RNZ REVIEW: Will Shrill Kim Hill Kill Thrill Still Fill Bill?
How much longer Papa Smurf?
I first heard that Kim Hill was leaving RNZ in a text. I remember it as if it was yesterday, indeed it was Friday 15/09/2023 – the day before yesterday. It was the Editor of The Daily Blog asking if I was going to do the next RNZ review on Kim Hill. Odd – why? What’s she done now that would be of any consequence at all? What wee Welly drama could this possibly be about? Did she get a ticket for riding her broomstick in a cycle lane? Tory Whanau-ed some overrated bar? Or something fitting her personality type: been arrested for the cold case disappearances of uppity male baristas? Or is she dying and does that mean George Hamilton can get his skin back? Or something completely implausible – like come out as straight?
I paid it no mind. I gave the editor a call about something else half an hour or so later, and then remembered about Kim Hill – what’s occurred? “She’s resigning from Radio New Zealand” – all over twitter, so much crying etc. Oh, OK. No tortured barista escaping from her EV down Lambton Quay then, like the part in Marathon Man where Dustin Hoffman’s character escapes, like the innocent nostalgia of a “distressed, naked teen” running down the street Darren Hughes-type scenario – never mind. His tone was matter of fact with maybe a hint of pride or satisfaction or something, like I was supposed to do something about that, a eulogy, an epitaph, bury her, burn her, drown her in a bath of holy water. So, my first reaction was: is that it? It wasn’t a thought or a feeling, no emotional engagement, just nothing; then: what does it mean, write a column, OK. I proffered my scepticism: “Well, you know how it works – Leighton Smith, Merv Smith and Paul Holmes and anyone in radio announces their retirement and the c*nts are still doing their f*cking shows three years later aren’t they!? Ugh. When’s she actually leaving?” The end of the year and something or other. “Oh, I see.” It was vague. Typical radio industry, even in the public sector. I was rolling my eyes, I would have to look it up. Fortunately, The Daily Blog editorial guide for media reviews says if it’s not cancer they may be curb stomped, so this needn’t be a chore. These radio talent departures are almost never immediate, such as a Tova-strophic ratings meltdown, so it must be a Mani-fest ego trip over contracts.
Before I could look it up online the RNZ bulletin was on air: Kim Hill will end the Saturday show, but continue to do something or other. It was vague. Typical radio industry. Are her retirement billboards going to be up for the next decade? It’s underwhelming, but there it was leading the 3pm RNZ news. The RNZ audience, the death of HM The Queen so recently in their thoughts, triggered into a mode of mourning… an area extending over three streets has been cordoned off around Broadcasting House so the public can lay floral tributes. I wasn’t really listening carefully, it’s all bullshit. RNZ, with deplorable sanctimony, is on par with some of the worst aspects of the private sector, a shameless whoring of the news for brand self-promotion.
My inclination is just to write my assessment of her out now and leave the actual resignation/retirement/demotion/employment dispute till the end, until the last moment possible, so I can keep my detached, depersonalised, unbiased objectivity without the risk of being triggered into unprofessionalism by catching a glance of her scowling, malcontented face de chatte.
I don’t have any unfair words to say or anything to declare except for the one and only time I ever had an interaction with her. This was the subject of some public discussion and an article in the NZ Listener. It was in 2000 or 2001 (or was it the late ‘90s?) back when the Listener, Kim Hill and myself were relevant enough for such a collision to have happened. Ben Thomas, editor of Auckland University Students’ Association anarcho-anarchist weekly magazine Craccum had published, on a drunken dare, my opinion piece about suicide. He had done so alongside several pages of a self-harm/how-to-massacre guide or something, it’s a long time ago and I can’t remember exactly and most of it is probably legal euthanasia now that’s how long ago this was. It was the shock it was hoping to be and then some. An uncontrollable chain reaction starting the day after it was released. The look on Ben’s face was like Oppenheimer witnessing the blast… when the atmosphere of the planet started to combust. Craccum was to publishing as the Young Ones was to television and Ben was a combination of Rick, Vyvyan and Neil – he too became briefly relevant.
