We used to have good volunteer civil defenders regionally; I was one, deputy warden, and welfare officer, with regular exercises, letter boxing and so on. I’m sure there still are, and that not everybody is as idiotic as these effete media types.
You have an army. Where the fuck are they? Oh, yeah, this countries civil defense is based on volunteers.
nowt wrong with volunteers if they have decent kit and PAID training days…the german civil defence gets ex-firebrigade which isn’t that old so are a viable 2nd line, of course as our fire brigades are a patchwork….????
I watched the chch earthquake live on tv mods, they had reporters out on the street after the 1st shock so they were there for the big one….ch1 I think, they cancelled the regular programming to go live…can’t speak for radio I was glued to the telly.
We were without power for weeks, and water for months. Radio had no useful info, they were filtering any help not CD sanctioned, and CD weren’t doing anything useful. Water points, free food, laundries, etc – nothing useful provided by or passed on by offical channels.
No idea what the TV had to say. I was listening to peoples stories about their cats, playing solitaire by candlelight, and shining torches at randoms walking passed my house. That is when I wasn’t almost setting the deck on fire using emergency cooking I’d never touched before, or at work (my workplace had a shower, bless).
I’m talking about as it happened not the follow up mods
I am uncharacteristically speechless. These dumb broadcasters prioritising their own ignorant opinions over the facts of what was happening out in the broader community should, at the very least be fired, right now. Hugely irresponsible, and possibly a hindrance to others in providing for their own safety and well-being.
To Damn right .
It was irresponsible to the extreme and yes they should be prosecuted.
Mike and Kate are NZ’s Tucker and Laura.
Sharing the same despicable attitudes.
This is what you get when the MSM played the fearporn program during CovidCult.
The boy who cried wolf.
When there is no trust there is no trust. This is the partisan nature of our current discourse created by Ardern and her enablers.
Refreshingly it appears Hipkins doesn’t to date want to play this game; That said words are cheap and actions aren’t.
Frank the Tank. Hipkins is a real person, not a public relations product or celeb culture wallower, a former school teacher. We got preached at previously by the alleged sole source of truth, but broadcasters should still have been able to ascertain the difference between the two scenarios.
Your such a funny bugger, talking about partisan nature when you’re the worst at it who comments here.
Whale oil and ZB were the instigators of partisan reporting, not the fucking government – it’s odd from the nz right: on one hand labour are useless, next their the worlds best and most effective political actors.
But I have to say Frank the Tank your utter lack of self awareness is funny as fuck, you make me laugh.
The other day Frank you had a great self reflection. You said you needed to wake up ( actually you said “wake me up” but you are asleep either way), You can’t blame the media for Hoskings and Hawkesby being total tossers. That’s what they are, and I would say they are the MSM. This discourse is created by stupid old pricks
Ahh the typical right wing pushback. Forget Ardern and Hipkins. This is a about Newstalk ZB gobshites. No ifs or buts and multiple lives lost all the while the arrogance of hosts critically downplaying the warnings based on ignorant right wing ideology.
Hosking was wrong about John Tamahere’s trust, wrong about not crashing his car and wrong about Gabrielle. It really shows how delusional some are to hang off every word of the Tucker Carlson wannabe.
I am glad to see u commenting on this thread ?I know you are Hoskings favourite Listener
Thanks Trev glad you agree
Yes Hosking’s biggest fan.
Bob promotes lying.
Perfect response Bert. Right on the button as per usual.
Almost every other commentator above echo pretty much what we all think of Hosking and Hawkesby and I agree with Sylvain above about Hosking not admitting that he was wrong and your commentary about what Hosking has in fact been wrong about.
Hawkesby actually believes she is important and a celebrity. Oh dear, I guess delusional behaviour is becoming common place amongst some presenters on ZB, including Heather Du Plessis-Allan and her boring husband, who get their support from the right wing unintelligent cabal.
Now that person Kerre Woodham has joined this despicable duo. What would she know about weather patterns and destruction? I wonder if she and H + H will do a public mea culpa and apologise generally as well as specifically to those people whose lives were destroyed by the big rain and then Cyclone Gabrielle.
I think my very young school-age nephew’s comment, when I explained to him what this trio had said in a way that he understood, sums it up – “I want to sick on their sandwiches.”
Media Awards scooped by Hosking.
