LIVING AT

TV reporter Tova O’Brien has copped a fair amount of flak holding the Government to account at the daily 1pm briefings. Kelly Dennett finds out how it’s affecting her.

YOU don’t have to explore the depths of the internet to find it. As our lockdown routines became constructed around the Government’s daily 1pm press conferences, Kiwis had front row seats to journalism in action. The reviews are in; the news is bad.

‘‘A lot of it is just reminding me that I’m a ‘stupid b...,’ that my questions are pathetic,’’ says Newshub’s political editor, Tova O’Brien, of the vitriol. ‘‘I had a great one on the day that we reported more ructions within the National Party caucus. One person was saying that I was f... ing him, and the caucus, or something. There’s a lot of gendered stuff, a lot of flak.’’

If you were trying to understand the abuse, you’d perhaps say that for the first time, Kiwis are seeing how the news sausage is made. To the ringside voyeur, press conferences are aggressive, and repetitive; perused by audiences in a heightened state, who have more time than ever to launch scathing armchair attacks.

Television reporters with higher profiles are often singled out. They face accusations of vanity, stupidity, and seeking celebrity. O’Brien, who has been a journalist for 13 years, seems to bear the brunt. Search her name online and the results are, well, let’s see.

‘‘She comes across as particularly dense,’’ posts

Wendy from Northland, sharing an image of a cross-stitch bearing the slogan ‘shut up Tova’. ‘‘Tova O’Brien is insidious. She is a rude, disrespectful...pathetic creature,’’ tweets another. ‘‘Couldn’t get any more stupid,’’ reckons Piri on Facebook.

‘‘I genuinely try not to see it, but I can tell ... it’s reached peak troll,’’ O’Brien says.

The Speaker of the House Trevor Mallard this week approved Sunday News to enter just a few metres into the Beehive for our socially distant interview. Typically, the building has the low drone of hundreds passing through. Now the doors are locked, a lone security guard checks credentials.

O’Brien is thankful to be here every day, from 8 in the morning, until long after her

6pm live broadcast. She’s grateful to have a job when thousands have become unemployed.

‘‘Every single day that I walk up to Parliament I just feel an immense sense of pride and privilege coming into this place,’’ she says. ‘‘I love going up what we call the Rocky stairs,’’ – a movie reference to the grand staircase leading up to Parliament – ‘‘It’s just so grand, sort of coming up to the Beehive, and I still feel like that every single day.’’

O’Brien’s career began on

Three’s assignment desk in 2007. Since then, she’s been a general news reporter, covering stories for Nightline and Sunrise, before her first years-long stint in the press gallery.

In 2015, she covered cricketer Chris Cairns’ nine-week perjury trial in the UK (Cairns was acquitted and O’Brien was arrested and warned for filming outside court), before landing Newshub’s coveted European correspondent position, in London.

She returned to New Zealand in 2018 for Newshub’s political editor role – after the incumbent, Patrick Gower, stepped down, later saying he realised, ‘‘One more minute in this job is going to kill me.’’ Other predecessors include broadcaster Duncan Garner.

Even in the journalism world, reporting from within the corridors of power demands a certain zeal and expertise. Gallery reporters cover not just the swatting of insults during Question Time but must be savvy on the economy, infrastructure, internal party ballyhoos, and now more than ever – health.

According to Gower, O’Brien attracts particularly brutal comments because her journalism is edgy and she has a higher profile than say, a print reporter. ‘‘She’s got all of the qualities that you want in a good journalist. She’s driven, she’s independent, she’s intelligent. She’s got compassion, and she’s courageous. We need people who are able to do things differently.’’

Gower says the political editor role is relentless, from all directions, and while the majority of the complaints might number a small portion of the population, Gower says it’s reached a new level.

‘‘Criticism is kind of like rust, it’s just there as part of it, and it just grinds on you,’’ he says. ‘‘Duncan had to put up with it, I had to put up with it. Tova has to but in a much more extreme way.

‘‘It actually, it kind of makes me really sad. You don’t sort of want to be the one that goes ‘woe is me’ because people are obviously entitled to criticise you and what you do, and they do have deeply held feelings … but the truth is, what we’ve seen recently, crosses a line. Too far. Too extreme. Too much.’’

O’Brien says the abuse is not new. When covering politics prior to becoming European correspondent someone posted her address online and encouraged others to find her, rape her, and beat her. People made death threats. She contacted police.

‘‘So, it’s always been there, and it’s always been extreme.’’ She’s understated in saying, ‘‘People are passionate about their politics.’’

She recalls during her European correspondent stint, Kiwis didn’t seem as invested in their politics.

‘‘And I thought, ‘this is such a f...ing relief’. People would just get in touch to say nice things for a change, it was lovely. And then coming back, it sort of kicked off again and then, I think yes, definitely, I’ve noticed an increase.’’

She exercises the ‘mute’ button on social media often but knows when there’s been an overnight flurry, because she’ll