MEDIAWATCH: Ryan Bridge makes AM Show politically relevant again

15
1964

I’ve always been a TVNZ Breakfast viewer, John Campbell leads a news team that is incisive & warm,  but this year it’s more Spin-off TV pomposity mixed with Stuff’s bewildering sense of self importance with a dash of RNZ supremacy.

It’s like a private kindergarten that sells itself on its inclusive yoga program.

Ever since TVNZs terribly woke election night coverage, the network has become insufferably smug.

I never warmed to Duncan Garner on The AM Show, but sweet Jesus how good is Ryan Bridge?

His fixed interview spots with Jacinda, Judith and Grant have been genuinely great!

He gets real answers out of politicians and I learn things from the interviews that the talking points on RNZ, Stuff & TVNZ miss.

Most interviewers have set questions with maybe a follow up, Ryan listens to the answers and is quick enough to use those in his next question.

He’s made The AM Show politically relevant again, and I switch them on before Breakfast on TVNZ now.

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15 COMMENTS

  1. Totally agree.

    I don’t usually get into these shows but this guy is good. Not arrogant, not patronising but interesting.

    He is a good foil to Jacinda’s slipperiness and Judith repulsion.

  2. Nah, he might be behaving himself at the moment–but he is a new gen tory when it comes down to it–he had a good lash out at Ihumatāo occupiers and supporters a while back.

    As a gay man he should be aware (or make himself aware) that his standing in society in 2021, including civil union etc. is only possible because of previous activist campaigns through the 70s, 80s and 90s.

    • To damn right.
      It is a thing the younger generation refuse to Acknowledge and take their current rights as a given.

    • :As a gay man he should be aware (or make himself aware) that his standing in society in 2021, including civil union etc. is only possible because of previous activist campaigns through the 70s, 80s and 90s.
      As if that’s ever going to happen!
      It’s none of my bizzniss whether he fucks chickens in his spare time, but although he might occasionally ask a question or two that’s relevant and unscripted, it’s in the context of history now ended, and a neoliberal whurl he’s only ever experienced/ As @CB says: “meh”.
      Next. The Pink Dollar has been around for a long time, even when activists were fighting the war.

    • As a gay man myself…. I do respect those activists in the 60s,70s and 80s and 90s and I’m thankful for their work.

      They were so successful that being gay is no longer a big deal , it’s not even a big deal to gay men and women.

      You can’t say you want equality and then get mad that once people have it that their sexuality doesn’t define how they vote.

      I don’t know if Bridge is a Tory but who cares if he is, just because someone is an economic Tory doesn’t mean they are a self hating gay or racist

      To say you want gay people to be treated like everyone else and have equality and then attack gay people who don’t vote the way you would like them to says you don’t want equality you want gay people to be in perpetual oppression so they can never think or have an opinion on anything outside of gay issues. That’s disgusting..

      Gay people are people not a political ideology. We’re not all the same we have our own thoughts and opinions and I don’t know anyone who takes their sexuality into the voting booth with them and the ones who do aren’t worth knowing.

      I’m a class lefty not some identitarian it sounds like a lot of older gay people would prefer gay people weren’t classes as fully equal.

      Equality for all gays except the ones we don’t like…. Yuck

      If all he did was worry about lgbt+ issues and speak woke crap he wouldn’t be seen as a serious reporter.

      The fact his sexuality isn’t a big deal to him or the public shows how much progress we’ve made.

      We’re individuals, not a political party despite the embarrassing loud small minority of the rainbow community that makes media and the public think we’re all a bunch of identiarians obsessed with ourselves 90% of lgbt+ wouldn’t be caught dead at a pride parade. We don’t think about our sexuality 24/7. A lot of us cringe at modern gay activists.

      I vote based off class not my sexuality. I have a luxury other generations don’t but that just shows how successful the previous generations were it doesn’t make me a bad gay.

      Bridge is a journalist not a gay journalist. A journalist.

      Im a human. Not a gay human . A human .

      • Well Corey you are now able to be a human and rightly so and good for you, the bashings and homicides are still close enough in time to the current era unfortunately. The point that you and others have missed is simply this–Bridge has criticised social activism and protest which shows a lack of awareness for someone trying to present as credible. Our esteemed Editor of TDB has praised Mr Bridge and I think it is not warranted till he has proven himself over time like John Campbell has.

        On the big 2016 TPPA march in Auckland led by Ngati Whātua, John Campbell was clapped as he walked up Queen St. interviewing people, in all my years that is the first time I have seen a journalist get such a public acclamation.

        Back in the 80s I marched and rallied and supported homosexual law reform with many others, sometimes wearing a pink HUG badge (Heterosexuals Unafraid of Gays!)–what a tagline eh? but it shows where the country was at back then when you had actual members of Parliament saying gays should be shot–Norm Jones MP. I don’t expect people to live up to stereotypes or behave in certain ways at all. The gay movement had its share of Ponsonby Lawyers and business people in those days and it made little difference to the leftists involved in what became a wide peoples movement.

  3. Well good for you, Bomber boy, I make it an absolute priority to never rise out of bed before 10.00 am if I can help it. 2 or 3pm is a good time for this ex nightshift worker/ security person. I get to miss all the garbage while I blissfully am in ignorance of all the crap going on while I revel in the ‘ little death’.

    Sleep is bliss.

    So there.

  4. Thank Heaven for small mercies.
    If and when I watch either of the two in real time (Breakfast or the AM), I find myself quickly reverting to Morning Report in a bid to dodge the screaming commercialism that takes up a sizeable proportion of the air time. Usually shit I’ll never have any intention of buying no matter how hard they try and push it – except maybe a luverly cup of tea from “our friends at Dilmah, or ASB” out of necessity.
    But then, when there are interviews with our politicians and other ‘movers and shakers’, I also wonder whether or not the PR and Comms people that advise aren;t the very same that’ve just popped out from Saatchi and Saatchi, EY or PWC for a change of pace while looking for other opportunities.

  5. “Most interviewers have set questions with maybe a follow up, Ryan listens to the answers and is quick enough to use those in his next question.”

    EXACTLY!

    For literally decades I’ve been screaming at the TV screen here during NZ during political interviews because the interviewer just meekly shuffles his prompt cards and moves on, instead of drilling deeper. It might be due to the general semi-competence of NZ media or maybe the general unwillingness of New Zealanders to confront a difficult issue head on.

    Either way, it bears the fetid aroma of weakness.

    I was brought up in the UK on a diet of Robin Day and Richard Dimbleby and accustomed to a more robust and intellectual diet.

  6. ” It might be due to the general semi-competence of NZ media or maybe the general unwillingness of New Zealanders to confront a difficult issue head on ”

    Yes nailed it !!!

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