As she steps into the role of weeknight presenter of 1News at Six, Melissa Stokes looks back on a career packed with adventures and the odd disturbing moment.
I grew up in Tauranga which at the time was, I wouldn’t say sleepy, but it wasn’t a bustling city. We weren’t a family who’d argue politics around the dinner table but my parents had quite a global view and the news would be on every night at our house; always 1News – I might have dabbled in TV3 at broadcasting school, you know, John and Carol – but yeah kind of dyed-in-the-wool TV One in our family.
We moved to Christchurch in my teens and I did one year of law at Canterbury in ’97. I’d like it on record that I did pass the first year but law was just, to me, really dull. I realised quite quickly that the kind of lawyer I’d thought I’d be, you know, performing in front of the jury and judge, that was a very select group of people. When I found out about broadcasting school, it just seemed like a much better fit for me, though I was put on the waiting list for a couple of months. It was one of those real crossroads moments. When the course started, I immediately loved it.
A lot of my friends at broadcasting school got internships at places like TVNZ and Newtalk ZB and I was a bit “oh” about getting one in the Christchurch newsroom at Prime TV. I didn’t realise it was a great opportunity, because my boss there turned out to be a beautiful man named Steve Bloxham who just loved mentoring young people. He saw a glimmer of something in me and helped me learn how to craft and structure a story, stuff I still use today. It was one of those random strokes of luck. That was where I realised that this was a job I could excel at.
My husband and I are a walking cliché. The journalist/cameraman cliché. He was the cameraman while I was the TVNZ Europe correspondent between 2006 and 2008. We were always traveling and working together. I missed out on some great things over there – I had to sell my Glastonbury tickets – because there was always a story to cover. So Dave was my main man for 18 months.
I can’t remember when it became romantic. Maybe in the first six months. You’re thrust into really high-pressure situations with heightened emotions; it’s just the two of you getting up for a live cross at five in the morning, you learn to trust each other and you discover each other’s quirks pretty fast. So, yeah, maybe it was six months of working together before we got together, and we’re still together 20 years on.
I’d only been in London for about a week when Ariel Sharon, the then prime minister of Israel, had a catastrophic stroke and I was flown there. I remember standing outside the hospital in Jerusalem, in this lineup of the world’s media, the guy I always watched on the BBC right next to me, and ITN and CNN, and I just remember thinking, wow. Six months later, I got flown into that region again because of Israel’s conflict with Gaza and also Lebanon. I got out of the car in Haifa, which is north of Tel Aviv, and one of those rockets landed about 100 metres in front of us. The correspondent role put a lot of the world into context for me.
Over there, nobody knows TVNZ. You’re not even a boil on a bum, you’re so insignificant. And so you’re begging and borrowing things from people who have little interest in helping you. It’s kind of a fight for survival each day and you definitely feel the adrenaline running afterwards.
There are always mistakes or blunders that keep me up at night. I remember reporting from Gallipoli and getting a date wrong and I was horrified, because facts are the business we’re in. I have split my pants once on a live cross in Auckland. People wouldn’t have known but I could definitely feel the breeze. I mean, sometimes live television is terrifying.
I think this new role has come at a good stage in terms of family life. You know, the kids aren’t in bed at seven anymore – they’re about to turn 14 and 12. But I think I need to learn some new recipes, some more freezable ones. My husband can cook, but he also works full time. So between us, we’re going have to just work out the admin, how we’re going to get the kids to the sports and stuff.
Obviously this industry is shrinking, and I don’t want to sound hand-wringing about it, but my feeling is that there are journalists doing work that’s more amazing and more important than ever, and I feel like we’ve got to keep going. Keep covering things that otherwise the public wouldn’t know about, like the Jevon McSkimming case. Of course the media industry is fractured, and it will never be the same as it was in the 80s or early 90s. But there’s a place for it and what I like about 1News is that it doesn’t just chase clicks.
I think that from a young age, I’ve always been self assured. I mean, there’s times when I’m not at all, but I have this kind of trust in myself. And I don’t really like to give up.
Melissa Stokes presents 1News at Six, weeknights at 6pm, TVNZ 1, or streaming on TVNZ+.
