Our annual MediaRoom picks for the person who has stood out for outstanding achievements and leadership in journalism and the media business
This year was the classic one-and-a-half steps forward, one-step-backward for the news media industry.
Just as pandemic restrictions lifted, workplaces refilled and economic activity started to stir back to pre-2020 levels in Auckland and elsewhere, a new contagion of global inflation and interest rate rises hit advertising-dependent media firms right where it hurt.
Audiences also levelled off for some, after two peak years driven by public consumption of news on the virus and its impacts on the economy and freedoms.
The public need for brave journalism was underlined by the occupation and then riot at Parliament by those associated with the anti-vaccine and anti-mandate causes. That also highlighted issue of trust in the media, and a disquieting level of hostility and even threats against journalists.
Among brands or platforms there were probably two stellar performers in media, the unstoppable Newstalk ZB number one radio station and state-owned RNZ's ever-growing website rnz.co.nz.
On the flipside, the year saw some retrenchment, with new magazines launched in late 2020 leaving the newstands to become digital only, and the country's biggest newsroom, Stuff, paring back its regional newspaper staffs.
The economic forecasts for 2023 look ominous for media revenues, and on past practice, the corporate beancounters will likely look to cut costs further as the economy and advertising spending tightens.
Individually, in our list below we recognise reporters, commentators, show producers, presenters, documentary makers and a business executive, in no particular order and excluding staff at Newsroom who might well a qualify on an independent list.
Miriama Kamo
The Sunday current affairs programme presenter, a standout for years, told one of the year's most special stories, of the twin cancer struggles of Jools and Linda Topp, separated during the pandemic and separately fighting cancers. Shot brilliantly by Tory Evans, the piece gently revealed the strength and fears of two of the country's favourite entertainers and people. Kamo's questioning and narration were all class.
Dallas Gurney
Gurney is the broadcasting executive charged with creating a news and talk radio challenger to the formidable Newstalk ZB, the country's perennial No 1 station. He helped bring Today FM into the world and recruited a high-profile cast of radio, TV and celebrity names to bring us 'solution-based' talk radio. It has been a hard road, with early ratings proving just how dominant Newstalk has become and how hard it will be to shift. But Gurney is a man of considerable experience (having once run the news and personalities on ZB) and he knows the key now is patience and confidence in his team's skills and brands.
All of NewstalkZB
Last year Mike Hosking was a no-brainer for this list, soaring to high ratings and overtaking and leaving RNZ's Morning Report in the dust. This year he, and his station did it again. And it was a comprehensive dominance of the talk radio market across the board – Newstalk ZB outpointing all the top music stations to be a firm No.1 in the weekly audience numbers and its shows through the day holding and building audiences. The whole team deserves recognition. Andrea Vance
Stuff and Sunday Star Times columnist Andrea Vance wore three hats of real achievement this year – as an author of the fine political history Blue Blood, on the National Party's years of leadership spills and time in the wilderness post-John Key and pre-Chris Luxon; as a multi-media story teller with cameraman Iain McGregor, producing powerful video stories and investigations on our natural world; and as a weekly columnist who marches to the beat of her own drum, on politics and beyond, challenging orthodoxies.
Guy Williams
The comedian inadvertently claimed one of the year's biggest political scalps, via his NZ Today 'satirical but real' interview with Auckland mayoral aspirant Leo Molloy. He qualifies for a public service award on that basis, but more so for the show's regular slots giving 15 minutes of fame to regional NZ communities and telling stories (satirical and real) that otherwise wouldn't get told.
Jon Bridges
After six years creating, shaping and succeeding with The Project, TV3's 7pm entertainment current affairs show, its executive producer Jon Bridges is moving on, to do the same thing with the channel's big new bet, Paddy Gower Has Issues. Bridges worked wonders on The Project, which ended its year beating not only the once great Shortland Street on TV2 but also Seven Sharp, on One, in the important 25-54 audience demographic. The Project under Bridges grew from a high-risk and high-cost throw of the dice by Three to be one of TV's slickest and sharpest half hours.
Jack Tame
The host of TVNZ's Sunday morning Q&A current affairs programme really hit his stride in 2022 – in interview after interview he coaxed revelations, reactions and news out of high profile subjects. The latest, with Broadcasting Minister Willie Jackson in December, putting the issue of the merger of TVNZ with RNZ firmly into public consciousness as Jackson stepped over the line into challenging the legally-independent state broadcaster over the interviewer's perceived lack of support for the increasingly shaky Government reasoning for the policy.
David Farrier
The noted documentary-maker, who was back this year with his peculiar and disconcerting Mister Organ film, makes this list instead for persistent investigative journalism on his Webworm subscription news site. He came with the receipts this year, lifting the lid in a series of articles on the Arise Church, its abuse of employment laws with young interns and believers, sexual harassment, and emotional and even physical abuse. His work on 'How NZ's Megachurch Lost its Way' led to resignations of the church's top leaders, an apology and an 'independent' investigation with 72 recommendations for change.
Petra Bagust
A successful former Breakfast TV host, fundraiser, chaplain and MC, Petra Bagust launched a new career turn in 2022 with her chart-topping Grey Areas podcast – examining 'growing up and going grey in Aotearoa NZ'. Her interviews with some big Kiwi names are 'all about de-taboo-ifying' the process of ageing, and attitudes to older people. It won her Best New Podcast at the sector's national awards and entered its second season via the Rova app. It's not easy to reinvent yourself, again, at 50 but Bagust is back.
Barbara Dreaver
1 News' Pacific correspondent is a consistent standout, time and again breaking stories here and from the Pacific that most other media struggle to hear about or see. At home, her stories on Pacific people's health during the latest rounds of the Covid-19 pandemic were augmented for the first time in two years by Dreaver being able to travel again, to the Cooks Islands, Tonga, Fiji and elsewhere, reporting on the volcano disaster, climate change and the Pacific Forum. She was name Reporter of the Year at the NZ TV Awards. Other news organisations no doubt wish they could clone her.
And the winner of our Media Person of the Year 2022 is:
Kristin Hall, on behalf of the media covering the ugly February Parliament protest
The 1 News reporter who courageously stood her ground, in the chaos and abuse of the occupation of Parliament grounds by the anti-mandate, anti-vaccine, anti-Cindy, anti-everything crowd to let the public see what happened in the dangerous days for our democracy. Hall's stories were frequently outstanding and she is selected here as representative of the dedication and fearlessness of many political and Wellington-based reporters and camera crews who covered the most emotionally-charged story of the year. Stuff's livestreaming throughout was brave and revealing in risky, hot, masked circumstances.
It was important, particularly in the final days and hours, that the public could see the level of disorder and even hate evident for the police and media trying to do their jobs.
Previous winners of the MediaRoom Media Person of the Year award:
2021 - Patrick Gower
2020 - The 1pm press conference reporters
2019 - Jane Wrightson
2018 - Kathryn Ryan
2017 - Guyon Espiner
