Between Two Beers Podcast: Jack Tame: The Perfect Interview, Grilling Winston Peters, Lessons from Hosking (Re-Release)

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On this episode of Between Two Beers, we're rewinding the clock back to April of 2022

when we sat down with Jack Tame. Jack is Journalism's Swiss Army Knife, a guy that does it all.

He's been a breakfast host, a 6pm newsreader, he hosts one of New Zealand's biggest radio shows

on News Talk ZB, is a columnist for the New Zealand Herald, has moderated live election debates,

now hosts TVNZ's Q&A, and has seen more and experienced more of the world than any 36-year-old

we know. In this episode, we talk about how he was given Paul Holmes' radio job on ZB

at the age of 25 with no radio experience. That interview with Winston Peters, where Jack was

called James about 10 times, the time he was recording live TV while fearing for his father's

life, dancing with Beyonce, covering Trump, why he left breakfast TV, the things you don't know

about Mike Hosking, and so much more. This was one of our favourite episodes and one we wanted

to share with new listeners of the podcast. Jack is, in my opinion, the best political

interviewer in the country, and has raised a sharp mind and quick wit made this one a lot of fun.

Listen on my heart where you get your podcast from or watch the video on YouTube. A huge

thanks to those supporting the show on Patreon. If you want to chip in for the cost of a cup of

coffee a month, go to www.between2beers.com. This episode was brought to you from the

Export Beer Garden Studio. Enjoy!

Jack Tame. Gentlemen, welcome to Between Two Beers. Thank you for having me and sorry to

have already opened my beer. No, please be our guest. Be our guest. Yeah, yeah, sip away.

First time we're in the ACC studios again tonight. Is this your first time in here, Jack?

I don't think it is. I've been in here a couple of times, but it's weird because I feel like Mike

Lane or one of the guys, you know, they've got the little headsets. It's like the little,

it's not a Madonna Mike, but it's kind of like, yeah, you know what it is? It's like a boxing

commentator, Mike. And that's when I think of the ACC, I always think of the guys wearing these

ridiculous little mics. Yeah, yeah. So it's a brush with fame. I do have my Steady the Ship hat,

but I'm eyeing up some of the ACC. I'll let you take it. Do you reckon the blazes, the cream

blazes? I'm surprised they actually look as cream as they are because they, he's sort of given some

of the hijinks expect them to be a bit more stain. That's almost a khaki. Yeah. I had a bit of an

embarrassing correspondence with you earlier today, which I wanted to take back as soon as I

sent it. So I sent Jack an email saying like, based on the ACC studios, you could find some

off-street parking at Graham Street, you know, ticks me when you're outside. And then later,

when I was doing a bit of research, I was like, he's been working at Newstalk ZB for like a million

years. For a long time. He's got a car park in this building. He was literally here an hour ago.

No, it was very helpful. Thank you. I appreciated the considered logistics.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I want to go back straight away as I let myself down. No, no, no, no.

Welcome back to work. Thank you very much guys. It's a pleasure to be here. Thank you for having

me. Yeah, yeah, good. We've got a lot of areas to get stuck into. The way we do things is we

tell the audience how we know the guests. So Shay, how do you know Jack Tame? First time to

meet, obviously, watched your work. My Sunday mornings, booze free, are a lot more concentrated

and I'm able to digest some of your work that way. In researching the podcast, though, I stumbled,

I always try and find a connection if I don't know the person. So I stumbled. Our connection

is I'm very similar to you in that I have recently picked up Whirdle.

Whirdle, are we saying? No, Whirdle. Do you not know about Whirdle? What's Whirdle? Oh, mate,

you've been in the past. So, okay, so you got your Whirdle, only losers play Whirdle. Okay,

I mean, I play that as well. Sorry, Jay. No, no, no, okay. So Whirdle, actually, I did. Did you

get it today? Okay, for some reason, the beta app wasn't working for me. Do we say beta or beta?

I'm not sure. Okay, so Whirdle is fantastic. Okay, here we go. Here we go. No, here we go.

I won't spoil it for you. So you are presented with the outline of a country as in the physical

borders of a country. I got it in two, just so you know. Shit. Yeah, you're welcome.

And you have to guess that country and every time you get it wrong, it tells you how far

off you are and how many kilometers you are. Okay. So are you going to do this or am I going

to do this? No, no, I'm not going to do it. For a man who's been to every continent in the world,

I feel like this is right up your alley. But, Shay, you a geography guy? Big geography guy.

I got it in two. I got it in two. Okay, so I'm looking at this and there's a peninsula that

juts along the southern border of this country. Otherwise, it's like a relatively cubic looking

country. This is dynamic. I can tell. I've already lost my business. Okay, so

I just want to see what your first guess is. It's kind of cubic. It looks like there is a

body of water, a large body of water on one side. It's going through all the steps I went through.

I'm going to say that this is potentially

central Asia. Central Asia was what I was going to say. You weren't going to say that at all.

That's also not a country. I'm concerned that Shay got this in one. He's already looking quite

pleased with himself. Okay, I'm going to guess. No, I got it in two. I'm going to stick with

central Asia and I'm going to say Turkmenistan, which is a bold call. It's a good guess. Yes,

90%. So I'm 2,000 kilometers off Turkmenistan. So what is 2,000 kilometers directly west of

Turkmenistan? It's a bloody good question. Steve doesn't know where Turkmenistan is.

One of the stands? Afghanistan? No, it's not. No, there's a good try. Okay, I reckon

it's 2,000 kilometers. So New Zealand to Australia is about 3,000. This is a lot more

detailed. 2,000, I'm going to say off just as a random guess.

I'm tempted to say Azerbaijan. One of the stands. That's it's

Oh, 95%. You beat me, Shay. So we're 1,000 kilometers away. I'll be messaging you tomorrow.

Directly west of Azerbaijan. Okay, it's hard to think of a worse game, I think, for the podcast.

This is how long? So you get the idea of world, we're going to have to finish this off. Okay.

I love how invested Jack is in this straight away. This is one of the pillars of my day

in the morning. I'm not going to help him out. I'm going to say Georgia. I wouldn't say Georgia.

You wouldn't? That's not what I would have gone with. 780 kilometers away from Georgia.

You're getting closer. Yeah, we're getting closer, but it's still we're not close enough,

unfortunately. Any three more guesses? Yeah, so we're three more while you work that out.

Okay, yeah, please. Steven, what's your connection to Jack? Do you know about trade?

I don't know. Oh, you're not living till you find trade. Let's trade. Trade. Okay, so

trade. Oh, I got trade on to trade as a trade me. So it's no, you are presented with

a country's export market and largest exports by industry. So what has an export of

export market of $1.15 billion, 23% rolled tobacco. There's a fucking big glue in that.

17% raw sugar, then zinc or nickel hard liquor. There's some massive and then crustaceans,

massive clues in that. I got it in one. Cuba. Cuba, baby. This guy. Nice. We might be best

friends. Steve, while Jack is lagging behind, I feel like we've lost Jack. We'll pull him back

in. How do you know Jack? How do I know Jack? I think maybe 10 years ago, when you were the

US correspondent, I remember seeing you like perhaps a lot of people's first impression

was how is this young kid got such a cushy job was my first thought. And the more I saw you,

I was like, I can see how he's got such a good job because he's absolutely nailing it. And I

followed you held on Sunday column. I've listened to your news talks. It'd be I've watched you on

breakfast. But perhaps when you went up in my elevation the most was when I saw you on late

night big breakfast, which is one of my favorite shows of all time. I was like, Jack, he gets it.

