TV REPORTERS ENGAGED
One News reporter Kimberlee Downs and Newshub sports reporter Ollie Ritchie have announced their engagement. The pair follow a tradition of TV news couplings, including Simon Dallow and Ali Mau at TVNZ, Mike McRoberts and Paula Penfold at then TV3 and Kate and Andrew Gourdie, who actually met when then Kate Lynch, was a reporter for TV3 and Gourdie was a sports reporter for the station. Lynch went on to a successful reporting career at TVNZ.
Downs, who is originally from New Plymouth, and Ritchie, who is from Christchurch, first met in 2016 when Downs was sports reporting for TVNZ and Ritchie was at Newshub covering a Black Caps’ training session at Hagley Oval in Christchurch.
A spark did not ignite until two years later when they met again while covering the 2018 Commonwealth Games on the Gold Coast. Downs was based in Sydney for TVNZ at the time and Ritchie in Wellington.
Spy understands a long-distance friendship began when Downs returned briefly to Auckland to host the 2018 Rugby World Cup Sevens coverage. She reportedly popped down to Wellington to visit Ritchie for one day and ended up staying for five.
The long-distance relationship continued until the next year when both were transferred into their network’s Auckland offices. Spy understands the couple bought a home together on Auckland’s North Shore a year ago — and that’s where Downs posted photos of their engagement last weekend, which she captioned: “The easiest yes of my life.”
Pictures included posing on the deck with champagne glasses and down at the beach celebrating with a bottle of Mumm Champagne. Meanwhile, Kiwi TV journalist Charlotte Bellis, who garnered global praise last August when she was in Afghanistan with Al Jazeera when the Taliban seized its capital, is expecting her first child with fellow Kabul-based
journalist Jim Huylebroek.
“We are expecting a baby in May. We will remain working in Kabul and hope to return to New Zealand to give birth in my home country. We can’t wait to welcome our little girl to the wonderful world we call home and our friends, family and communities across New Zealand, Belgium and Afghanistan,” Bellis wrote.