As tough as the news industry gets - and sometimes it gets damn tough - there are still a hell of a lot of great journalists doing the hard yards every day in the local media scene. A lot of them don't get the credit they always deserve, and Media Scrum is delighted to highlight some of them every now and again.
Here are six more of the best...
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Rhonwyn Newson
Former Rodney Times editor
Regional and suburban newspapers never get the respect they deserve, even when they're helping to prop up nationwide media outlets. After a stint as a NZ Herald home page editor just before it all turned to crap, Newson and her excellent, tiny team at the Rodney Times broke a huge amount of good local stories that have been picked up and led the whole Stuff site. There are still some brilliant journos doing fantastic work in these tiny offices, and the Rodney area has been well served in this regard. Her replacement - Newson is now the new online features editor at Newshub - has a high standard to live up to.
Eloise Gibson
Newsroom reporter
Sometimes it's awkward for everybody, but nobody should be afraid of going after sacred cows. Gibson's spotlight on Ray Avery for the Newsroom site has been a brilliant example of this. Sir Ray has certainly done his fair share of good deeds, but that doesn't make anyone immune from close examination when there are serious questions to be asked. His attempt to silence Gibson using the Harmful Digital Comms Act should be dismissed for the harmful bullshit it is, and won't silence the reporter. She isn't finished with this story by a long way - there are a lot more slightly unpleasant questions that have to be asked, and a journo who isn't afraid to ask them.
Kimberlee Downs
1News' voice in Australia
Working as an overseas correspondent for a TV network is a sweet gig, but it is also a buttload of hard work, because you have to cover everything in a giant country. TVNZ's Downes is covering all of Australia, dealing with politics and disasters and crime and scandal and everything else under the hot Aussie sun. But Downes goes above and beyond all that with some terrific sports reporting, and looks just as comfortable talking about the footy as she does talking about the new PM - a vitally important role in that sports-fanatical country across the Tasman.
Bridget Burke
Checkpoint's secret weapon
RNZ's Checkpoint programme is going through some massive changes soon, with John Campbell packing up his shit this week and heading down the road to TVNZ, while head producer Pip Keane is heading up the executive ladder. But the show must go on, and they're still in good hands as long as Burke is manning a producing desk for the essential drive-time programme. Ask anyone in the RNZ office who have seen her in action: the former stuntwoman is absolutely the best in the business at getting the essential interview for JC to get his teeth into. She gets people like Matt Lauer when all anybody was talking about was access through his Hunter Valley property, and never relies on the same old rent-a-quote faces. CP will be a very different show with Lisa Owen in charge, but with Burke in the engine room, quality will remain high.
Alex Braae
Spinoff news curator
There is so much shit going on in the world, it's hard to keep track of all the news. And when homepage editors at the big news sites are forced to highlight blatant clickbait at the expense of worthy work, some actual decent curating is so important, and so helpful. Braae's putting together of The Bulletin email for The Spinoff is the best news curation in the country, with a strong mix of the worthy and interesting, and highlighting some incredibly important issues that have already been pushed down the page of other sites for fatuous celebrity bollocks. Braae makes it look easy, but it's a real skill pulling this kind of thing together. If it was that easy, everybody would be doing it.
The Stuff Circuit team
The whole bloody lot of them
It's impossible to pick any one member of the Stuff Circuit crew to highlight, because investigative journalism is a huge team effort, and this particular team are all knocking it out of the park, in both reporting and presentation. They're producing so much great material in all sorts of formats, and are clearly the best investigation team in the country, presenting stories that are so much more than the true crime exposes that everybody else is doing.They're definitely leading the way, and we should all be happy to follow.
- Katherine Grant / Margaret Tempest / Steve Lombard
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