Jack is in on the joke. Like this is amazing. You played like the straight man perfectly.

But what was that? I find it it's quite funny your whole body of work that we start with later.

No, no, there was a career highlight. It was so good. Do you know how hard it is though?

You can imagine the production that goes into the late night big breakfast is about as loose as

you could possibly imagine. Like you turn up like a rough time that Lee told you one time when he

passed you on the street randomly. And you're like, okay. And I mean, it is literally filmed in a

target. Yeah, you go to a target store and there are people buying, you know, cities and

discount beds and shit, and haberdashery. Yeah, haberdashery. Yeah. Okay. And they basically

were just like, yeah, we'll just like kind of riff around you and and just, you know, just kind

of just be yourself but try and be straight if you can. But honestly, the times they were doing

I was having a bite down on the back of my cheek so hard. Really? I was weeping, especially when

there's something about Jason Hoyt. I just think Jason Hoyt is the most and I mean, Lee's amazing,

don't get me wrong, but Jason Hoyt is I just think like a genius in our midst. I just think he's

incredible and listening to the ACC. I'm like, fuck, this guy is outstanding because he never

breaks. You never hear him flinch, you never hear him laugh or joke or get or, you know,

and he just he just holds the line. I just think he's I think he's amazing. And so,

yeah, when we were filming there, honestly, there's a I went back and watched it once they,

you know, they put it out and then I watched a couple of times and then I

went back and watched it and I could see where they'd had to edit because I was deliberately

turning my face away from the camera because I was laughing so hard. It was so much fun.

It was so much fun. So I hope I hope they'll have me back to do it again. Was it your first time

doing something not journalism on camera? I think no, I did a bit of I maybe did a bit of

sort of I think I was on what now back in the day. Back in the day. Good. You know, the sort of

you think you were on what now? I was on what now. I was on what now. It's okay to be on what

now. There's no shame in that. You don't have to hide the fact that you were on what now. A lot

of people have done that. I had to do that. It was a Shortland Street anniversary of some

description or some special show where they were imagining Rangi Toto erupting. That was a

Michaelis stunt. No, that's right. How did he get away with that? Yeah. So anyway, there was

something and I had to kind of play myself on that. But I suppose if you're sort of if you're

playing yourself and you're just reading the news or whatever. Oh, sorry, you are now as an adult.

No, I was on what now is about an 18 year old. It was a it was a it was a part time job I had

probably as a 17 or 18 year old. Just back to late night, big breakfast. Yeah. When you're

recording, like there's so much hijinks going on around you. I imagine you don't know really what

they've got or what part of the show you're going to be in. Are you watching it at home later with

the rest of New Zealand? Yeah, see like what they've made of you. Yeah, I mean, they don't share it

with you beforehand. No, I just got I got it when I waited for it to come out whenever it came out.

And I hadn't, you know, Lee's not like the king of communication.

I can't embrace upon you how loose it was. Like it's like, yeah, I mean, their office is directly

above the oh, really? Their office is above target. I think that only filmed there because Lee

walked like bumped into the manager once and was like, oh, yeah, we're looking for a space.

And they were like, oh, I've only had a, you know, a large and predominantly empty furniture show.

He was like, oh, yeah. One of the all time moments on that show and Lee talked about it when we had

him on the podcast was the Mongolian throat singer. Oh, my God. And that scene at the end,

where him and Jeremy just wheezing and Lee has to remove himself. Oh, it's it is. It is a special

form of genius. Hey, that that program. And then they it's a great measure of people as to whether

or not they'll buy into it, you know, whether or not they'll kind of take the piss out of themselves,

I always think on those programs. Yes. You know, they get the polys on sometimes and they're quite,

when they're game, it can be really, it can be really kind of revealing and funny. And yeah,

that's why it's connected with me because you could see you were game that you were up for the

joke. You didn't mind it. I mean, I watched, I watched as a fan all the time when they asked me,

I was stoked. You know, so, um, yeah, yeah, that was a, that was a pleasure. I don't know what's

happening though. They get their shit together and give another season up. We did have, we had,

we'd done an episode with Lee Hart and he seemed like he was dead keen to get back into creating.

No, Lee. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, no, I'm sure he is. I'm sure he is. We'll be right back after this

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Oh, yeah. The other thing we do here is we canvass your friends and colleagues and people who know

you well to get a little bit of info sort of behind the scenes. So a couple of people

we've spoke to, there's a few nice things. So just, just bear, oh yeah. So Scotty Stevenson is one of

the most talented, most impressive guests that we've had on the show. And he had this to say,

amongst other things, he said, Jack is one of the most incredibly talented people I have ever

met. Coming from him is really, really powerful for us. And we also had Chris Chang, who works with

you. He said, Jack is a prodigious worker, but despite his notoriety as the darling of TV and Z,

he's actually a great loyal friend who's generous to a fault. Chang goes on, he's recently had to

curb his attendance at Les Mills' grit classes, which he regularly attended with Lord, as it wasn't

appearing to have any tangible benefits on his squash game. Now there's a few things here. I'm

going to leave the squash stuff aside for now, but going to Les Mills with Lord? I don't, I think I

went to Les Mills with Lord once. And to be clear, I didn't go with Lord. I like bumped into Lord,

who was a friend of a friend, and so went to a class in the general proximity of Lord,

but I'm quite a sweaty individual. I mean, actually, Chris Chang, he should see a specialist,

because I think he has some sort of glandular problem. He's the sweatiest person I've ever met.

We play squash and he'll bring like three t-shirts, just because he just works through them.

We've got a friend like that, Jeremy Field. Yeah, some people are just big sweaters.

Yeah. So no, I was a big Les Mills goer, but I hadn't quite bought into it. I was one of

these people who loved going, but was always aware that everyone was so beautiful and looked so amazing.

And I'm quite an uncomfortable looking, I'm just, I'm really limmy. I always remember Stephen Merchant

and the Cowpockington podcast saying he was like an albatross on stilts. And that's how I feel,

like I'm just, I've got my long limbs and they're all going in different directions, you know?

And so, and the problem with Les Mills and gyms like them is they love, they fucking love a mirror,

right? And so for most people, that's great, because they look young and taught and lean and

beautiful and whatever, you know, dressed up in the Lula Lemons to the nines. But I was always like,

fuck, I look bad. Like the discrepancy between how I thought I looked and how I looked was always

massive. But I'm quite a sucker for a great class from time to time. Just 25 minutes in

and out, you know? I'm going to try and squeeze any juice out of the story, because there's still,

it sounds like there was a class that involved you and Lord Les Mills. Are people doing a double,

a triple take on that one? I don't think anyone cares about me. I sure was like,

Lord, Lord, boxing, Lord. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, she was a, she was a,

from memory, she had a very good, it was the class where you, it's sort of, I don't know if you've

ever been to the Victoria Park, Les Mills. I have not. It's like, it's, there's this one room

that has a real sex dungeon vibe. Wow. In a good way. Red room. Yeah, yeah, it is, it's like that.

