Mediawatch - The Programme

Programme Brief

Programme: Mediawatch

Scheduled: Sunday Mornings 9.06 am

Commences Sunday 10 June 2001

The Programme

A vital element of Sunday Morning will be Mediawatch, a critical, analytical and investigative examination of the role of the media in New Zealand.

Electronic and print media play an important role in the development of public opinion. Presented by Russell Brown, Mediawatch will examine the degree to which the media influences our values and how we see ourselves as New Zealanders.

Programme Presenter: Russell Brown

Russell Brown has had an extensive and varied career as a journalist and broadcaster, working for the Christchurch Star and Rip It Up before moving to London in the mid eighties where he was a freelancer for several leading music magazines.

Returning to New Zealand he became editor of Planet magazine and wrote the Listener’s Rock column until 1994 when he moved to a new Computers column. In 1996 he began work for IDG and has been news editor of the company’s online presence, IDGNet.

He is well known to New Zealanders for Hard News, a robust commentary delivered on 95bFM every week. Russell has won six QANTAS Media Awards for news, column and feature writing and two TUANZ reporting awards.

Editorial Advisers

Steven Price

Steven Price is a law lecturer and newspaper columnist with a special interest in media legal issues. He studied media ethics as part of his law degree at Berkley and has been published in the American Journalism Review.

Gordon McLauchlan

Gordon McLauchlan has been a freelance writer and broadcaster for more than twenty years, working on several provincial and metropolitan newspapers before managing a stable of magazines. He was a founding director of Radio Pacific and is a columnist for the New Zealand Herald.

Tom Frewen

Tom Frewen is a newspaper and magazine columnist, a media commentator with a particular interest in the theory and practice of public broadcasting. A journalist for almost 30 years, he has worked for newspapers, magazines, with commercial radio and for the BBC.

Programme Producer: Lynn Freeman

Mediawatch producer, Lynn Freeman has spent 20 years working in radio and television. She worked as producer / presenter of Southern Edition broadcast by Southern Television as part of the Horizon network and has produced both Kim Hill and Morning Report for National Radio.

For Further Information Contact:

Russell Brown Email: russb@ihug.co.nz

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