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The
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January 27 2006 But the Listener piece ignores the Nine to Noon
presenter's performance
Ms Clark's colleagues
definitely know. Within Radio New
Zealand's Wellington operation, a strong cover story in this week's Listener
on the departing broadcaster has gone down like a cup of cold public service
coffee. Small wonder. Over the
five-page profile, written by Joanne Black, Ms Clark holds forth at scathing
length on what's wrong with the journalistic establishment generally, Radio
New Zealand particularly and some of her old workmates especially. In the process, the
woman who once edited a magazine called Grace reveals herself to be rather
notably graceless when placed on the other side of a recording device. A
lovely smile, to be sure, just like a crocodile. The presenter "never
fitted" into Radio New Zealand's newsroom culture, she reveals,
characterising the environment as one of deep unhappiness, lousy management
and risible young lightweights. Her erstwhile chums on
Nine to Noon, including the four producers the show chomped through during
her time behind the mike and the many stand-in presenters who fronted during
her sometimes baffling absences? Ms Clark appears unable to muster an
ennobling thought about any of them, either. Now, as ever, she looks upon her
RNZ employer and colleagues with the "sense of being a misfit," she
complains. "I don't understand the culture." So she's leaving
journalism altogether. Possibly, she suggests, the move will be to a
late-blooming career in law. More likely, one suspects, it will turn out to
be a fat-paying gig in public relations, where unlike in journalism people
"do really interesting things which actually use their brains and where
they are treated as grown-ups," she gushes, casting another eye back on
what was and what might have been. Four long years. And 20
years in the reporting business overall too; a longer time yet - but not so
long that this columnist can't recall a strikingly similar discourse inside the
old New Zealand Times office, in which the then still-tender Ms Clark,
scowling like a sunburn, had much the same to say about many of her
colleagues, and even then seemed to pine for an occupational station better
suited to her thoroughly middle-class English roots. As might be expected,
the latest story goes big on the misfit-in-residence's litany of complaints -
but stays light on any discussion of her own performance. So when the
outgoing presenter delivers her verdict on the state of the country's print
media "so much of what I read isn't very penetrating ... very contextual
... very illuminating", the question of her own contributions to the
status quo is tactfully passed over. Surely that's an
oversight in the case of a presenter who, in all seriousness, once insisted
on air that the Israeli news media is entirely government-run, who laughed
like a drain during a live discussion with an Australian correspondent over a
particularly vicious outback killing, and for much of the past few years has pursued
an increasingly strange narrative to do with the supposed state of the
Anglo-American-Australian hegemony in the Middle East. Nothing very
illuminating or contextual there. Ms Clark also enjoys
the dubious distinction of being the National Radio presenter responsible for
occasioning the organisation's biggest-ever grovel following a Broadcasting
Standards Authority decision that a programme she hosted in August 2003 was
blatantly unfair and unbalanced in its hounding of Peter Ellis. Still, the article
skips a number of obvious kudos as well. It is one measure of her success
that even Wellington insiders who claim to despise the presenter seem to
listen to her religiously - and to recycle her comments at parties. Another has been her
skilfully even-handed composure while interviewing local politicians. Unlike
her attempts at offshore dialogue, the English-born Ms Clark's political
views have nearly always remained impossible to glean from her discussions
with New Zealand leaders. And - credit where it's due, please - her taste in
music knocks spots off predecessor Kim Hill's frequently tragic selections. As tempers cool over at
Radio New Zealand, the organisation's attention will naturally focus on Ms
Clark's own successor. National Radio says it is looking for a
"high-profile, high quality" replacement here and abroad. A number of possible
candidates are sidebarred with the Listener piece. They include former host
Maggie Barry unlikely, she says, accidental tourist Anita McNaught so full of
love for the ordinary Kiwi battler, but could she eschew the baubles of the
Beeb? and the enigmatic Kathryn Ryan but does she have the common touch?. The expectation appears
to be that the replacement must be a woman. But if a politically
right-leaning host remains out of the question - this is Radio New Zealand,
after all - then how about a man? He would need to be a seasoned broadcaster,
internationally literate, quick-witted and, ideally, someone already familiar
to listeners. And if he harked from the political left, then at least he
would need to be known as someone who did so with nuance if not panache. So what about John
Pagani? Even the grumpy incumbent would be hard pressed to find a snippy
thing to say about her own choice for Nine to Noon's current European
correspondent. KUDOS: Even Wellington
insiders who claim to despise Linda Clark seem to recycle her comments at
parties |