You go in there and you're like, there's a hell of a lot of latex for a Tuesday,

12, 15 class, you know? That was Tuesday, 12, 15. Just to be clear. And it's, it's, it was like a,

it's like a boxing class, right? And so you go in and you have to, you box and then you go and run

on a treadmill and then you box some more and then you do some squats and stuff. And so,

but the good thing about it is the, the mirrors are somewhat darkened. So I don't know, it must be

so hard for someone like Ella, someone like Lord going round. Cause I mean, you know,

I did morning TV or, you know, a bit of reporting. I can only, I know, but I can imagine, can you

imagine always having eyes on you? It would be so annoying. You get quite deep in a disguise game.

Well, wouldn't you just, I mean, imagine being like, you know, she has achieved so much. You know,

she's had such incredible success, but at 75, if she wants to duck out and, you know,

have a burrito, there's going to be someone who comes up to her and goes, oh my God, does that,

does that happen to you? You're amazing. It does, not heaps. And it doesn't bother me, but it does.

It's funny when you go, I live in central Auckland. I live on K road. And so, and I do work a lot.

And so I probably have a bubble that's pretty like central Auckland-y. And so,

and no one in central Auckland really watches TV. And so, and then, but if you go to like smaller

centres, or if I go, you know, go and see friends in Christchurch or whatever, all of a sudden people

come up and be like, oh my gosh, I was doing on TV the other night. Oh shit. Yeah, that's right.

I'm working in a very, very public medium. Or if I'm, because I do a lot of politics now,

if I'm in Wellington, often I'll bump into people I know. But it's definitely not,

I don't, it's not like I'm Jay-Z walking down the street.

Surprised you that we had a night out, I say night out, we went to a bar with Paddy Gower

in Hamilton once and he got swamped, like I've never seen before. Paddy Gower is an incredibly

recognisable person. And he's also one of those people who just has a lot of time for anyone

who comes up to them, you know, like, and he has a lot of time for everyone. I mean, Paddy's like,

he's a phenomenon, really. That doesn't surprise me. I would have thought like him,

John Campbell, Stephen Adams, Stephen Adams, yeah, but like a new in the news world,

probably him and Jay-Z are probably the ones who would get the most,

in their lives would be totally different to mine, you know, yeah.

We're going to start the real chat in 2013. So the late Paul Holmes has just stepped away

from News Talk ZB's Saturday morning show and a 25 year old with no radio experience broadcasting

live from New York on Friday nights is his replacement. So one of New Zealand radio's biggest

gigs and I've given it to you based on the work you've been doing on TV, but that seems like

an incredible punt and an incredible sort of nod of the hat to what they had seen

your potential talent to be. Yeah. Yeah, I think I think there are a few factors that came into that.

So first of all, good luck. And I'm not saying like I have worked super hard throughout my career.

There's no doubt that I've worked a lot. But I also think that I benefited from getting in

just at this really special moment in kind of in news and journalism and in broadcasting,

especially in TV, because to take it back a bit when I started know what TV was very rarely live.

And so, you know, when you watch the six o'clock news, everything was almost everything was a

preprepared package that the news reader would throw to. And it took a massive it was a massive

logistical effort to set up satellites and all those sorts of things to do a live cross.

And because it had always been a rarity, a lot of the senior reporters hadn't been very comfortable

being live on television. But because I start I came in really young. I came in as a bit of a

show of a bit of a performer anyway. And because everything terrified me, I was much more confident

live on TV than perhaps more senior reporters, just because I was shitted everything. Right.

And I was like, everything's terrifying to me. I'm like, I'm terrified to unlock the the building

in the morning, you know. And so as a result of that, because I because I was enthusiastic about

going live, when some other people were a bit edgy, I probably got more opportunities,

you know, sooner than I might otherwise have had. And just benefited from being in this coming

into the industry in this little window of two or three years. And through that got the opportunities

that then probably brought me to the attention of the of the ZB bosses. And it was funny,

they called me because I was I'd been in New York for maybe a year or so at that stage. And

they called me and and there was a it was when they were changing what was close up,

which was the TV one seven o'clock show with Sainsbury back in the day. They were changing that

to seven sharp. And there was a rumor going around somewhere that I was going to be one of the

presenters on seven sharp. It was a program where they had a few different presenters. And so the

boss rang me of ZB rang me and said, Hey, you know, we've heard a rumor that you might be coming

back for seven sharp. And if you do come back, would you be interested in doing radio? And I'd

come to know Paul Holmes a little bit. And he'd been really supportive of me. And so and I and I,

you know, I said, Oh, well, you know, I'd love to I'd love to do radio. But I'm not coming back.

I'm doesn't I'm not coming to be a presenter. I'm just I'm here reporting. That's what I'm doing.

Tell you what, though, the time difference is pretty convenient.

What do you say? We set up and do a do a radio show from New York. And to his massive credit,

because it was a it was a real punt. He was like, Yeah, okay, why, you know, let's give it a crack.

And I mean, it wasn't without without its ups and downs. And I wouldn't even go so far as saying

that I've necessarily repaid that faith. But but it was a it was a massive punt because that

sort of thing never happened. And it was amazing, because they the way we did it was back in the

day. News Talk was owned by Clear Channel, which is one of the massive media companies in America

that owns, you know, the top 40 radio stations in New York, the top talk stations in New York.

And so we just call them out of the blue Kiwi styles. And we're like, yo, we're doing a show in

New Zealand. And we just have a studio. And it was because of the time difference, it was 5pm

on a Friday till 8pm on a Friday in New York. So it was actually an incredibly convenient time,

because I could get in an hour before the end of their week, the technician could check that I was

connected to New Zealand, and then even when I'm fucked off. And so I would just sit there by myself

for three hours. And no one knew I was in the building, no one cared that I was in the building.

And it was crazy, like sometimes I remember this one time I was sitting in my studio. And I walked

out and a little ad break. And just standing next to me in the studio right next door, just

standing there texting was sheer. And I was like, but and no one was like, it was just totally normal

because this is the kind of studio we were in. And I was like, oh, fuck, okay, you're back to go and

talk to Kevin Milne. Yeah, yeah. So and the crazy thing was that, I shouldn't say this, but Clear

Channel ended up selling News Talks. But we just bought the technicians at Clear Channel

in New York, a crate of wine every year of New Zealand wine. And we never told them that Clear

Channel was in stock. So for five years or four years, I just broadcast it every Friday from New

York, from like these these amazing studios in Tribeca, next to share next to like the top radio

DJs in the Northeast and you in the US, you know, like, you just honestly, you walk down the hall,

it's like, oh, there's ASAP Rocky, all good. Cool. Off to go and talk gardening with rude,

you know, like it was and yeah, yeah, it was an amazing scene. So that's a dream job for anyone

in their life. I can't, it's just wild that you were 25 living in New York, doing it on a Friday

night. Like I think of the people you're bouncing around with during the day or whatever, I gotta

do this radio show that's like, probably no one's listening to that. No, it's one of the biggest radio

shows in New Zealand, hundreds of thousands of people listening. I mean, it was I did feel like

