Anita McNaught

A self-declared “foreign news junkie”, Anita McNaught has filed reports from Bangladesh to Jerusalem, and worked in Europe, South East Asia and the Middle East. But having spent the first 12 years of her journalism career in New Zealand, McNaught told The NZ Herald in 2006 that her approach to life is more Kiwi than English. Although “the siren-call” of New Zealand can be loud and she has talked often of returning, her career has been concentrated overseas for many years.

Time working for the BBC showed McNaught how to “grow great journalism”, thanks to solid media archives and a “reservoir of extremely talented older journalists”. Fox News “finally eradicated my stuffiness”. While Al Jazeera, her most recent assignment, told her to “go deeper, go further … go as far as you dare”.

Born in London, McNaught grew up in England and moved downunder in 1985. After time in print journalism, she got a job as a reporter for TVNZ, and at 23 was presenting and reporting for Business World. Her straight-talking, clearly enunciated style struck some as refreshing, while others found it frosty. McNaught also appeared on news shows Frontline and Tonight, before moving to TV3 in 1994 to file stories over multiple seasons of  20/20.

That year she was one of the founding members on the Auckland board of WIFT, a forum for women working in film and television.

Within two months of moving back to London in 1997, a tape of McNaught's onscreen work kickstarted a seven year period working for international news and current affairs channel BBC World News (then BBC World). McNaught presented news bulletins, and reported for flagship international current affairs show Correspondent.

She was on hand during a number of breaking news events, including anchoring coverage of the UN forces entering Kosovo. In 1998 she was picked to co-present live Channel 4 show Clear My Name, which investigated cases of wrongful imprisonment. There was also a stint presenting arts and culture series Open Minds, and some radio and print journalism.

In this period McNaught occasionally filed stories for Kiwi networks, including TV reports on the death of Princess Diana and Yasser Arafat. She contributed to local satire show Eating Media Lunch from London, and during later visits downunder, filled in for Linda Clark on RNZ and presented an edition of debate style show State of the Nation devoted to the issue of racism.

McNaught reported for Al Jazeera English, the sister channel to the Arabic-language network, from a base in the Turkish city of Istanbul. Previously she did time at CNN, and two years in Iraq for Fox News.

In 2006 she found herself on the other side of the camera when her then partner, Kiwi cameraman Olaf Wiig, spent two weeks kidnapped in the Gaza Strip alongside American reporter Steve Centanni.

She has been outspoken in her view that foreign news coverage has shrunk in the New Zealand media; she argues it is vital that local voices report back from overseas events, to help provide a New Zealand perspective.

Sources include
Sarah Daniell, ‘Twelve Questions with Anita McNaught’ (Interview) - The NZ Herald, 12 July 2012
Guyon Espiner, 'Anita McNaught presents BBC World television' - The Evening Post, 17 July 1997
Catherine Masters, 'New Zealanders of the year: Anita McNaught’ - The NZ Herald, 9 December 2006
'Anita McNaught’ BBC News Press Release
'Anita McNaught’ Al Jazeera website. Accessed 5 June 2014
'From Whence we Came' WIFT (Women in Film and Television) Magazine, Winter 2009