Anyway, my piece was especially egregious because it seemed plausible as a moral position that not all suicide was wrong, that counsellors were useless and whatever else inflammatory but defensible things were said in that thrashing essay. Cue fuss, fury, editorial outrage (the Press Council was later to condemn everything and everyone in a scathing and extraordinary ruling – even though they didn’t have any mandate over student publications they went out of their way to admonish everyone who had so much as touched it). Cue a phone call to my flat at about ten o’clock in the morning from one of the lefty lovies on campus who despised me (the politically correct back then, they are woke now, it is the same thing), who was a producer for the 9-noon show – would I do an on-air live interview in about fifteen minutes? She was anticipating an evisceration, a dismemberment. I could hear it in her voice and that made me say: OK, sure. Bring it then. I would have finished my eggs on toast and have a cuppa ready. I had listened to Kim Hill as a matter of course because that’s what’s on RNZ and so you listen to it. I didn’t like her (how could you, she’s not supposed to be liked, but to be feared), but I didn’t dislike her particularly, she was just a bit of a constipated Pom in need of an enema. There was no trepidation.
The interview starts and it’s not so much a tango as a knife fight in a car park. I was determined to keep it upbeat, positive, constructive, serious but chatty. But after about five or six minutes maybe we get into this elongated metaphor that goes backwards and forwards and eventually too far for her. Up to this point it’s going OK, we’re both cut, but standing, no knock-downs, however she’s becoming more breathless, more exasperated, and it’s the equivalent to the third or fourth round in boxing terms, and I can hear the huffing, the puffing, the steaming. I am nonplussed, measured, unemotional; she, increasing magnitudes of apoplectic rage. If I recall, approximately, she asks: “if someone jumps overboard you wouldn’t throw a life jacket to that drowning person!?” And I say: “well, they threw themselves off the boat for a reason didn’t they?” A sharp snort or retort I couldn’t make out. And then there was silence. Had another flatmate picked up another phone on the line? No. Ha, we seem to have been cut off… she didn’t… no, no way, she wouldn’t have just hung up on me, surely not. So, I’m in my bedroom, cup of earl grey on the desk pad, swivel chair reclined at a jaunty angle, the receiver of the phone to my ear, like an idiot, listening to this silence. Was it all a dream? It played out precisely how a dream plays out when you fall back to sleep when you should have got up – wild, illogical, crazy combinations of people, characters, places, situations and all of it so real. OK, I’ve got to go to work now. Did this actually happen?
Oh boy did it happen. Everyone thought it was appalling. Appalling was the word used by everyone: by friends, colleagues, at work, in the media, the Press Council decision, the meeting in the Quad, on the street, everyone, everywhere considered what I had said was appalling. However, what Kim Hill had done in cutting me off turned out to be an even worse crime to the liberal intelligentsia – censorship and straight out unprofessionalism. Yes, it was she who was at fault, not I. In the short attention span of the media matrix, of heroes and villains, of competing outrages and superseding sensations she had granted me the seemingly impossible: redemption. She’s the one that lost her rag and her credibility in the encounter, not me – the judge’s card said she lost when she threw in the towel, I don’t know what the scores would have been at that point. My offence was eclipsed by the bad manners of the doyen, now rendered as short-tempered, to go with the wicked spinster aunt role the public had become accustomed to. She was now appalling. The Listener article that followed said she had only hung up on one other person before in her career – Jeffrey Archer. So, apart from that run-in many years ago, I have no problems with her and can be unbiased I hope you agree.
So back to Bitchy McBitchface. Women think her vinegar is misanthropic – she hates people. No, not quite. She hates people alright – to the degree that person is not politically correct yes, but there is a bilious stripe for the half of people armed with a built on rape kit. Men – being the recipients of the hate – can see the misandry for what it is. It’s like racism, the person dishing it out and the person getting it both know what it is even if everyone else doesn’t, or chooses not to. The counter-argument is that male fragility complex is to sexism as black victimhood complex is to racism: the supposed victims can’t see over their own self-pitying wallowing that the arsehole abusing them is blind to their gender or race, they’re just being arseholes. I don’t buy the counter-argument.
Let’s tidy this up right now. It’s in the Spoonerism Kill Him. Let’s tidy it up some more. Common sense tells us that misandry comes from resentment not so much of the superiority of men as the necessity for men. If I recall correctly that was more or less JFK’s assessment of why the South Vietnamese President’s wife was so bitter – she only held power through men. The counter-argument to that has some weight, if I may mansplain it.