I lived a double life because I would go and you know, I was pretty social in New York as one

tends to be when they're in their mid 20s and they're, you know, and so we like, I would often,

I would have like indoor soccer sometime. So I would like, I'd go into, you know, I'd be doing a show

in New Zealand and I'd be looking at the news in New Zealand, I'd always have to like check the

forecast, you know, it's like, right, okay, it's 25 degrees in Auckland today, it's 22 in Wellington,

whatever, 24 in Christchurch. And it might be minus 15 in New York. And so I'd go in in a snowstorm

and then I'd be like, right, just try and forget about that for a few minutes and you know, what

a great day in Auckland. Yeah, exactly. Beautiful day out there guys. And then, and then go straight

downstairs, jump on the subway, go and play indoor soccer with, you know, a group of Italian

Americans. And it was just this like, it was like I was living in two dimensions, you know, it was,

it was, it was wack. Reflecting on it now, like you're lighting up talking about it. Did you know

at the time how incredible it was? Yeah, I did. I mean, and it's really easy when you look back

to think, oh, you know, you only focus on the good things. I mean, there were definitely times when

it was, you know, when shit went wrong, or it was super stressful. But I did, I did shows from

crazy places. I did crosses from casino floor, literally like on the floor of a casino in Las

Vegas, you know, because that was the only place that I could get a good enough internet connection.

I remember doing, because I would do, I would do stuff for my Koskiing show, I would do kind of

quality, here's what's happening in America kind of shit. And I, you know, I was in Alaska, covering

the Iditarod, which is the husky race that they have that goes up into the, up to by near the Arctic

Circle every year. And so I was kind of like, in the middle of this snow swept landscape,

in this four wheel drive that I'd hide with chains on, sitting in the back of my car,

doing a cross to my Koskiing, being like, yeah, yeah, Barack Obama's done.

All these times that I just had to pinch myself and think, shit, this is such a whack situation.

That's the other layer to it, right? Is that you were the US correspondent for TVNZ.

So as well as having the staple show back here in New Zealand, you're covering these, and let's not

beat around the, like when the US correspondent reports back on something, it's generally a

pretty big deal that's happened in America. It's not like, you know, the local bakery thing.

It's the biggest story. It's either a big story or it's like,

a New Zealand is done well and something. So it's, you're juggling those sorts of things as well,

as well as writing a column every week. But again, like I was,

it was a fucking sweet gig. It was awesome in that I just was able to live in multiple worlds at

once. And there were definitely, there were heaps and heaps of upsides. There were a few downsides

and that sometimes I felt like I, I know this will sound crazy, but I felt like I was too

connected to New Zealand still. You know, I still felt, I was like, oh, if I'm going to be overseas,

then I should totally cut the cord, you know? But I lived in East Harlem, which is, I lived on,

when I moved into the street that I lived on, I was, I mean, the street was about 50% Dominican,

50% Puerto Rican and 0.01% Christchurch. And you know, like they, so everyone on my street

called me a rose, which is the Spanish word for rice, because they all eat rice and beans for

the Holy See, a rose. And so, and they'd be like, you're the grain of rice in the bowl of rice and

beans, right? And so I kind of had this existence and I'd walk out on my, the stoop outside my

apartment and guys would be literally like rolling dice, like you see in the street,

like you see in movies, smoke and weed on the street. And, you know, the, in summer,

they'd crank up in the fire hydrants and all the kids would play in the fire hydrants outside.

And I'd be kind of living that life, but at the same time, really patched into New Zealand as well.

And the best thing was the time zone difference, because a lot of people think that it's a desirable

thing if you're a reporter in New Zealand to work in London. But if you're doing that,

and you're working for news, you've got to get up at four o'clock in the morning to do a

cross at five o'clock in the morning or whatever. But in New York, you just stay up until 2 a.m.

And then you go and do whatever. And obviously in a city like New York, you can do, you can do whatever.

We'll be right back after this short break.

So, you're young, you're talented, but you've got a lot to learn in radio still. It's your first

proper radio gig. You've mentioned already Paul Holmes and Mike Hosking. What did you learn from

them? What do you remember from the late Paul Holmes? So, we crossed a little bit when I was

working in both TV and in radio. And I came to know him better when he was sick, when he was

quite sick. And he just talked to me a little bit about structuring interviews, which I know

sounds like quite a dull thing, but to try and get, to try and build a storyline, like a narrative

through an interview. So, you're not even just going, this question, this question, this question,

but you're giving context for why you're asking questions. And in doing so, you can actually

reveal more about a person or their beliefs. But he also just, I remember just, he just encouraged me

about being live on TV and about trying to go, or on radio and trying to go live as much as possible.

But he was great. I went after I took over the show because I was like, yo, I don't know what I'm

doing. I really don't know what I'm doing. And I was very well supported by ZB at the time. And he

just, you know, like I remember, he immediately sent me a message in that first week and all that

stuff and said, oh, it sounds great. Even though I went back a few months later and listened to

my first show and I was like, oh, that was awesome. And, you know, I don't know what I was doing.

But it's funny, you know, I've seen Hosking in action a few times, like I've watched him in

action a few times. I've listened to him a lot. And I'm probably in a position where I can judge

really good broadcasters, especially live news broadcasters. And the thing is, obviously,

Hosking is in everyone's cup of tea and I get that. I mean, I disagree with half the shit he says,

you know. But when I listen to him broadcasting by himself, I can only assure anyone that he is

so far ahead of everyone else in New Zealand broadcasting. In terms of radio news broadcasting,

that guy, as a broadcaster, forget what, forget whatever he's saying. You don't have to agree

with his opinions. But in terms of a broadcaster, the things that he is able to do, the agility that

he has to move between different segments, to cover different subjects, to tease something,

to be funny and to be on time, it's just amazing. I mean, he's got a clock sitting in front of him

the whole time. And I've filled him for his shows plenty of times. And, you know, he might have,

in the space of nine minutes, he knows he's got to do three interviews and opinion piece,

tease something, crack a joke, and hit an ad break. And he's like, when I say hit an ad break,

I mean, down to the second. The ad break is going to play whether he speaks or not.

But you never know that when you're listening. You never know that he's speaking exactly at a

time. You know, like, if I said to you right now, give me a minute 41 go. Hosking would hit a minute

41, no sweat. But he'd do it in a way that you never knew he was speaking to time. And I just,

when I listened to him, I'm like, fuck, man, that guy is so good. In the same way that Holmes was,

like, just as a broadcaster, again, opinions, whatever. But as a broadcaster, I'm like, shit,

that's a guy, you know, at the very top of his game. It's a real art, right? Like, we did Matt

Heath in this same studio straight after he'd come off the Matt and Jerry show in the morning.

And it was the same thing. He even told us before, and he's like, look, I'm really sorry, guys, I

tend to speak in whatever minute. Yeah, three minutes. And it literally was like that. And

Steven and I were both kind of like, oh, fuck, we've got to, but it puts you on your game.

