With the latest bastardisation of infotainment TV News vomited upon us with Paddy Gower Has Issues, we are all reminded of just how important our public broadcasters are. Journalists working for the public good as opposed to whatever will distract citizens and mollify consumers.
Here are the Top 10 Public Broadcasters in NZ:
10: Kiri Danielle – Live Talkback Radio Waatea
Kiri’s talkback on Waatea is a breath of fresh air. It is rare to have someone as ethically solid as Kiri hosting anything but it is always a deep discussion on issues that matter. Her own environmental stance as someone focused on doing the mahi before the talk marks her out as a unique human as well as talented broadcaster.
9: Jenny-May Clarkson – TVNZ Breakfast
Her emotional intelligence during very tough interviews mark her as a unique talent. There really is only one reason to watch TVNZ Breakfast now, and it’s Jenny-May. She is faultlessly kind and respectful but hard as nails when she is demanding accountability for a marginalised group. She manages all this without a hint of elitism of condescension.
8: Corin Dann – Morning Report
Being the host of Morning Report means being the journalist of record. Dann has always wielded that power professionally, without mercy or malice, because when he asks a question, the answer matters. Always balanced but ruthless in pursuing an answer.
7: Claudette Hauiti – Radio Waatea’s Parliamentary Press Gallery Reporter
Aunty Claudette is a senior Māori journalist almost unparalleled in her contact list of flax root organisations throughout Māoridom. Her experience, expertise and time working inside NZ Current Affairs marks her as one of the most important voices in NZ Broadcasting!
6: Moana Maniapoto – Te Ao with Moana on Māori TV
Easily the most intelligent Current Affairs on TV, Moana’s must see weekly current affairs show on Māori TV is the smartest broadcasting this country has. This country would be a vastly better place if this was on prime time TVNZ.
5: Jack Tame – Q+A
All year Jack brings true insight into our political landscape via Q+A and his journalism marks Q+A as the Jewel in the Public Broadcasting Current Affairs Crown of TVNZ.
His interview with Police Commissioner Andrew Coster at the beginning of last year as he desperately talked down middle NZ from using the military to indiscriminately sweep the protestors from the lawns of Parliament, literally saved us from ourselves.
At a moment of true panic and threat, where the middle classes demanded the military be used to clear the lawns, Jack calmly leaned into the debate and made us all understand what the ramifications of that decision would actually provoke.
His journalism talked us down from committing to a police action that would have required so much extreme violence by the State that we would have almost inadvertently triggered a civil conflict within our own whanau.
That takes true courage and true journalistic excellence.
4: John Campbell – TVNZ News
God defend New Zealand (and John Campbell). When my black cynical splinter of a heart hardens and doesn’t want to be compassionate, his journalism and empathy melts my anger with insight. His recent expose on ram raiding youth was heartbreaking and deeply poignant at a time when political parties are openly fighting over how young they can put ankle bracelets on them. His journalism makes this country a measurably better place. We are a poorer people without his work. Whenever I need hope, he delivers.
3: Julian Wilcox – The Hui TV3
There are so few Broadcasters with the mana of Julian. From his effortless polish and old school broadcasting performance skills to his ability to ask well researched questions and gaining answers that speak to the lived experience of his audience. He is such a class act and The Hui remains one of the most important current affairs shows on TV.
2: Kill Him – RNZ Saturday Morning
Disdain and intellectual contempt have never sounded so delightful. It’s like being tortured over brunch by a very demanding upper class Mother-in-law over why you haven’t got your shit together yet. Her constant tone of disappointment feeds the masochism of living in NZ. She is the classic Kiwi Aunty weaponised, like the Topp Twins, but with a machine gun. She is the voice of educated NZ that demands more and we love her for it.
