ScreenTalk: Susan Wood

Susan Wood is one of New Zealand’s most experienced TV news and current affairs presenters. Beginning in print journalism, Wood soon moved to TVNZ news where she stayed for more than 20 years.

Wood has a number of firsts to her career, including first TVNZ foreign correspondent (Sydney); first host of Midday News; and first host (with Mike Hosking) of TV ONE’s Breakfast. In 2005 Wood sued TVNZ over a plan to cut her salary by 22 per cent – she left the network a year after she won her case.

In this ScreenTalk interview, Wood talks about:

• Developing the ‘fine attributes of a thief’ to source footage as TVNZ’s first foreign correspondent
• Using her feminine wiles to get interviews with Australian PM Bob Hawke
• Feeling terror during her first live interview while filling in on Holmes
  
• How a tiny team of women put out an hour of news a day on Midday News
  
• Co-hosting with Mike Hosking on the first two years of Breakfast
  
• Nerves and tension behind the scenes before the first broadcast
• The emotion of interviewing her colleague Angela D’Audney on Today Live when D’Audney was terminally ill
• Being up a mountain when told Paul Holmes had left TVNZ and she had just hours to come in and host a new show – Close Up
  
• The incredible competition between three 7pm current affairs programmes
• Facing public humiliation and a good deal of heartache when she sued TVNZ over changes to her contract

This video is available on YouTube to embed and distribute via a Creative Commons licence.

NZ On Screen: Interview, Camera & Editing – Andrew Whiteside