Absolutely. If you're not used to it. I mean, you had Polly on as well, right, PJ? I mean,

she, I think PJ is right up there with the very best commercial radio broadcasters I've ever

heard. I mean, she was just like, and the thing about Hosking, and I'm not suggesting that PJ

doesn't have this as well, but the thing about Hosking is he does the whole show by himself.

And he doesn't have a song to throw to that guy is just going, interview, interview, opinion,

piece, interview, ad, ad, interview, but like, just that the whole time. And he's able to weave it

together in a way that I just, when I listen to it as someone who's done the job and can probably

appreciate all of the plates that he's spinning at any time, I'm just like, fuck, that guy is so

good. Yeah, do you try to replicate? No, I mean, the good thing about the radio show that I do

is it's relaxed. So I actually try to do something completely different in that I try to bring in

a really positive energy. My show is on Saturday mornings. So I deliberately try to make it not

too newsy, especially for the news talk audience, because I know that the whole week they've had

news, news, news, news, news, opinion, ah, the government's shit, or like, ah, the opposition's

shit, whatever. And that everyone's like COVID, COVID, COVID. And that sometimes it's actually

nice just to be like, Oh, let's just talk about something completely different. And so often,

I'll just touch on a bit of a news thing and then do something that's quite a bit lighter or a bit

more, a bit more relaxed. But if I haven't done it for a while, but you know, in filling in for Mike,

it just there's no or on drive for either or anything. There's just there's just no room for

error. You can't afford to go a minute long on anything, because you're the only person who's

going to dig you out of that hole. And yeah, and the times that I've done it, and the few times that

it's felt good, like you've come out of the studio and thought shit, yeah, that was probably as good

as I can get in replicating that kind of broadcasting cohesion. I've just realized the focus and

skill that it takes to kind of deliver that day in, day out, hour in, hour out. And yeah, I think

it's amazing. If you are filling in, and you asked them to not hit those times, have you got producers

screaming in your ear that we've got ad break coming up? Yeah, yeah, yeah, you got I mean,

like Hosking will have, again, like people don't feel like Hosking will be doing, he'll be speaking

to time. So sometimes the ad breaks will crash in not all the time, but sometimes the ad breaks

will crash in. So he will go, he will know at six 20, 40 seconds, and ad break is going to start

whether he's talking or not. And he has to talk up to that point. And so sometimes he'll have that.

Other times he will know I have to fit in three ad breaks in this 40 minute stretch. I've got all

of these interviews to get through. And when I'm in an ad break, that's the only time that we can

patch in an interview with someone else. So while I'm in the ad break, and while listeners are

listening to an ad break for two and a half minutes, I'm going to be doing another one of those

interviews. And then we're going to play it, switch that in and play it so it all goes together

live. Honestly, it's when you understand the mechanics of what goes into a really cohesive

show, and you listen to it on ear, and you know about all the shit that is happening behind the

scenes. Again, say what you will about husking in his opinions. But as a broadcaster, I'm like,

fuck that guy. So he's a master of the trade, and it's backed up by the numbers. He absolutely

crushes the readership or the listenership or whatever you want to call it. Do you judge your

success based on that too? Like, are you married to the numbers? Do you know if you've done a good

job based on the monthly figures that come in? Yeah, it's funny, because the thing about ratings

is a good day in the ratings never feels as good as a bad day feels bad.

And I've got a real mixed relationship with ratings. I think as I get older, I've come to

appreciate that the sky doesn't fall when they're bad, and they're really fickle, especially even

the way we measure ratings in New Zealand is super fickle. So there's no point in lashing

yourself too much when they're bad. But it's hard, man. Like, TV gets ratings every day.

We get the ratings seven days a week. At 9.30, I know I'm going to get an email that has the

ratings for all the shows the day before. And I know when I get the consolidated ratings, when

they've brought everything in, I'm going to get a color coded one. And I know that if it's not

red, that means we didn't win it. And if it's yellow, and if it is blue, then we're in real

trouble. And it's hard not to wear that. I think, fortunately, I'm in jobs where the ratings are

probably less. Like, Hosking has to wear the ratings all the time, right? Fortunately for him,

he's always winning them. But, you know, and I mean, he would never, I'm sure he would never

say they get to him, but they would get to me, put it that way. If I had to do that sort of job,

or I was doing, you know, if I was in prime time every single night, I would stress about the

ratings. I find it hard, I find it hard not to. Because it's like, it's the same sort of hollow

feedback that you get from a like on social media. That's honestly the best comparison.

It's like, you know, you check your Instagram posts and oh, you shall expect 180 likes on this,

but I've only got 120. It's pathetic, right? But you're like, fuck, man, my worth is so,

I'm worth more than that. But it's hard not to seek validation in these really kind of trivial

measures, and especially when, you know, it's so much money and prestige and opportunity comes down

to the color of that little box next to your TV show. Absolutely. Yeah. I want to get into the

family stuff back at the start. And I want to build through schooling Jack. In my mind,

Jack Tame at school is a straight A student. He's doing all the extracurricular. He's a head boy,

you know, you're nailing school accurate. No, but I wasn't a bad student. I always think,

so I'm one of four. My mom's a high school principal. My dad's a bit of a sort of renaissance

man, what likes to think of himself as one. I always think I'll never write a generation

defining album because I just had an awesome childhood. I just might when people like, oh,

yeah, school was shit. I had a shit time as when I was a kid. I'm just like my school was meant.

I had a I had a great time at school. I loved school. I loved my childhood. I was just I was

loved and supported and had every opportunity I could have hoped for. It was awesome. So when I

was at school, and I mean, it was the same at home as it was at school. I was kind of like I am in

broadcasting, kind of like I live my life now. Jack of all trades, master of none, in that I

like I never had a lunchtime free. I was either I played the trombone. I did theater sports. I

did debating. I was I did drama. I did, you know, problem solving, smoke for your rock quest. I did

rock quest. I was in a couple of regular Jack of all trades, you might say. Yes, exactly. Yes,

very good. And and you know, I played rugby. I played football. I played cricket. I did, you

know, and I so I just never but I was wasn't especially good at any of those. But I was

fear to middling in most of them. And I just enjoyed them. And so I I remember when I started

high school, I did quite well. I mean, how much weight you can put in a fear 13 year old or whatever.

Right. But I was, you know, I was a keen reader. And so I, you know, we were really allowed to

watch much TV at my house. I did a lot of reading instead. And so shit like that probably put me

in a good in good state for high school. But then I, I was just super lazy. When it came to class,

I was so lazy. I just I had no interest in studying, no interest in trying. And this will

shock you. But I was quite the quite a late bloomer. So my voice didn't drop until I was about

like 17, I reckon. And I think maybe the immaturity extended beyond my pubic ear.

And I just I I wasn't that interested in trying super hard, you know, I just kind of was like,

I know what I got to do to get by. I'll do that. And I'll just enjoy all of the other things that

school has. So I did I did well enough in school to, you know, go to uni and all that sort of thing.