First award for lying
Hosking an Co are a bunch of rotten cunts someone should drop a load of silt on their homes
Disgraceful comment.
Bob truth hurts ??
All of yours are disgraceful Bob.
No the truth hurts no one.
Using foul language demonstrates a limited vocabulary.
Actually Bob the “fowl “ language is very apt for a bunch of chickens aka. Hoskins and his chickens . Sorry to the chickens of NZ !!. Hoskins chickens would be the first to run away at the first hint of danger.
Poor wee Bob, time for your nappy change
Childish.
Everything you write is childish Bob, grow up, turn 5.
I’m really unsure why anyone would listen to them. They are experts in nothing but are sufficiently narcissistic that they can’t recognise this in themselves.
The experts predicted 960 hPA and multiple weather models predicted the cyclone would track along the eastern coast of the North Island. This in fact is exactly what happened albeit the timing was slightly out. Anyone with half a brain prepares for the worst in this scenario.
I think the authorities did a reasonable job all things considered although clearly our infrastructure needs attention.
So ZB were complacent and acted like dicks. Now we can choose not to listen to them (a choice I made long ago for other reasons). You should be all for that. And criminal negligence? There would be some serious causation issues with that idea, so calm the farm.
Another problem is that RNZ has no credibility to be casting these kinds of stones. Shock horror that ZB displayed serious shortcomings. What would a legit Mediawatch find if it ever examined RNZ carefully? The show has been a joke for at least 5 years.
” “What message does this send to our children? Yet again their education must be sacrificed for the greater good, be it Covid, be it floods, be it cyclones, there are greater priorities than education.”
Doesn’t she get it ! everything has been sacrificed up there , homes , livelihoods , and for the time being education.
The pandemic and now these weather disasters its not business at usual.
Horrible Hosking Hawkesby and the NZMW entitled management need to leave their comfortable well remunerated existence and actually start by going down to these disaster zones and get a a taste of real life by enduring the hardship that their regular listeners are now grappling with and see what responsible reporting and journalism not IMHO bullshit they should have been providing before the cyclone hit.
NZME of course will not be held accountable because we don’t do responsibility in NZ. We run a mile before anyone is held accountable which is why we have the Mike , Kate and Kere show.
They probably didn’t want their investments to go DOWN!
Absolutely % agree
”This won’t get by the mods.”
Well stated!
It makes a change from the normal over-egged hysteria from the media
what part of the floods is ‘over egged’ in your opinion andrew? do please elucidate
They are trying to be NZ’s Fox News. Bet you that if Paul Holmes was still alive, he would be trying to be Tucker Carlson.
Interesting debate. Terrible show from ZB. A bunch of us use weather apps for boating and we knew 10 days before it hit that it would be big trouble. We saw it coming down from cairns. Where was state owned Niwa and MetService with sternest public warnings. Where were the public messages on tv – if you live Anywhere near or in a riverbed area, pack up and leave! Watch the next thunderstorm, the authorities will suddenly go nuts with warnings and messages.
well rotton cabbage I was aware it was on the way maybe 4 days ahead just from listening to the 5 oclock news.
The earlier Auckland deluge was unprecedented and I hadnt experienced rain like it. It is reported that more than 60mm fell in one hour which is about 1 in 50 year event. What made it a 1 in 200 year event was that that same intensity was for a continuous 4 hours – it was unprecedented. It is unlikely we will experience that rainfall again.
Marcus Lush was amazing sharing information during the storms. This was the most vicious cyclone I have experienced – Bola was similar but not as severe, a Cyclone in the Islands only lasted for 3 hours. When I woke up early in the morning, Tory Tim Beveridge was talking politics. Then that commentary about Hawkesbury and Hosking and Woodham followed with foolish uneducated opinion that ignored the cyclone destruction and was contrary to the TV. They managed to blame Labour for some issues. I was waiting for Jacinda to be blamed for the storm. Are they locked in the TV room with no access to news.
Right wing radio hosts are generally uneducated especially with scientific and engineering issues and dont ask questions or get qualified person on TV. I note when the right wing found out that the increasing of truck loads from 43 to 57 tons in 2010 by the TORY party caused the potholes and damage to the roads, the discussion was immediately discontinued.
Tory talk ZB needs raving left wingers on the airwaves to balance the right wing fools whom are promoting hopeless Luxon and dumbo Willis and the tory party..
