‘Now, I get the last word’
We’ve signed broadcaster Alison Mau, businessman/ provocateur Damien Grant, economist Shamubeel Eaqub and journalist Nadine Chalmers-Ross to write for us every weekend. We brought them together to find out whether they can agree on anything.
Nadine Chalmers-Ross was just 22 when she got her break as a journalist. She quickly became a well-regarded face in business journalism and presented TVNZ’s Breakfast show – and that’s where she learned to be careful with her opinions.
‘‘TV wants a sanitised version of women, so that’s what I tried to provide,’’ she recalls. ‘‘Not too opinionated, a bit motherly.
‘‘It’s not exactly all an act, but it’s a toned-down version of yourself. A producer once asked me to let my male co-host have the last word on things – on International Women’s Day, no less.
‘‘Publicity told me the best thing I could do to raise my profile and be more ‘relatable’ would be to have a baby.
‘‘The producer wasn’t being sexist, just realistic that audiences still expect the female to be the foil, the pretty, motherly one – not too clever, not too threatening. And in 2017, I’m sorry but that’s just crap.’’
Such a narrow view of women does not represent TVNZ’s views, says Georgie Hills, general manager of corporate communications.
‘‘Sexism is not acceptable in our workplace – the rules are no different for the TV industry,’’ she says.
Citing the number of women around the boardroom table, she says TVNZ is committed to a strong mix of different voices and perspectives. ‘‘ We back our female staff.’’
Like Chalmers-Ross, all the new Sunday columnists have stories to tell that may be at odds with their public images. Damien Grant runs a high-powered insolvency business but has to tell each new client that as a young man, he did jail time for fraud. Shamubeel Eaqub is a sober-suited economist who’s not afraid to critique mainstream economic thinking. And Mau is a journalist who experienced the sharp end of journalism when her marriage broke up and women’s magazines photographed her with her new partner, Karleen.
We will be paying the four columnists to have opinions, without fear or favour – so as a curtain-raiser to next weekend’s debuts, we hit them with a quickfire Q&A: SST: Tell us a fact that most people won’t know about you. Nadine: I’m double-jointed: as a kid I used to watch telly doing a headstand, and I break bones constantly. I had a bit of a pretty girl image in telly, but as a kid I was a tomboy. Damien: I was an altar boy. It didn’t work out. Alison: I knew how to skin and gut a rabbit by age 4 or 5, and I’m pretty handy with a rifle. SST: Describe a serious challenge you’ve overcome. Damien: The very public exposure of my criminal past some years back. Thankfully, nicotine and the unstinting support of family, colleagues and the wider business and legal community allowed me to continue in business. Nadine: I struggled for a time, after I left university, with depression. I feel like it’s something that’s always lurking just beneath the surface so I wouldn’t tempt fate and say it’s been overcome. SST: What was your lowest time? Nadine: When I was 16 a close family member attempted suicide. He wrote me a letter, but emailed it to me encrypted with a password and I was never able to crack it. What it might have said still haunts me. Damien: Losing my business six months after getting married due to incomprehensible acts of stupidity and having to pick my sorry backside off the ground. Again. Alison: Having my family stalked by ‘‘pap’’ photographers. The kids were really freaked out. My 8-year old and his little mate at school even cooked up a strategy to get away unnoticed in case the paps popped out from behind the bushes. That broke my heart. SST: What is your least appealing personal trait? Alison: I suspect many would say the fact that I still have traces of an Australian accent. Shamubeel: Laughing at farts. SST: Is Bill English right not to speak on Te Tii marae this year? Nadine: Taking the politicians out of Waitangi Day might actually make it a day all New Zealanders want to celebrate. Alison: If Ngapuhi leaders can’t get their act together I don’t blame English for choosing other marae to pay his respects to the Treaty on the day. SST: How does President Trump make you feel? Nadine: How does anyone think a sexist, misogynistic, racist, narcissistic child is the answer to anything? Damien: Can’t say I am a fan of The Donald but few things are bringing me more joy than the impotent rage he is triggering in great swathes of the masses, and the angst-fuelled horror of the intelligentsia is magnificent. Shamubeel: Sad. Very sad.