1: Barbara Dreaver – TVNZ Pacific Correspondent
Bab’s is a god damned national cultural treasure! Her body of work every single year marks her journalism and her ability to pull NZs attention towards the current affairs of the Pacific as the benchmark for Fourth Estate values in this country. The range of issues Barbara Dreaver covers from natural disasters to geopolitical machinations to domestic internal dynamics, her range and skill as a Journalist is true dedication to the craft. She is such a humble person and her stories are always focused on the ignored voices. She deserved this years Reporter of the Year at the NZ TV Awards.
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The rot started in the 1990s. No more proper voice training, thick regional accents gone uncorrected, and crass commercialism everywhere.
Notice how none of those people have the voice and gravitas of Bill Toft? They look like absolute schoolboys next to Tom Brokaw and Dan Rather.
At least Dougal Stevenson is still on air, albeit banished to a tiny local U.H.F. station.
One of the problem is that modern media, is they are full neoliberal participants, with young journo’s entering on less than minimum wages with zero contract hours and not being under any experienced senior journo as they have all been let go (unless woke or teflon neoliberal types). You are better paid with more rights as a fruit picker than a new journo.
Journalism is not really a career to go into – thus thus we have naive youth journos getting by with rewritten Facebook trawls and plagarising other people’s news.
As a reader – it is generally not worth bothering with NZ news – too woke and advertorially driven, to be news. Never a new idea, just the same crap, rewritten from the last 30 years. Sometimes a few exceptions but NZ news is more fiction and captured, than helpful.
It is well worth a few dollars to get a snap shot of foreign news where they have a few new ideas to read – even the foreign free ones are often too woke now to bother with (propped up by government/taxpayer money) while the less woke media, and those that have real stories or news, are actually attracting readers who will pay if they price it right.
If this is all we got, the Fourth Estate clearly died a long time ago.
As part of Five Eyes cabal, our journalists must now be nothing more than a mouthpiece for neocolonialism, militarism, hyper-capitalism and feudalism. Fully compromised, these propagandists now launder ideologies for their puppet masters, peddling their proceeds of crime at home and abroad. War atrocities, state terrorism, economic sadism, racism, psychological warfare, political interference, hypocrisy and crime are dutifully reimagined by the media as reports of liberation, emancipation, patriotism, strength, sacrifice, virtue, entitlement and forgiveness. It’s an upside down world of gaslit fantasy and dangerous make believe. Our journalists have arrived.
i used to think John Campbell was a shameless hack, dramatising issues and empathising up the wazoo to sell a story. He used to make me cringe. Now however, he has attained near Godlike status because at least he has some skills and the journalists around him are just that bad.
Barbara Dreaver yes but Jack Tame bleh. He is improving but he has a very long way to go and is such a smug git that I wont be checking in often to check that improvement.
Kim Hill, a great journalist but absolutely ruthlessly biased and treats almost everyone with the same active disdain. If this was 50 years ago, the Stasi would headhunt her to run their interrogation programme.
I think Anna May Francis does a better job of asking questions. Clarkson looks like she is about to burst into tears if the subject is remotely somber.
I have to say it , and yes I suppose its completely sexist, but Kiri Danielle does not have a face for radio.
An average lot Moana Maniapoto id definitely the most intelligent and professional amongst this lot.
I agree about Barbara Dreaver. She really really knows her stuff re the Pacific
Campbell was needed in the Key years as the media began to drop the ball asking questions of Teflon John (Key).
And Campbell bravely did.
But media failure is 100x worse now as the media also went full woke and took the $55 million to run government lines. They are all in the same insulated elite bubble speaking woke gibberish.
The left ARE the government and the bureaucracy and (almost all )the media and we need media to ask thise in power the hard questions, and that’s now down to people like Hosking (who I couldn’t stand in the Key years) and Plunket (“what is a woman” being the hardest punch thrown in a long time) , because left media are cowards and won’t rock their own boat.
When John Campbell does a tearful follow up on homelessness and people living in cars under the Labour government (hint= 4 times worse) just before the election for maximum effect, then he can earn some credibility back, until then he’s just another (tearful, shakey) wet lefty partisan voice with a platform, failing to hold government to account.
And we’ve got lots of those.
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