Approaches to News Journalism

Covid reporting has me thinking of approaches to news journalism and interaction with media organisations. My training and early experience as a journalist starting out in early 2000 led me to believe that news is a kind of collision of people, ideas and events: the premise being that there must be conflict for there to be news. Over time I have found that, in fact, conflict of the ‘dog bites

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Man on a bus – A Chance Encounter

A chance encounter on August 31st, 2020: Today on a bus from central Palmerston North to PN airport – fare $1.50 – I met the only other traveller that trip, an 80-year-old also wearing a mask, who gave me a snippet of his life thus far. Grew up Lower Hutt, more recently lived Feilding and took a Gold Card bus fare to Palmy every day; flown once in his life,

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Life at Swannanoa

‘LARUNDEL’ The man who gave Swannanoa its distinctive name was John Evans ‘Yankee’ Brown, who was on the Canterbury Provincial Council, the Hospital and Charitable Aid Board and was a founder of the Canterbury Tramway Company. Brown was from Pennsylvania and owned a large tract of land between between  Springbank and Eyrewell. Perhaps feeling a twinge of homesickness, he gave the broad plains country the Cherokee Indian name, ‘Swannanoa’, a

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Straight off the Tussock – Racing

  Soon after stepping down as president of the North Canterbury Jockey Club in 1964, Jack became a steward for its big brother, the Canterbury Jockey Club. The stewards helped the CJC committee, but almost seemed to be on probation. The five stewards didn’t have official roles and didn’t attend committee meetings, but were there to work on race day and gradually get involved. If you were successful you were

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Straight off the Tussock – a reader’s experience

DearTim, I wanted to share with you a story about your book, Straight Off The Tussock. [Fraser Books, 2005] I thought you might like to know that, over the last few weeks, this book has had an extraordinary impact on an elderly man and his wife in the last stages of their lives.   An elderly man that I knew, Mr L, had been a member of the crew of

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Kiwi Farmers Guide to Life

  Take the road less travelled, they say. Kiwi Farmers Guide to Life does just that, telling stories of New Zealand farmers, agribusiness entrepreneurs and even a couple of scientists. Each one knows about sweat, quick-thinking and the importance of a sense of humour in battling agricultural elements.From a dive into farming history to a probe of modern agri issues, Kiwi Farmers Guide to Life shows farmers at their finest

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