Political editor Jessica Mutch McKay leaving 1News, TVNZ
Jessica Mutch McKay is leaving TVNZ after more than a decade at the broadcaster.
The 1News political editor took over from Corin Dann in the high-profile role in 2018 and has led coverage of two elections.
Before her time as editor, Mutch McKay worked as a gallery reporter, a general reporter and as Europe correspondent for 1News.
She also spent time with Q+A during her years at TVNZ.
Jess is off to be the mouthpiece for ANZ and seeing as John Key runs ANZ, he’s probably had a hand in her appointment.
With global recession and existential threats around the corner, you need a mouthpiece for the Bank to explain why we can’t windfall tax them but need to bail them out.
It’s easier to convince Kiwis we need to bail the banks out if you have a former State Broadcaster telling you.
I was never really impressed with Jessica’s political journalism, I always considered it very watered down and safe. The whole ‘Jessica, then Tova’ routine highlighted the competition between the head girls rather than actual journalism.
Her election debate last year was awkward and irrelevant.
Maiki Sherman is being put up as Jessica’s replacement which would be a dreadful decisions. Maiki has zero charm and would be a giant leap backwards for TVNZ. In a year that will be as political as this one will be with a hard right racist Government in power, TVNZ needs a political editor that is more than a virtue signal for identity politics and is actually led by someone with journalistic mana, and that is John Campbell.
TVNZs next political editor will need to lead a charge against this Government’s culture war revenge fantasies, John can do that, Maiki certainly can’t.
Will TVNZ step up to this new Government or will they appoint someone who won’t do that?
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Thanks for the heads up – I hadn’t realized that TVNZ still did news.
Ha, very good, I tend to agree. NZ journalism died years ago.
Oooooh bitchy!!
Yes … and her comment during the 1st Leader’s Debate to Luxon that she was, ” loving his energy”, said it all really …
She was a lightweight shill at best, and her staged sit down reports/spin, between herself and the frantic Simon Dallow on the 6pm News, were toe curlingly shallow journalism, that left you none the wiser other than confirming where their political allegiences lay…
Good riddance i say , and yes, the fact that she has been head hunted by ANZ says it all !!
+1
Sadly, TVNZ have plenty of other Nat sycophants to take her position.
She should have a haircut before she starts work with NZ’s best known white collar criminal and serial groper.
Ain’t that the truth, although he has a thing for bald people too, so not to short a cut.
We can only hope TVNZ shows some integrity over Mutch’s replacement.
A loud-mouthed ‘charm-less’ person, no matter their colour, will not tick my box.
This is the year that we need them to do what’s right, not what’s simply politically correct.
They have lazily coasted for long enough, allowing light-weights to dominate.
Prove you are more than a life-style channel again, TVNZ.
Joy. Yep. A transgender non-Caucasian handicapped victim of colonialism able to read an auto cue and be a bit shouty would be about right..
I think one of the characters from the muppets or Seaseme Street would be a great choice of replacement!
Burt & Ernie! Big Bird even or the whole cast sharing the gig. Now that would be entertaining.
TVNZ, what? Who? WTF! Who watches TV these days?
The grumpy old theatre guys on opinion peices.
Count Dracula covering scandels.
Grover doing street interviews.
Becker on economics.
Kermit & Miss Piggy on the breakfast show.
Bert & Ernie news presenters.
Big Bird covering climate change.
A whole cast of muppets? Isn’t that what the Breakfast show is?
Sigh.. Still can’t help making everything about yourself Oscar….
Ol ANZ aye. One of the foreign four stealing $180.00 a second after tax 24/7/365 from our AO/NZ while 600,000 need food grants. The Purple People Eater is a traitor and the question that must be asked is does it have a belly button because, like jonky, it’s almost certainly an alien.
Sheb Wooley “The Purple People Eater” on The Ed Sullivan Show
https://youtu.be/67tKNEsJjTI?si=Jb15gm1pIAraDy2X
I’d rather judge folk for what they are rather than the exaggeration about every Right govt that comes along. Twenty years of that stuff by the Left blogs. Truth is the friend of the Left and the enemy of the rich, sorry , ‘Right’.
