Reporting for DUTY

NEWSHUB POLITICAL EDITOR

Tova O’Brien

Tova O’Brien is, quite literally, breathless. The day we speak, she has just raced across Wellington to interview New Zealand First leader Winston Peters before his campaign bus boarded the Bluebridge.

“Wiston rangto say his ferry was leaving and I had five minutes to get down there and interview him,” says Tova, 37. “I grabbed a camera operator and we raced down, broke through a secure cordon, and did the interview just before the ferry sailed. It’s the kind of high adrenaline political reporters love. For the first time in five months, it felt like the political campaign was on again.”

Like so many things, Covid-19 hijacked New Zealand’s general election, pushing issues and campaigning to the margins and decimating Tova’s carefully orchestrated strategy for herself and her team of Newshub political journalists, including Jenna Lynch and Anna Bracewell-Worrall.

“I used to look at the gallery journalists and really, really want their jobs”

“Our plan was to base ourselves in Auckland and follow the various leaders around the country,” she says with a deep sigh. “We’d actually