Well, here we are it’s Thursday – the day I said I would share with you the solution I have come up with to try to keep going as an investigative journalist.
But first -some really good news. Yesterday, my last documentary THE FOOD CRISIS won a Silver Award at the New York Film and Television Festival.
Yay!!
My sincere thanks to everyone who help make that programme. It takes a talented team to make a meaningful documentary and courageous people willing to go on camera and tell it like it is.
Sadly the state of fourth estate journalism in our country is such that success overseas does not make it easier at home to get the funding to make more investigative documentaries. The National/ Act/ New Zealand First Coalition are not going to continue the Public Interest Journalism Fund which allowed me to make both INSIDE CHILD POVERTY REVISITED and THE FOOD CRISIS and the broadcasters are firing journalists and currently showing no appetite for the kind of investigative work I do that speaks truth to power.
So I have decided to set up my own distribution channel on the web using the Substack platform.
Here is the address which you can paste into your web browser to find it
It’s the place where I will be putting all my documentaries, writing, interviews and podcasts from now on
It’s free – just sign up with your email address – and a lot of what you will find there is free.
It is however a subscription platform because, as I say, I have to try and raise money to keep going, so it will cost $5 a month to get access to the premium content.
To get started I have put up some of the documentaries and writing from my archive, but I intend to make new things as soon as I can.
Behind the pay wall right now I have begun to upload some true crime episodes from my Investigator series.
For example there is my investigation into the Mark Lundy case and for those who want to deep dive into it I have also uploaded the whole police interview Det Sgt Kelly held with Lundy before he arrested him for the murder of his wife Christine and his 7 year old daughter Amber.
I have also uploaded MURDER THEY SAID – the documentary I made about the arrest and conviction of David Tamihere for the double murder of Swedish tourists Urban Hòglin and Heidi Paakkonan
I would greatly appreciate it if you sent an email or a post to anyone in your social network you think might be interested in supporting my investigative work.
The address to send them to again is:
PS. I will still keep writing on Facebook as time permits.
Bryan – Well done on your, and your team success in New York.
Pay walled journalism, quality ot otherwise, is hastening its demise.
Investigate journalism would be wonderful but unfortunately there is a dearth of such people.Currently we get opinion pieces which are politically influenced.
Or could it be your right wing bias determines who you think is an investigative journalist and who isn’t.
I am very happy your opinion pieces don’t count.