Jessica Much Ado about Nothing.
Don’t know if getting in to bed with Key is a wise career decision. Remember his reputation at Merrill Lynch as the “Silent Assassin”. He killed hundreds of careers.
Although if she doesn’t tie her hair in a ponytail she may stand a chance.
Two people have been in the news in 2024 and there had been a discussion of their individual legacies.
John Pilger represents the best standards of journalism.
JMM not so.
MMmmm… have reservations about Maiki being promoted to Jess’ job. She tells her stories with a breathless, mono-toned voice reminiscent of racing commentators back in the day. But that may suit the Boomer audience for TVNZ news – they’d be the only ones who’d remember Syd Tonks, Reg Clapp et al.
And it may put another smirk on the face of the coalition’s Minister for Racing – he’s a Boomer who would well remember Tonks and Clapp calling galop and trotting races.
Jenna Lynch equally as awlful
Husband is ACT Party Chief of Staff …..Says it all really..
John Campbell?
Hell no.
I know, right. He asked the hard questions of Key and Bridges and now those on the right hate him. Go figure?
Corngate was when he was last fired up. He’s an overpriced/paid has-been.
I have posted this elsewhere:
Todays media is in a sorry state. It is in fact a shadow of its former self.
Gone are the days of true investigative journalism like what happened in The Unfortunate Experiment.
In its place is now a bunch of almost sycophantic Wannabi politicians whose political biased seems to have been bought for.
I am not alluding that the media was bought out by Labour but more likely from a previous political government that successfully eliminated ALL those more intelligent and questioning journalists from such media sources as to what I now call the tabloid NZ herald rag.
The rich who hold control over the media have torn down and discarded those true journalists who looked out the window and figured it was raining rather than be told by another that it was raining.
There is one former politician and leader from the past whose just hated John Campbell because Campbell asked him intelligent and well thought out questions. Hence probably the demise of Campbell Live between 2008 and 2016.
What has now piqued my attention is the ‘sudden’ promotion of the one I call Jessica Mulch-Macaw(aka the Parrot of National) to a part of the ANZ Bank. The very same bank John Key is on the board of.
And so back about 2022 Mulch-Macaw stated on TVNZ(again another piece of the NZ National Party Propaganda Brigade) that Luxon ‘should be more in the public eye’.
Looking at the Bosom Buddie relationship between Luxon and Key prior to Luxon becoming an MP and eventually, probably at the behest of National’s Top Boss(John Key) Luxon becoming leader it now comes across as so suspect that Mulch-Macaw ‘suddenly’ gets a job in the ANZ Bank in some role that was probably ‘created for her’ as a thanks for her ‘actions’ between 2021 through to 2023.
The media holds the foul stench of National within itself. I don’t think anyone will ever want to take the media all that seriously. Not whilst National controls the media contrary to Winston’s silly little allegations.
I would suggest Winston looks at his ‘side kicks’ in a more deeper way and not trust any of them. Because it’s likely once Winston has over-stepped the invisible line that National and ACT have marked in the ground he will find himself in Hades.
Well said Sir/Madam.
Lindsay Perigo said TVNZ was brain dead in 1993. Perhaps the new government will finally turn off the life support. It won’t be too soon.
He was definitely not wrong despite his libertarian views. I remember haranguing my perfectly innocent non-abstract thinking mother in the 80s about it being news for children. Playschool level. I do like TV 1 news these days — deeper than RNZ.
All I will ever remember about her is the Jacinda Sisterhood: “Jessica, Tova, Tova, Jessica, Tove Jessica, Tessica Jova….”
Shit, I feel sick already…excuse me for a second, I gotta throw up!
That’s because you still live inside your right wing eco bubble. Most can see beyond that.
I think TVNZ’s crusading culture war tendencies are at least partially responsible for this government coming to power anyway.
