Liam Jeory’s work in Europe in the late 80s started a long line of TVNZ’s Europe correspondents.
Journalists often say one of the best parts of the job is that you get to walk alongside as history is made. This is certainly the case for Liam. He was there when the Berlin Wall fell. He stood on top of it and chipped off a piece to take home. He was watching the fall of communism throughout Eastern Europe and was in South Africa to see Nelson Mandela’s release from prison.
His term covered some pivotal and world changing events.
Liam Jeory was there when the Berlin Wall fell. He stood on top of it and chipped off a piece to take home.
In late 2005, I followed in his footsteps. My first job as the Europe Correspondent was flying to Israel. Formidable and controversial leader Ariel Sharon had suffered a stroke, one he would never recover from.
I stood on the forecourt of a Jerusalem hospital, surrounded by the world’s media.. thinking ‘I’m not in Kansas anymore’.
The region would loom large in my time in the job. Camera-operator Dave Pierce and I spent six weeks there. Crisscrossing the area, covering the conflict between Lebanon and Israel and Gaza and Israel from all sides.
It included a memorable drive from Syria to Beirut, an eventful night locked in Gaza and many chaotic times crouching by the side of the road as the air raid sirens blared.
A fixer we worked with told me bleakly “you’ll be back, this tit for tat will never end”.
Every story we tell overseas for a New Zealand audience is a window to the world. It’s our job as correspondents to make world events relevant to our viewers, to give context and explain why its important.
We asked some former “corries” what stood out for them in their time on the job.
![Mark Crysell.](https://tvnz-1-news-prod.cdn.arcpublishing.com/resizer/v2/mark-crysell-RRMYQHAZENHMVLPAARSJQ7DDDY.png?auth=f36f383365b125fae70da0c49a12c11c8d2a18ad75797022d65a46c7fa4e8ce7&quality=70&width=767&height=431&focal=825%2C464)
Mark Crysell
They say you never hear the one that hits you — I definitely heard the one that didn’t.
It was late December 2009. I was standing on a small hill in southern Israel looking at massing army tanks starting to point towards Gaza and talking to a TV producer when a sound like a jet engine roared above our ears.
We crouched and ran like crabs, swivelling eyes looking for cover when a missile landed with a hard crack and shudder in the middle of a field about 50 metres away. No damage or dead bodies this time, a wake-up call.
I’d been in the Middle East for a day to cover the latest war between Israel and Hamas and quickly realised you have between 15 and 30 seconds to find shelter whenever Hamas randomly fired its handmade Qassam rockets out of Gaza.
The Israeli military’s bombardment of Gaza in 2009, in contrast, was relentless and accurate – 1400 Palestinians died in that conflict compared to 13 Israelis.
Throughout Israel’s short history they’ve lashed out whenever they felt threatened and the end result then as now, is vicious and brutally overwhelming.
But peace is never achieved this way. Only an entrenched hatred that grows every time another innocent Palestinian or Israeli is slaughtered. A festering wound that still feels like it may never heal.
Garth Bray
My personal pick is the story I did with news cam Jason Hull for 1News from Afghanistan a couple of days before Anzac Day 2012.
Afghan interpreters working with the NZSAS were begging to be allowed to come to NZ before our defence force and other coalition allies pulled out, as the Taliban would murder them for collaborating.
Other media back home picked it up and put pressure on then Prime Minister John Key and then Defence Minister Jonathan Coleman.
Just before Christmas 2012, the Government announced $8m in funding to resettle 125 Afghans, 25 interpreters and up to four family members, and then added more the next year.
I talked about the trip and that story with a Media Studies class at a school out in Flat Bush last year and after, the principal told me they had some of the kids from Afghanistan there at school.
Maybe it would have happened anyway. Maybe it would not have happened at all. I do know their cause took off like a rocket after our story broke, led the 6pm bulletin on a Sunday night and set the news agenda for days after.
Jessica Mutch McKay
A big event for me was covering the migrant crisis in 2015 where thousands of people walked across borders trying to get away from fighting. Camera operator Gary Hopper and I managed to be in the right place at the right time for some pretty big moments.
Some stand-out images I remember were when people were blowing bubbles for the kids in the makeshift camp that had started in a car park. When we set up for a live cross, the grass was littered with people’s belongings including a single, child’s patent leather shoe, just one of the many things left behind.
One lesson in human kindness stays with me too. We were doing a live cross and Gary was holding up a light reflector board and trying to adjust the camera. A man came over and asked if we wanted help and Gary explained it was a bit tricky to catch the light and bounce it onto the reporter’s face, but the man explained he was a studio camera operator in Syria. He stood and held the light reflector as I did the live cross on the tragedy he was facing.
It’s hard to imagine having to leave your home in a rush and walk with your family to a destination unknown. I loved being able to report those stories to New Zealanders.
Paul Hobbs
Probably the best pictures in my time were the London riots in 2011.
Effectively, we were telling the story of anarchy and riot action over the period of almost a week.
They were sparked in Tottenham after a Black man was shot dead by police, and they spread like wildfire throughout North London and across the country.
A missile was thrown at me as I was attempting to record my piece to camera. It was surreal, frightening, and I was astonished at the scale of offending by everyday members of the public.
Joy Reid
Harry and Meghan’s wedding was the biggest event on an international scale with more than five thousand other media personnel and extraordinary interest from NZ audiences.
It attracted massive crowds (something I’d never experienced before or since) and really put the royals in the spotlight. It was a story with so many twists in the build up too, given the personal dramas with Meghan and her family. The pomp and ceremony was extraordinary and to get a front row seat was such a privilege. It was refreshing to be doing a story on something so positive too, before it all turned sour.
Also covering the birth of two Royal babies, Prince Louis and Prince Archie, and another wedding, Princess Eugenie’s, I liked to think of myself as the “Royal Correspondent” for a while.
I also found the centenary anniversaries of World War I events to be very very poignant and memorable. Remembering our troops at Paschendale and Le Quesnoy, and then later standing next to the Arc de Triomphe as German and French leaders shared an umbrella next to Putin and Trump — utterly amazing.
I did a story on the 75th anniversary of the World War II Battle of Montecasino. Interviewing a 96-year-old survivor/soldier in a cemetery where so many of his friends were buried was incredibly sobering and a true privilege.