Why is Kim Hill a hateful bitch? She is touted as such – her fans will list her hateful bitchiness as her major attraction. Did men generate her vaunted characteristic? Did the Maori kids who teased her at school when she arrived from England do that much life-long damage? She skirted over it on her desert island disc thing a few years ago. She had a very hard time – but no details, sounded raw. Do the sheep still cry, Kim?
What could possibly be relevant about Kim Hill now, given her trajectory has been falling since that ill-fated interview twenty something years ago? I see the word count is maxed, so let’s spend 30 seconds finding out the retirement schedule.
From RNZ: “New Zealand broadcasting great Kim Hill is signing off from her flagship Saturday Morning show on RNZ National.
Hill joined RNZ in 1985 and has presented a number of key programmes, most recently Saturday Morning with Kim Hill since 2002, and as a popular fill-in presenter on Morning Report.
[…]
“Kim will continue to do some work for RNZ in 2024 and is working with us on some ideas for a series of in-depth interviews. We are delighted and will have more to say about that in the new year.”
[…]while British author and politician Jeffrey Archer told Hill she was rude and he had “every right to tell her so”.”
Which means what? Typical radio – she’s not going away. They never do. I will be doing more columns yet it seems. More dancing, more knife fights.
So is this the opening wedge of the trial balloon – is the Radio New Zealand gerontocracy finally starting to totter toward the exit?
Yeah I vote they replace her with Sesh King! Someone with a sense of humour to temper their archness.
Her interviews with John Pilger and recently Kellie J Keen were appalling for their snide, pompous, self righteous one sided tone.
She is a venomous snake in the grass.
Agree
Tim, that was brilliant! LOLOLOL
Maybe she’s moving to The Platform to revitalize her career. BWHAHAHAHAHAHA
A bit of a long winded yet entertaining read.
Can’t wait to read your reaction when one of Kimmy darlings friends from RNZ puts her up for a gong in the new year!
Great article and and a real pleasure to read . . nothing like a bit of gonzo journalism first thing in the morning.
Always thought you need to have a s&m fetish before listening to Kim Hill. That raspy gravelly voice, just gets you.
Ah Tim…
You and I were never meant for one as beautiful as Kim. It’s all to do with gonads or something.
And yes you’re right.
Like the awful Suzie Fergusson, Kim Hill (jeweller?) will continue to lurk on the airwaves much as Banquo’s ghost does, but as with Suzie, I don’t expect the quality of that work to improve.
Avoid at all costs.
PS Does this mean we can reclaim Saturday morning radio again?
“Does this mean we can reclaim Saturday morning radio again?”
It means that since you’re so seriously gorjiss, you can opt for any number of things – including reading a bloody book, OR find something on radio.garden, OR start your own fekking electronic bleat where you can impart your words of wisdom.
I’ll still love ya (or at least pretend to)
Aw shucks! Thank ewe…
Kim Hill hung up on you.
Get over it.
I’m still trying to find where I can get Tim’s words of wisdom on His podcast. AND Nathan’s and a few others.
They could possibly be better than watching paint trying to dry and sure as shit He’s wearing the new order uniform. (which reminds me, I must remember to put flea powder on the shopping list)
Please, please, please can you do one on Mike Horse Kings, Tim?
Maybe he could join The Platform to reinvent himself rather than thinking he’s Benjamin Buttons.
That is one of the most limp, flaccid, soft, “mansplains” ever posted on TDB.
Kim obviously had Mr Selwyn on the ropes and he never fully recovered. Ms Hill actually did a really good job in the 90s, being one of the few journalists in NZ to hold Winston’s “tight five” to account, Tuariki and Tau etc. with their tough guy dirty dog sunglasses…after Winston sold out and joined with the Natzos.
+100 (as usual)
He’s no Mike Smith, although he’s trying hard.
And what was it about calling her “shrill”? Pot calls kettle Black.
And why is it (if ‘one’ were to do a content analysis) of all those interviews where she “cuts people off” do we here interviewees call “good question”?
Most of them like her rather than loathe her.
Discover the on/off and tuner switches people FFS! You can always go for a variety of commercial radio stations pumping out the same old shit, internet radio, and anything else you can actively solicit without having to expose yourselves to things you don’t agree with you.
“……… all those interviews where she “cuts people off” do we here interviewees…….”
* Hear (not here ”
Shoot me now – just so long as I can be lined up alongside @Tim and the self-appointed Mayor of Lyttleton.
