Mark Jennings

Journalist Mark Jennings joined new channel TV3 in 1989, to set up its South Island news operation. After becoming TV3's news chief in 1995, he won wide respect as a calm hand, competing against TVNZ's bigger budgets and arguing that news presenters ought to have journalism experience. By the time his resignation was announced in 2016, Jennings had become one of the longest serving heads of news in NZ TV history.

He cared about news, because he cared about people. Because he understood that news was all about people: whether it was the people in the stories, or the people making them. Yes, he knew it was a numbers game, but this was secondary to the humans involved. David Farrier in The Spinoff, after the announcement of Mark Jennings' resignation, 24 February 2016