Hoskings & Hawkesby just doing their normal spreading misinformation and fake news.
So true Joseph, they are the Fox News of Aotearoa.
Now write something about slash, the forestry industry, the logging companies, the green party and the labour party who is still having he pleasure of wasting away a full majority and the utter lack of regulations.
No fuck off. Focus on this subject you twat. Clearly you can’t see past your blue rinse world. What of Hosking, Hawesby, come on, see if you have the intellect?
Award winning radio programme,Hipkins broadcaster of the year again.
Unfortunately he cannot predict weather outcomes much like everyone else involved in this catastrophe.
Then why did he comment knob Bob?
You are a fucking disgrace trying to protect your idol.
Climb back under your rock.
You use disgraceful language exposing the uneducated person that you are.
So you can’t answer MHK question exposing the uneducated person that you are
Media award winners.
Out of two radio stations competing that’s awesome!
How many actually listen to these fucks. But slash, that is actually a killer. Mike Hoskins in not coming down hills to take away bridges and bury whole region under the rubbish the logging industry leaves behind.
Seriously, do you think shortland street is an actual hospital too?
RB this is about misinformation on national radio 2ZB . These are supposedly adults. They collectively put people at risk with their fake news, people lost their lives, their homes and their livelihoods . Hows about they apologize to the people in the affected areas for their trite remarks. Better still hows about they get sacked.
Reactionary Queeny, is using the art of deflection, true right wing subterfuge
The forestry industry actually does something useful.
Name one useful thing conservative/neoliberal trash do.
The great defenders of the Victorian Colonial Bigoted Status Quo that “elected” the Boomer King; who had been sidelined as the forgetful doddery old fart that he is, perhaps thankfully. But that is leadership in this “city”. Just listen to “C*nts are still running the world”. We are of no worth to the wealthy elite and we never will be of any other worth than the sweat and arthritis that we suffer for the greatness of the mighty whitey NZ Incorporated sold down a river since who knows when. Gabrielle is another hint from nature that humans have abused their position for too long, and we do not have much longer to prove that we care. ZB is yet to get that memo because they still suffer from a odd belief in a pale, absent God.
the sad thing matt is you are as stupid and bigoted as those you target…oh and a racist prick.
It’s quite simple …all move to Tova and the gang on Today FM…stop listening to the ZB trolls
The truly terrifying thing for me personally is that I’m surrounded by morons who listen to ZB etc. And they breed, vote and whizz past me going in the opposite direction in their dreary little plasti-cars with the boring car drivers signature expression where they look like they’ve just realised that all hope is lost. They freak me out man. I never knew AO/NZ was one big head injury ward. When Kim Hill was got rid of, I knew there were dark forces at work. Mike Hosking…. I mean… what a sour, witless, little man. His voice reminds me of a dry hinge on a shit house door. To some, though, I suppose, his style of address is humorous, like his clothing, but really he’s just an abrasive substance and not that much of it either. His job is to rub people up to get them spit flecked, red faced and bug eyed. He’s like a shit recreational drug bought off an unknown dealer that turns out to be all side effects and no fun.
RNZ’s crap too. Listening to tedious bloody Kath Ryan is like being slightly nauseous while never managing to actually vomit just to get it over with. She has anti-wit. When she tries to be witty, she leaves a weird kind of vacuum that makes my ears ring and I can’t understand why I can’t laugh for a week afterwards no matter what I watch on YouTube.
But lets be honest here. We have nine multi billionaires who found their money once they sold our shit and four retail banks stealing billions of dollars off us in net profits annually so what should we expect? Intelligent, committed to the truth media entities doing a professional job of appealing to we, their target audience? Or mean, boring, over paid dimwits flapping their tongues while wanking?
U should be a talk back radio host country boy.
Yes on ZB.
Feral lunatic ZB
Biggest listening audience in NZ?
Most libel cases against ZB.
Absolutely disgraceful, irresponsible and irrelevant highly paid buffoons.Should be discredited and charged for irresponsible broadcasting during a national disaster.
Absolutely disgraceful, irresponsible and irrelevant highly paid buffoons.Should be discredited and charged for irresponsible broadcasting during a national disaster.
Absolutely disgraceful.These overpaid radio celebrities should be charged over putting people’s lives at risk during a national disaster.