Not sure though even if @ Tims’s ego would fit in Gazza’s Merc and we’d probably die before we even got to the point of shame. More likely you’d capture the lot of us round a trendy temporary lamp post on some crossing the Mayor objected to.
I’ve often wondered though – how many contributors and commenters on TDB actually fart?
I’ll apply for a grant to do some research
You’re asking me to forget countless respectful, curious and intelligent interviews of men over years. No idea where you get the misandry perception from. She was intolerant of halfwits of all stripes. Mostly (her best feature) she had excellent radar for the vulgar, dishonest and carefully disguised self-interest so common on the political right.
Yep, Kim is one of the few straight shooters on National Radio, think about the snakes that pretended to be liberal such as…Maggie Barry, Mike Hosking, Sean Plunkett, and I suspect Kathryn Ryan and various others.
I agree.
Yes AB ,
Kims interviews because they were and are intelligent, are never boring
enormous thanks Dot.
I’ve listened KH for years. The misandry went right past me. I assume that means I have internalised misandry or something? Whatever, it’s great to read an article as mystifyingly opposite to my view. Thanks for the update. I’ll keep a weather eye out between now and the (apparently bogus) end of her tenure at RNZ for her AntiCockAndBallism
Good heavens. A classic Daily Blog grizzle
I looked up classic. This is a judgment on TDB not K Hill. I don’t think that any meanings of classic can be turned to negative of the blog if that is your intention. Tetchy little person are you?
adjective: classic
1. judged over a period of time to be of the highest quality and outstanding of its kind.
“a classic novel”
Similar:
definitive
authoritative
outstanding
of the highest quality
first-rate
first-class
best
finest
excellent
superior
masterly
exemplary
consummate
ideal
(of a garment or design) of a simple, elegant style not greatly subject to changes in fashion. “this classic navy blazer”
Similar:
simple
elegant
understated
uncluttered
restrained
traditional
time-honoured
timeless
ageless
abiding
enduring
immortal
2.very typical of its kind.
“Hamlet is the classic example of a tragedy”
Similar:
typical
archetypal
quintessential
vintage
model
representative
prototypical
paradigmatic
perfect
prime
copybook
textbook
standard
characteristic
stock
true to form
noun
noun: classic; plural noun: classics; plural noun: Classics; noun: Classic
1. a work of art of recognized and established value.
“his books have become classics”
Similar:
definitive example
model
epitome
paradigm
exemplar
prototype
outstanding example
paragon
great work
masterpiece
masterwork
established work
standard
pièce de résistance
a garment of a simple, elegant, and long-lasting style.
a thing which is memorable and a very good example of its kind.
“he’s hoping that tomorrow’s game will be a classic”
2. a subject at school or university which involves the study of ancient Greek and Latin literature, philosophy, and history.
If we can apply any of these words listed as being similar to classic to anything in NZ we will be chuffed!! Oh let’s aim beyond sport, come on team let’s give it a try not be trite.
Let’s go for pie`ce de re’sistance? in the French meaning – one Brit comedian referred to it as piece of resistance – That’sUs.
This post lacks balance. Severe sensibility deficit registered. Supplies of cotton wool should be flown in immediately and administered promptly. Rationale – burst blood vessels in the cranial area can be fatal for brain function and/or messy.
cotton wool noun
fluffy wadding of a kind originally made from raw cotton, used for cleaning the skin or bathing wounds.
I’ll just put this up – oldie but goodie – dealing with the difficulty of talking to politicians to any effective result. Still bright and shiny after a brief dusting off!
https://www.ngataonga.org.nz/search-use-collection/search/293123/
The Incoming Member of Parliament’s Guide to Ducking Questions. 2001-01-06. 12:33.
[this programme is also known as The Politician’s Guide to Ducking Awkward Questions]
This is an aural instruction manual for incoming politicians giving guidance on how to answer those tricky questions from the media when you’d rather not.
Using examples from the masters, including Sir Keith Holyoake, Sir Robert Muldoon, Winston Peters, Helen Clark and Jenny Shipley, the guide offers advice about giving earnest, fulsome and convincing replies without actually answering the questions.
The Guide takes us through the Seven Strategies of Successful Subject-Shifting, including Answering a Slightly Different Question, the “Let-Me-Just-Say-This” Manoeuvre, Attacking the Critic and the Amazing Shipley One-Size-Fits-All Multi-Purpose Response.
I hope we are allowed to listen to it as a matter of public interest and information.