But I I don't think, you know, I certainly was wasn't on the on the honors board or anything

like that. But I was involved in basically every group under the sun. I'm curious, because it sounds

a little bit similar to kind of my situation. But were you a six o'clock news watcher as a

young man? Funnily enough, I wasn't. Only because no, I know it annoyed me because I always wanted

to watch six o'clock news. I want to watch Holmes. But my parents didn't let me watch

the news until I was about consistently until I was probably 16. And it was clear that I was

interested in journalism. But I was every morning I'd get up and I'd walk up our drive, get the

newspaper and then you're going to say you'd watch it TV with Donald. I did that. Me and

dad would sit there and we would just trade different sections of the newspaper. And so I

would just read the newspaper every morning for probably half an hour or something. And it's,

you know, I never thought anything of it at the time, of course, but obviously looking back at it,

I'm like, oh, that probably developed in me a bit of an interest in the world and news and politics

and power and everything. Yeah, you've given me a little window there because I want to talk about

your dad. Yeah. So I watched the Sunday story last night. Now, I'm going to try and summarize it

and then I want you to pick up where it was. So your dad went tramping alone. Yes. Had a fall.

When tramming alone in the middle of winter, sorry, when tramming alone in the middle of winter,

in the evening had a fall, spent the night in the cold, had some supplies. Yep.

Then spent the whole day in the cold hallucinating. And then the following morning

set off his personal locator beacon and was eventually found by search and rescue. Now,

that's a very short summary. Obviously, there's a lot of detail in there. The part that I'm really

interested in is the parallel while this is happening, your mum's in Auckland with you.

And you go live on Q&A, not knowing where your dad is. And if, let's not be around the bush,

if he's still alive. Yeah. Yeah. That's 100% what happened. So can we pick up from,

I mean, yeah. The morning of having to do your job with this uncertainty in your head.

So it was, it was actually even more convoluted than we, than they went into on Sunday,

in that my mum was in Auckland. My dad was due out of the bush. We didn't know he was missing.

He was overdue. And I was going to dinner with my mum and my girlfriend, whom my mum had never

met. And so it was the big like, Hey mum, this is the girlfriend, girlfriend, this is mum.

Everyone sits down, everyone gets to know each other a little bit. A lot of weight hanging on

this evening, you know? And so, and then of course, as I was walking to dinner, about half an hour,

you know, 20 minutes before I got to dinner, my mum texts me and said, I'm really worried your

dad's not out of the bush. And so, yeah, it was lunacy really, but we went to dinner and like

sat down and we're like, so, right, how do you find Auckland then? And my poor mum was like,

I could just see she couldn't even make eye contact with my girlfriend. And my girlfriend,

bless her, was like trying to fill the space, fill the space, keep talking, keep talking. So

was she oblivious to what was happening, the girlfriend? No, no, I'd said my dad's not out

of the bush. And then after about 20 minutes, we all just said, this is absolutely hopeless.

Yeah, this is fucking crazy. Let's maybe try and do something about this. And so I left those two

and started, well, I went outside the restaurant. I was like, oh, you can, you'll be right. Enjoy

the hummus. And I went outside and started making calls to try and find my dad. And then the funny

thing was that I got to, I don't know if you guys have ever sparked a major search and rescue

operation. I can't say that I have. So I got it all going, but it takes it like, it's not, you

don't just snap your fingers, like you got a, there are various phone calls. This is a dick

question, but can you, as someone in your position, can you go, hey, it's Jack Tame here. I need to.

No, I know, no. Okay, I was just curious. The craziest thing was, so this is another thing

they didn't get to in the story, but I was like, fuck, I don't know, because it was in the Kahurangi

National Park. My dad was like, it was quite a remote area. And I didn't know. And it was just

really dumb. We didn't really know much about the track. And there'd been a lot going on that

week. And so no one had, dad hadn't really made a plan. He hadn't told us what time he was likely

to be out. So we just didn't have as much information as we should. I googled the track

from outside the restaurant. I, and there was a nut, I said, this track goes through this farmer's

property. And so I called the, I was like, oh, there's a good place to start. And the All Blacks

were playing. So I was like, oh, fuck. That was the story. That was in the story. Yes. And I knew

that the farmer would be watching the All Blacks. And I was like, whatever. So I called him and

someone answered the phone and said, oh, actually, yeah, no, sorry, I've sold the farm. I don't have

the farm anymore. And I said, oh, okay, all good. And he said, why were you ringing? Are you going

for a walk up there? And I was like, no, no, no, my dad's missing on the thing. And he goes, oh,

well, I don't own the farm, but I am the head of search and rescue for the like Nelson Tasman

region. And I was like, right, I couldn't connect the dots on the story. It was amazing kind of

stroke, serendipitous moment. You could be very useful. Yeah. Yeah. Um, and so I went home that

night. So we wrapped up dinner. We all decided that perhaps dinner wasn't going to work. Who paid?

And I think I paid because I'm just that chivalrous, you know? No. And so I went, I went home and

talked to the police and talked to search and rescue and organized the search. And it wasn't

until about midnight that I realized that the cops rang me and they said, okay, yeah, no, we can't

go in now. It's too late. It's too cold. It's too dark. It's too remote. We'll go in in the morning,

first light, we'll do it at 730. The sun's due up or whatever. We'll take the first helicopter

out and see what we can see. And in the meantime, trying to get some sleep. I was like, oh, and

then it was only about then that I was like, shit, I've got work in the morning. And I don't know,

I just thought, well, am I doing anything else? You know, I'm going to be stressing out. And so I

just, I just went to, it's not the kind of job you can call in. So you say, you say work in the

morning, work in the morning means filming live TV and interviewing various ministers and stuff.

Yeah. So the sort of thing where you probably have to be switched on. I mean, I probably could

have got Chris to do it. But I just, it was just one of those things where I was like, oh, I just,

it almost seemed like the path of least resistance at that time. But then in the morning, and I,

and I checked the sunrise time, because they said we'll go at first light. And I think the sun was

rising at 730. And it was going to be a 25 minute helicopter flight to the area that he went missing.

And so I thought, oh, well, if I go 25 minutes, 730, say they leave at 740, 25 minutes, five

us eight, look around, they'll be back by 830 or whatever. And I won't even be on air. But then,

of course, that's not quite how it works. You know, they took a, they took a wee while longer

and stuff. So I was literally in the studio checking my phone in the ad breaks to see if the

cops in search and rescue had called me. And fortunately, there was one other presenter

in the building at the time, who I kind of had a, like a gentle word to, you know, we kind of just

had a, like, if Jack's dad is dead, then you might have about two minutes to come into the studio,

because he's probably not going to want to interview David Parker for 12 minutes afterwards. Yeah.

Man, so many questions on that. Like, what's, are you communicating, what's the elevation

of the community? Like, how many of the crew cast? I think I told the, I told the director,

and I told my producer, who's the, then those are the people in my ear. And I wasn't checking,

I wasn't checking my messages when I was on, like I wasn't in the middle of an interview with my

phone. Yeah. Right. So yeah, yeah, yeah. So, so I kind of had these little one or two minute

breaks in which I could check. And I only checked it then. So that if something really did go bad,

they could play ad breaks for a few minutes or whatever, and someone else could come in.

