In Conversation

As 1 News marks half a century on air, presenters Wendy Petrie and Melissa Stokes sat down to chat about the changing media landscape, their career highs and lows and the beauty of growing older.

Society & community

MELISSA: Looking back on the past 50 years, how do you think New Zealand has changed?

WENDY: Well, we’re much more diverse – we accept diversity. Women can do much more than we’ve ever done before.

M: Yes, I think we’re much more open-minded and accepting. Life is also a lot busier now, isn’t it? Although in a work sense, we don’t really know what it was like for those who were in our roles before us. Perhaps it’s just that we’re right in the midst of our short time here, so it feels that way?

W: Also news, and the way news is delivered, has evolved so much. And our jobs have changed so much. Often now, at the end of the day, your audience has already seen the news on their devices. So we have to adapt and change. The challenge for us is to stay relevant, and for the news to stay relevant. Of course, with all the fake news out there and the whole social media echo chamber, I actually think it’s never been more relevant.

M: Obviously, the advent of the internet and social media has changed life dramatically. And there’s a negative side to that with cyberbullying, especially amongst kids. But on a positive note, what it means for our jobs is higher engagement. And then as you said, we have more responsibility because you can now look at your phone and your Facebook feed and think that you’re seeing everything that you need to see, but those articles might be skewed in one direction. So we are that balance and we sort through that information. We’ve also changed how we present the news in the sense of not having to be so stoic or so unemotive. We’re allowed to show a little bit of who we are, and I think that’s for the better.