This is my first comment on here (if it gets through). I don’t intend to enter into debate just to explain the weak mansplain which someone rightly identified as deficient – I was intending to write the assessment fully at that point but was over word limit and ran out of time and then on confirmation she would still be hanging on (as they do) I saw no point launching into that part. As it is then, yes, it reads a bit rough, without a single mention of how good she can be, or that sometimes a Kim mauling in all it’s ugliness is exactly what the world needs. Her discussion (2 or 3?) with Gitta Sereny are stand out class, and there’s enumerable others. Her big problem is if she doesn’t like someone (and that’s usually from the start), but we the audience do, it will be a horrid i/v for everyone. I remember listening to the Tom Scott (the musician) i/v – you could hear the tension after he swore, there was a pause, a silence, and she decided to be Aunty Serious and admonish him like a child and it was doomed at that point, so he walked out which was fair enough. If anyone is interested in a more balanced approach please read my earlier blog on her deft handling of Posie Parker https://thedailyblog.co.nz/2023/03/26/rnz-review-kim-hill-vs-posie-parker/
Once upon a time you were on a liferaft with Kim Hill and she threw you overboard before you arrived at the end of the time allocated. It’s in the timing.
Then you did a written review and based it around your experience, but it ended because your allocated space ran out, with some things unsaid.
It was a complete circle as it was.
It was a great piece of writing, don’t apologise.
Every one who has sat on their tuffet of power should be satirised. If they are worth anything, they will acknowledge the truth in it and take it on the chin.
And no, Kim never hung up on me, but her treatment of Pilger and Ramzy Baroud (and the list goes on) tells you enough.
Tim your article is too long, all you need to say is that you are envious of Kim and her cutting analysis of events and people and that you could never match her in a debate.
Tim…’nice but dim’….take a chill…pill.
Camille Paglia was a perfect foil as she rejects the need for women to adhere to the concept of bourgeoisie niceness. And believed they should be clear about what they think and what they want. It helped that she was willing to be the first women to come out at her college …
https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/saturday/audio/2018642586/camille-paglia-free-women-free-men
Imust admit I am a bit partial to CP myself, caught her in NZ a few decades back and had my eyes open after being dragged there.
This ad hominem article says more about the author than anything else. New Zealand media is devoid of people like Kim Hill whose intelligence, ability to articulate professional questions and comments are unsurpassed in this country. She is going to be a huge loss.
Mr. Selwyn’s use of foul language and inability to spell (innumerable) qualify this article for Gutter Journalism Award of the Year.
Tim, I loved your article!
One of the best things I have read this year. Kim Hill is everything you say she is and more and the state of RNZ and NZ journalism you allude to is very evident. Also lacking from most posters here is a distinct lack of humour. Could it be that those who enjoy Kim Hill like her because she has the personality of a sour pickle?
i think Kim Hill is a good journalist compared to what passes for journalism in NZ these days. But the truth is she was always out for a scalp and to bring down anyone whose views didn’t coincide with her own. Over the last few years she seemed to get worse, often cutting people off and being supercilious and dare I say it, not particularly doing her homework.
When I saw the initial announcement, I felt a little like maybe I could try out RNZ on a Saturday in the car again. But then came the inevitable announcement that the old vampire would be out in the ether haunting us still so it isnt actually safe to go back in the water.
I’d love to see Bard Billot do an Ode to Lady Hill, the incorruptible or similar. Maybe she’ll bump into Winston the undead as he shuffles through the castle halls!
Should have said “Lady Hill, the insufferable” although I said incorruptible in a nod to the term undying.
Tim
The solution is simple:
1. Take your meds
2. Turn the radio off.
oh well – now I can switch over to Grant Marshall on George without missing anything “edgy” – woo hoo
Tim, I was struck by how disturbingly bleak and mean-spirited this piece was. Not just because I am personally a huge fan of Kim Hill and her extraordinary capabilities, but just the tone. It feels petty and point-score-y.
I guess you’ve written it to appeal to a certain segment of the readership, but I can’t find any joy or insight or value in it. It’s left me feeling depressed like when I read things by ant–vaxxers or flat earthers. Nothing good comes from just being dark and oppositional. I hope the next thing I read by you has content that is in some way uplifting, or at least makes a point that is contendable or helps move a debate along.
What to do with a Paul Weather,fan.
bUGGER SHOULD GET SHOT NOW.
no paul, what wether no Paul.