But I also, I mean, the police didn't contact me for the whole show. So, so no, they didn't,

they didn't find him until a wee while later. So it wasn't until I got off here, and then was kind

of dealing with it that, um, yeah, I could kind of relax, probably relax. It's the mark of a true

professional being able to do your job. And with that going on, it sort of reminds me of the Chris

Rock slap at the Oscars, being able to continue after something like that is happening, probably

a bad analogy. No, no, no. I mean, another way to look at it is like I'm so obsessed with my job

that I, that I should have gone off here and just taken the day. I mean, I did wonder about it

afterwards. I was like, fuck, why didn't I even, but the truth is the night before when he was

missing, I just kind of hadn't even really thought about the next day. You know, I was only, I was

focusing on writing a list of all the things that he was carrying with him and getting recent photos

of him and that kind of thing that I just didn't even really think about the next morning. And it

wasn't until it was late at night and I thought, oh, well, you know, it's me or no one else that,

um, I decided to do it. Yeah. But it did have a happy ending. Yeah, it did. Yeah. We're shocked.

Yeah. Yeah. How much longer until you found out he was okay? I think, I think it about, so we probably

got off here at 10. And I think I got the final call that he was all good at about 1115. So things

happened pretty quickly after that. He was very lucky, although he actually kind of, he was in like

pretty serious kind of organ failure mode by the end. And so he wasn't kind of, he wasn't

truly out of the woods for a few days, but I took him back on the tramp at Christmas. I took him,

I thought, oh, let's go knock the bastard off, so to speak. And so I took him back up on a sunny day

in the summer with a group where everyone knew when we were, you know, and we left instead of

leaving at midday for a 10 hour tramp like he'd done, we left at seven o'clock in the morning.

And it was really humbling because he was like, I think he realized, like he really appreciated

how close he was to, yeah, to, to carcing it. Yeah, very lucky. It is very lucky. And it's kind

of a nice soft seg into something I've been dying to talk about ever since your interview with Winston

Peters, where he called you James about 10 times. It's getting rattled or not getting rattled, but

like things happening on live TV and having to rise above it. I remember watching that interview

and I thought, first of all, you handled yourself so incredibly well. It was such entertaining

viewing. But I was thinking like, I'd love to talk to Jack about how he prepares for something

like that. Like Winston Peters in particular, you know, you're going to have such a prickly

interview, it's going to get combative. Do you map out, we talked to Patty Gower about how he was

planning elections. Do you have little like stems of how things might go and what answers you might

have for certain questions? Like a mass murderer would be like, oh yeah. How do you prepare for

battle with Winston Peters? I mean, so that interview was funny because he, I have one regret

about that interview. And that was that he said in the interview, oh, you've stitched me up, you've

got me on for, you know, you've, you've deceived me to get me on the show or whatever. And it's

my contention that we absolutely didn't, that we were in an election campaign and I've got these texts

somewhere to prove it, but it was never worth kind of going into and relitigating because

explaining is losing, right? But basically we texted him or texted his team and said, hey,

well, Winston, come on the show this weekend. And they said, oh, what do you want to talk? And we

said like, some vague term like our campaign or the campaign strategy or something like that.

And so he came on and, but I thought, I mean, Winston is obviously an entertaining character

from a political perspective, regardless of whether you agree with his politics. He's an

incredibly charismatic and entertaining person. And I've had lots of really good interactions with

him over the years. He's also someone who won't give you anything in an interview that he doesn't

intend to give you. I've really only seen him properly rattled maybe once or twice if you

include that interview. But I felt like going into that election that we in the media were

perhaps holding him to a different standard than we would any other politician just because he was

Winston. And that there were these really, really important questions to ask him about

what for any other politician would have been an outrageous scandal. And everyone was like,

yeah, it's Winston. It's Winston being Winston. And I just thought, no, I bugger it. I'm just

going to, I'm going to go one by one. I'm just going to go through them and just ask them directly.

And I don't know. I've never talked, I've never spoken with them about, about what was going on

that day. I suspect he just had a bad night and, and woke up on the wrong side of the bed or whatever

and was pissed off. And, and, you know, he just, he struck me as being in a bad mood. And, you know,

I, I am quite good friends with Guy on Espina. And he and I go jogging together quite a lot. And

he's, he's a real, he really studies interviewing and really studies journalism. I mean, I've never,

I don't know any journal who's more passionate about journalism, you know, and he, he was,

he did this interview years ago where I was the only time I think Winston is truly being rattled

in an interview. And I talked to a guy on about that the day before and he just said, and he's so

right. He just said, you know, Winston always throws you these little, they're like, it's like

Hansel and Gretel being thrown these little breadcrumbs that as an interviewer, lead you off

peace. It's really easy to be distracted from the stuff that you're trying to get out of him or the

the questions that you're trying to put to him because he puts out, he'll say something casually,

you know, seemingly casually, that will lead you off into another area. And just don't,

just don't get distracted. Just don't get distracted by that. So when he called me James,

I was like, I'm just not, I'm not going to react to that. You're acknowledging it straight away.

My name is Jack. But then I said, I'm not going to say anything more after that. I'm just going to go,

I'm just going to keep on asking these questions. I'm not going to take any of the little breadcrumbs

that have been thrown deliberately or otherwise and get distracted. And so that was, that was my

strategy for that. And he kept hammering his strategy. Yeah, he kept on doing his thing.

And I mean, look, it may for good TV. I don't know how much we learned from the exchange,

necessarily. The James Tamer, the end. That was amazing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was, it was funny.

We've had interviews since I thought he wouldn't, he wouldn't, he didn't, he refused to come on for

a little bit after that. But we've had interviews since and everything seems to be good now. So

hopefully, you know, we'll let the past be the past. We'll be right back after this short break.

We'll be right back after this short break.

Q&A is quite unique in that you get a long interview with very high profile people.

What is the interview strategy? Because it's part, having good questions prepared and part

active listening, right? You've got to be listening to what they're saying and ready to respond to it.

But you've also got to condense it into 10 minutes, like 10 minutes.

The funny thing is, I mean, first of all, 10 minutes to a lot of people listening won't sound

like much. 10 minutes in like normal broadcasting is a massive amount of time for an interview.

Like, oh, if you're watching Morning TV or listening to Hosking or Morning Portal, whatever,

most interviews are three minutes. I mean, I mean, Hosking will do interviews that are two

questions, you know, and that's it. And so, yeah, 10 minutes sounds like a lot, but it's actually

not a massive luxury. That's probably, for a politician in New Zealand, that's probably eight

questions, which is nothing. Because every politician, every senior politician is trained

to within an inch of their life for soaking up time. I mean, there's no better

proponent than the Prime Minister. And I'm not saying she's a bad, you know, a bad interviewee

or anything. I'm just saying, if you study interviews with Jacinda Ardern, she just soaks

up the time. That's what she does. She says, oh, let me give you some context. Yeah, yeah,

Amtos plays for time, all the time. And it's very effective. So I changed the strategy going

into interviews. First of all, I try and know the subject matter as well as I can,

without being too bogged down in the details. And there is a danger sometimes that you can get so

deep in something that actually no one knows what the fuck you're talking about.

Like Whirdle? Like Whirdle, exactly. Like Whirdle is a prime example. That should have been a 30

second bit and a two and a half minutes, you know? I didn't finish it. Okay, we'll get there.

Is it Albain? No, it's not Albain. Okay, no, okay. Okay. Okay. Is it Northern Macedonia?

