Susan Wood: Current affairs broadcaster extraordinaire...

Susan Wood is one of New Zealand’s most experienced TV news and current affairs presenters. Beginning in print journalism, Wood soon moved to TVNZ, where she stayed for 20+ years. Wood has a number of firsts to her career, including first TVNZ foreign correspondent (Sydney); first host of Midday News; and first host (with Mike Hosking) of TV ONE’s Breakfast.

In this ScreenTalk, Wood talks about:

• Developing the ‘fine attributes of a thief’ to source footage as TVNZ’s first foreign correspondent
• Using her feminine wiles to get interviews with Australian PM Bob Hawke
• Feeling terror during her first live interview while filling in on Holmes
• How a tiny team of women put out an hour of news a day on Midday News
• Co-hosting with Mike Hosking on the first two years of Breakfast
• Nerves and tension behind the scenes before the first broadcast
• The emotion of interviewing her colleague Angela D’Audney on Today Live when D’Audney was terminally ill
• Being up a mountain when told Paul Holmes had left TVNZ and she had just hours to come in and host a new show - Close Up
• The incredible competition between three 7pm current affairs programmes
• Facing public humiliation and a good deal of heartache when she sued TVNZ over changes to her contract

This video was first uploaded on 5 January 2011, and is available under this Creative Commons licence. This licence is limited to use of ScreenTalk interview footage only and does not apply to any video content and photographs from films, television, music videos, web series and commercials used in the interview.

Interview, Camera and Editing – Andrew Whiteside