Hadyn's Heroes! 10 Years Of Good Sorts

A Special Show Will Catch Up With People Spreading Joy

- Amy Prebble

It’s a good thing One News journalist Hadyn Jones lost out on the coveted European correspondent role in 2009. If he had landed it, we might not have been treated to the heartwarming tales of caring Kiwis every Sunday on Good Sorts for the last decade.

As it happened, his bosses at TVNZ softened the blow at the time by sending Hadyn to Atlanta to observe the workings of American news network CNN. It was there that he first saw their monthly segment, Heroes, which celebrated incredible people saving lives.

“I thought, ‘Wow, this is amazing. It’s celebrating the great stuff people do,’” says Hadyn. “On the plane home, I wondered if we could Kiwify the segment and make it about everyday people who do nice stuff because it’s the little stuff that keeps our society going. Without it, we couldn’t really operate at all.”

To his astonishment, the head of news agreed straight away. “He didn’t ask how much it would cost or when we would run it. He just said, ‘Yes.’ That never happens,” Hadyn recalls.

“Then we spent a week arguing about what we were going to call it. We decided to ditch the hero thing altogether and just call it Good Sorts. That was his idea and it stuck.”