TV news celebrates 50 years
Sunday marks the anniversary of the first national news bulletin beaming into living rooms. Siobhan Downes talks to our first anchorman, Dougal Stevenson.
Television arrived in New Zealand in 1960, but viewers had to wait until the end of the decade to see the first national news bulletin beamed into living rooms. It was by pure coincidence of a work roster that Dougal Stevenson, then just 26, was the man in the chair for the occasion.
‘‘I wasn’t very senior,’’ he says of his role as a newsreader for what was then known as NZBC News (now TVNZ).
‘‘I’m still surprised, I have to say, that they rostered me on that day.’’
November 3 marks 50 years since Stevenson’s shift on what would be the forerunner of the 6pm news bulletin. But he certainly doesn’t remember it as a ground-breaking moment – in fact, he never even watched the bulletin (and the historic broadcast was never recorded).
‘‘There was no great fanfare – they wouldn’t have made too big a fuss. Because that might have meant making a fuss of the presenter, and that would never do.’’
In any case, Stevenson ended up becoming a household name throughout his decades-long broadcasting career.
Born in Dunedin, he started out on TV as a continuity announcer – as he puts it, ‘‘those wonderfully warm people who would pop up between programmes’’ to tell viewers what was coming up next.
‘‘I was terrible,’’ he says. ‘‘I often found the scripts fatuous and ridiculous.’’
Eventually, he was asked if he might like to have a go at newsreading instead, and he accepted a job with the regional Dunedin station, DNTV2. In those days, there was no autocue, just sheets of paper to read from.
‘‘When I visited newsrooms in America, they couldn’t believe we didn’t use an autocue,’’ Stevenson says, breaking into an exaggerated American accent. ‘‘They said, ‘What? They see the top of your head all the time?’
‘‘A man wrote to say that his wife had seen my ‘aura’. I responded by telling him that it was probably just the mists of confusion coming out of my ears.’’
Dougal Stevenson, right, with current news presenter Simon Dallow
‘‘I replied, ‘Well, yes they do. You have to keep a nice clean scalp.’ ’’
In all seriousness, Stevenson says, it was possible to read fluently ‘‘because the writing was a very high standard – there’s not enough tribute paid to the journalists of the time. The team was so good they could throw a script in front of you at a moment’s notice’’.
Stevenson was later transferred to Wellington, and it was here he became one of three main anchors for the new national network, sharing the nightly presenting role with Philip Sherry and Bill Toft.
While newsreaders back then had nothing of the celebrity status they enjoy now, he does recall one letter from a viewer.
‘‘In the days when reception was a bit dodgy in some areas, this man wrote to say that his wife had seen my ‘aura’.
‘‘I responded by telling him that it was probably just the mists of confusion coming out of my ears.’’
As a rule, the cult of personality was seen as a threat to objectivity when it came to newsreading, Stevenson says. ‘‘We were in a period of NZBC control, where pronunciation, grammar and presentation was constrained – and restrained. Particularly with newsreaders, we were only interested in what you have to say. We’re not really interested in you. And that’s the way it should be.’’
He says seeing journalists crying on TV when reporting on the Christchurch terror attacks in March made him feel ‘‘most uncomfortable’’.
‘‘How effective is a crying journalist?’’ he asks. ‘‘I understand the emotion was incredibly high, but I think the responsibility is to communicate.
‘‘I’ve not been in that sort of situation, so I don’t know how I’d respond. But under those circumstances I suspect I would have rested further back on my professional discipline. I don’t mean this as a criticism, just a comment on the times.’’
When the national news broadcast was shifted from Lower Hutt to Auckland in 1980 after a restructure, Stevenson decided not to make the move. Instead, he went on to host a number of TV shows, including The Motor Show, Antiques for
Love or Money and The Krypton Factor.
Now 77, Stevenson lives in Aramoana, a coastal settlement near Dunedin. His polished BBC-style accent disguises his Otago roots.
‘‘I know, I still sound like that,’’ he laughs. ‘‘A woman said to me yesterday, ‘I’ve got friends who sound like you. Are you from Wales?’’’
There might be, he says, an ‘‘element of affectation, or try-hard’’ in the way he speaks. But 50 years on from that very first bulletin, his pet peeves are still bad grammar and careless pronunciation.
‘‘We wanted to speak clearly, and well,’’ he says. ‘‘All these things, honed, contributed to the credibility of the news service.
‘‘It would also cover up, to some extent, the fact I was just a kid – a kid trying to sound as important as the job he was doing.’’