Oh God no, not that fake Ferrari driving simpering wimp JC. Sick making.
Whilst Mike Hosking does indeed drive a Ferrari and think of himself as Jesus Christ (or “JC” as you quaintly put it), rest assured even TVNZ wouldn’t stoop so low as to employ that “simpering wimp” as Jessica’s replacement.
Although the TVNZ propaganda machine is in the last stage of existence, the certainty will be that the new head of news will be a young lass of Maori ethnicity, or at least Polynesian ethnicity, in the mould of a processed clone reading lines from the script of woke….In these modern times of computers and AI , I would prefer if Max Headroom could be the news man of the day….he could make propaganda fun…
The revival of ‘A Week of It’ would provide more insightful journalism than the acshull news does these days.
What would David McPhail and Jon Gadsby make of this present lot? Mincemeat. Utter carnage.
They are so completely hopeless they really deserve some hard-hitting parody. It would be comedic gold for a couple of our better actors.
That’s why I really appreciate whoever it is who dreams up the touched-up photos and pictures we see here on TDB. I loved the cattle swimming in our swimmable rivers. Sent that to a friend of mine who sends me propaganda from groundsmell.
Evans’ cartoons are true genius, we are lucky to have him.
It surprised me that no-one picked up on JMM’s permanent regrowth. I assume this new job pays much better and she’ll be able to afford to have the brown roots coloured more often.
Whoever replaces her, will they please accept some advice on clothing. Frilly and bright pink is not good. Try to look professional and even though you might not get a wardrobe allowance, consider plain and simple tops. I know in theory it’s not about looks or clothes but try to look the part even if your journalistic ability is lightweight.
Den is partly right, no-one watches TV these days because when we do we see people dressed literally, like muppets.
Here is something else. It is perfectly obvious the JMM has an OCD over Luxon. She probably drools prolifically every time she sees him.
Mind you she was also one of those female chasing his limo some years ago and to be honest the pursuit of a limo by three females looked really ridiculous. It was almost as each of those females were trying in heels to out run in their pursuit of Luxon and his limo so as to be seen with him.
She is completely and utterly besotted with ALL THINGS NATIONAL PARTY and probably John Key and Luxon.
I can only guess she will be seen around the ANZ Bank giggling away like a star-struck teeny bopper wearing a Ponytail(for John Key) and extolling the virtues of Luxon by saying how boundless in energy he(Luxon)is.
Quite frankly it all comes across as immaturely juvenile especially now on the part of SO MANY FACETS of the mainstream NZ Media.
Recently Winston alluded to the belief that the media are OWNED by Labour. I think Winston needs to open his eyes abit wider and realise the media was in the National Party pocket during the John Key years. The same John Key years that National and ACT showed their hatred of NZ First at Cuppagate.
If Winston doesn’t see he is being used by National and ACT then he is definitely more stupid that most of us have figured him out to be. But then when there is the pay packet and perks of the job I can only assume Winston doesn’t mind being made to look like a Born Trougher.
“TVNZ needs a political editor that is more than a virtue signal for identity politics and is actually led by someone with journalistic mana, and that is John Campbell.”
Could be wrong, but he probably wouldn’t be interested given the uber commercial environment TVNZ has become with a management that doesn’t really understand the concept of public service broadcasting. No doubt a number of them now operate in the interests of collegiality and as team players first, and journalistic integrity second. The 4th Estate’s wimps
I’m always quite amazed at how many think they know how various media ‘personalities’ vote and where their political loyalties lie. They possibly get it right more often than not but if they were actually committed to their ‘craft’, that shouldn’t matter.
I’d like to thank my mother, my partner, my children and my extended family in the media. It’s such an honour to be given this award and to be judged by my peers. I’m currently dressed by Barkers Wellington and Scotties of Parnell and the current Women’s Weekly has my Story detailing the struggles and sacrifices I and my family have had to make on my journey that’s culminated in this award. Thankyou NuZull