Taking it on the chin - ORIINI'S CHANGING THE FACE OF NEWS

She’s 100% Maori and got the moko to prove it!

Oriini Kaipara recalls pretending to be a news presenter in front of her classmates as a kid, standing before a makebelieve camera as her bulletins flowed in te reo.

For friends and family of the Maori mum-of-four, it’s no surprise she became an award-winning journalist. And now she’s hit headlines herself as the first person with a moko kauae to read mainstream news on TV.

“I was a boisterous, inquisitive, know-it-all little girl,” laughs Oriini, 36, who made her 1 News debut filling in as a midday presenter last month. “Then I had two of my kids by 17, went to film school because it was a one-year course, and kind of fell into journalism after that.”

The Whakatane-born presenter’s journalism experience includes working on Maori radio station Ruia Mai and presenting Maori Television’s Native Affairs show.

“Reading the mainstream news was a dream and I was so excited because it represents beyond me,” the Te Karere journalist tells. “It’s for all of us – Maori and all of New Zealand.”

West Auckland-based Oriini was brought up fully immersed in te reo and Maori traditions as a child, attending Maori language schools until her late teens. As one of Aotearoa’s most well-known Maori reporters, one of Oriini’s missions now is to normalise her language and culture with the help of the moko kauae she got in January this year.