The Wintec Press Club lunch is held three times
each year on behalf of the journalism students, and staged by the Wintec School
of Media Arts. The star-studded guest list always features big names in
politics, media, entertainment, sport, business, law and the arts. And me – I
am now a lifetime member.
The students get to mingle with big-name media types and
newsmakers: most tables have one or two students who get to meet industry
veterans. It’s a brilliant idea and I have always enjoyed talking with the students and
doing my best to discourage them from entering the profession, suggesting they
do something useful or lucrative instead.
At our table were Hamilton mayor Julie
Hardaker and, on my immediate left, Tim Macindoe, MP for
Hamilton West and the Nats’ senior Whip. I wish I had known that when we were
chatting. I would have asked him, “What does a Whip do, exactly?” Instead we
talked about teenage suicide and Tauranga, where I spent my first 17 years quite
happily but he shuddered at the memory of spending just 18 months there. He was
very arts-friendly and, like me, a devotee of the free Wintec Press Club pens.
On my right was a mature student, a Mormon so I couldn’t ask her to pass the
wine. Instead we talked about her work with the homeless in Garden Place and
abused children. It’s not all gay hilarity at the Wintec Press Club.
Other guests included novelists Mandy Hager and Charlotte
Grimshaw, bloggers Michelle Dickinson of Nanogirl and Elizabeth
Marvelly of Villainesse, former politician Don Brash and, bafflingly,
Bevan Chuang.
The speakers at these events are usually eminent media
types types – last time it was TV3’s Paula
Penfold – though once it was Pam Corkery
and the time before that Rachel
Glucina. This time it was two major Maori journalists: Mihingarangi
Forbes (above left) and Annabelle Lee (above right). Forbes was a reporter/presenter at Maori Television’s
Native Affairs, Lee was producer. Both left this year. Carol Hirschfeld,
general manager production, and Julian
Wilcox, head of news and production, started this trend when they exited in
2014.
As our gracious host Steve Braunias said, there has been “an exodus of talent”
from Maori Television: if it was careless to lose Hirschfeld, and
then reckless to lose Wilcox, “it’s just kind of freaking nuts to
further lose people of such blazing quality as Mihi and Annabelle”.
Both speakers kicked off in Maori. Forbes, a Wintec
graduate, suggested that if the Maori King’s claim to Auckland succeeded he would
rename it Hamilton Heights. This went down well with the locals. Forbes was
very funny throughout, but also deadly serious about the problems facing Maori
journalists. Especially female Maori journalists.
Forbes and Lee’s main topic was the series of programmes
they made about the finances of the Kohanga Reo National Trust Board, starting
with A Question of
Trust (September 2013).
That turned out to be “a release valve for frustration”,
with many viewers asking for investigation into all sorts of Maori
organisations.
Both women send their children to kohanga reo, so know the organisation at ground level. Lee described it as “endless working bees and fundraisers” in contrast with what happens at the top.
After the next story, Feathering
the Nest (October 2013), they received threats, Native Affairs
was banned from Turangawaewae, people booked to come on the show “unbooked”
themselves. “How dare these girls challenge their rangatira?” was the reaction
from the usual male suspects: Derek Fox, Willie Jackson, John Tamihere, Dale
Husband. “We’re female, we’re younger than them.” Fancy that, old blokes being
sexist.
Both said how much they appreciated the support they’d
had from the mainstream media, singling out the Herald’s David Fisher and especially TV3’s Tova O’Brien who would
ask questions on their behalf when the kohanga reo people wouldn’t let them in
to a press conference.
Forbes said that Maori Television wouldn’t show the final programme: “Yeah, and that’s basically why I quit.”
After the formal part, there were solid questions from
the floor that elicited excellent answers. Then came a long statement from singer
Moana Maniapoto about something or other. When I woke up, everyone was tucking
into dessert.
For the journalism students – and probably most of the
audience – this might have been the most useful Wintec Press Club address ever.
Forbes and Lee were frank about the problems facing all journalists today, and
especially Maori journalists who want to work in a Maori way, which involves
respecting one’s elders while also asking questions and holding the powerful to account. Speaking truth to power doesn’t go
down well when the powerful are old and male and the people speaking truth are
young and female. Possibly it’s the female part that is the problem.
There was also the small matter of there being in
Maoridom no such thing as six degrees of separation, so pressure comes from all
sides. And referring to Newstalk ZB’s Rachel Smalley’s complaint that there are
too few women
on-air, Forbes noted the greater “paucity of Maori in mainstream
media”. Well, yes. There is marginal and there is marginal.
At the end, Steve Braunias said, “The elephant in the room is Maori TV. Man up and tell us – what the fuck happened?”
Forbes replied that after Julian Wilcox was replaced
by Paora Maxwell, “I didn’t want to be there any more. I hated it.”
Lee said simply, “All of the above.”
So here are Isobel Campbell and Mark Lanegan live in
2010, with “You Won’t Let Me Down Again”:
UPDATE:
Danyl McLauchlan at the Dim-Post quoted a chunk of the above
under the title “Maori
TV and the mediapocalypse”, and commented:
What happened at Maori TV is one of the most clear-cut cases of establishment censorship imaginable. Journalists started asking uncomfortable questions; the establishment got angry and imposed a new leader on the organisation who shut everything down. There’s a hell of a book in there. (The lack of public outrage is, presumably because mainstream New Zealand doesn’t really care what happens in Maori institutions).
It’s also a reminder to progressives – who advocate for more public-funded media in response to the collapse of the commercial media model – that state-funded media has its own problems.
Good. But he prefaced it with “QuoteUnquote has an overview
of the latest Wintec Press Club’s (notorious) luncheon featuring Mihingarangi Forbes and Annabelle Lee as
guest speakers”.
Our host at the lunch, Steve Braunias, took exception in
the comments (third one in):
Minor things. It’s not “(notorious)”, just an event. And Stephen Stratford claims I said “Man up”! I didn’t.
Oh yes he did. I take notes at these events and recorded
this comment because he said it to two stroppy women, which we all thought was
quite funny – it got a big laugh. Evidence: a reporter’s notebook:
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