He's rattled. Is it Northern Macedonia? It's not Northern Macedonia. Fuck. Okay, I'm in trouble.

Anyway, James. Yeah, so I try and I often go in with too many questions. And I'm often

culling questions as I go because I'm getting timing in my ear. And it's a challenge because

you're getting timing in your ear, but you're also trying to listen. And it's an interesting point

you picked up on and you guys have obviously developed the skill really well. If you are

going, if you are live broadcasting and you know a few hundred thousand people or a million people

are watching you or listening to you at any one time. No, you've seen our numbers. It is

incredible. It is super difficult to listen to what someone is saying because you are thinking

about the next question and not wanting to look like an idiot. And the mark of a really,

really skillful interviewer is someone who has the confidence and a live high pressure interview

to listen to what the interviewer is saying. And I'm not there a hundred percent of the time yet,

but I'm there much more than I used to be because I'm fortunate to have had a lot of

experience in it now. And I just think like for any young reporter or young journal starting out,

I always just say the most your question is important. Listening to the answer is far more

important. And what I try and do is I often I'm quite happy to go into an interview with

say a 12 minute interview. I'm quite happy to go in with six questions.

If I'm feeling confident that I'm just going to listen and be able to pick up on things. And it's

not until you've actually got the confidence to listen to someone's answer that you know whether

or not they've answered the question. And I see my job on Q&A, especially with a lot of politicians,

is not just asking the questions, but seeking the answers. And that's a distinction that doesn't

necessarily exist in other in other interview formats. Like if someone doesn't answer my question,

I want to be able to say, you haven't answered the question, I'm going to ask it again.

If they don't answer the answer at that time, I want to say, you haven't answered the question,

I'm going to answer it again, ask it again, and go back and back and back if I need to.

And then if we get to a point where we're just going around in circles, I say, look,

I've given you four opportunities, you haven't answered the question, I'm going to move on.

And that makes such a strong point. And those are the most memorable interviews.

They're clearly evading the question point made. And that's perhaps the only sort of

you know, defense that we as interviewers have against politicians who are really

effective at running the clock. You made the point about knowing what goes on behind the

scenes with Hosking, particularly with his radio show. Now, as an audience, we see you front and

center, right? How much of the preparation and how much of the workload is shared by the team

behind the scenes? Yeah, quite a lot. Although for a show like Q&A, it's a pretty small team.

So for the most part, we have, you know, we would have one meeting a week with our whole team.

It's probably six of us, but several of those people will only be working part-time. And then

we would kind of talk through the ideas for the week. We have one of our producers does a lot

of chasing, so just hits the phones and tries to get people and kind of does the logistics of

setting them up. And then sometimes it takes a bit of, there's a lot of politicking behind the

show. So there's a lot of negotiating with people about when they'll come on, because the thing is

if you're a politician, well, if you're a politician, there aren't many upsides to coming on a, like,

hey, get up, like ruin your Saturday night, because you've got to prepare for an interview,

get up early on a Sunday morning for a show that only really like political nerds are watching,

that if you do really well, a few of your supporters will send out a tweet saying,

great job. But if you fuck it up, then everyone's going to clip you up on Twitter and put it

everywhere. You know, there aren't like massive upsides to that. Fortunately, New Zealand,

our credit to our MPs is that most of them are pretty accessible. But sometimes it does take

negotiating, you know, so we only get certain numbers of interviews with like the top ministers

every year. We only get certain numbers of interviews with the Prime Minister. We only

get certain numbers of interviews with the Leader of the Opposition every year. That's just how it

is. And so you got to, so a big part of my job and my executive producer's job is kind of going

into those negotiations. But then he and I will sit back and have a have a go at all about what

we think is the most are the most important subjects. And then we'll often go away, research them

ourselves, then come back and we'll both write a question line. And then we will debate with

each other what we think are the questions that should be in there and what shouldn't be,

what are the subjects that shouldn't be in there, shouldn't be, how that person,

if we've got time, we'll gameplay how that person might answer that when we move on,

when we don't move on. And then he'll be in my ear when I'm doing an interview and he'll just say,

he'll give me the timings and then he'll say move on, move on, if he's bored or whatever.

But it's definitely a team thing. But I mean, for a show like Q&A, I would write the show

and then me and one other person would work out the question lines really. Yeah.

Is the mark of a good interview, how many Herald or Stuff articles getting written about it?

You know, the one you had with Louisa Wall was obviously huge. You did a great interview with

Andrew Costa, Winston Peters stuff. Like if you're seeing it, it talked about a lot. Does that mean

you've nailed it? Yeah, I don't know about that. I mean, that is a measure of success, I suppose.

But I mean, I think we, I don't want to get too high and lofty about it, but I do think our show

probably performs a really important democratic function in that so much of the news we consume

is really snackable. Do you guys get notifications on your phone? Yeah, so I turn them off because

I just can't stand it. I can't stand just getting a headline, just getting a headline about news

every day. That's what Steve does for a living. Yeah, I mean, it's it's gruelling, right? Yeah,

you do a great job. But you know, like it's a so much of news is just is the 24 hour news cycle.

There's always some outrage. There's always something. There's always some red flashing banner.

And I, you know, so I think we probably I like to think we fulfill an important democratic function

in that we go into things in a little bit more depth than other programs might do. And we maybe

test politicians more than others might do at times. So yeah, I would extend

our the the parameters by which we measure success beyond just do we have do we have

follows or have we created outrage because that isn't the goal. But I would say like,

has the audience learned something? Have we tested someone and and have we held someone to account?

Because the thing that gets them I go more than anything else in politics is hypocrisy. And there's

so much of it. And you know, I really think it's the job of our show and shows like ours to try

and expose hypocrisy sometimes. So so then cameras are off. Yeah, you finish the show. Yeah.

Do you then is then a measure of success stepping away from it and going, fuck you, we nailed that.

And then you rocked up for the rest of your Sunday as well. It's funny. Yeah, I do get I do get super

pumped up doing like broadcasting generally is just you use a massive amount of energy. I'm sure

you guys noticed noticed this as well. Like you you I always think you use. So I did breakfast for

a few years. And the thing that one of the things I hated about it was that I felt like I would do

three hours on TV live every morning. And then I felt like all of my social energy, all of my

communicative energy for the day was spent. And so when I went home to my girlfriend at the time,

I was like, I don't want to talk. I don't want to call my mom. I don't want to see my friends.

I just wanted to be in a black cave and just block out the world. And this is one of the things I

for someone like Hosking, you know, I just know the energy that is required to do those kind of

shows. And so I just I think it's amazing that people can sustain that and not be completely

depleted of all of that kind of social energy. And so I still find it when I when I broadcast now,

I come off air, I've still got adrenaline pumping. And, you know, like the first time I ever did,

I think I did the food like read the six o'clock news, you know, for a couple of weeks,

years ago, you know, I was probably like in my mid 20s or something. And I was so pumped up when

I came off air that I would just go and like smash two bags of lollies and a block of chocolate and

like a massive thing of ice cream. And then I just have a huge crash. And then the next I'll just do

it again. And it was like being a drug addict in a way. You know, I just I would just come off and

have all this energy. And so these days, I'm probably getting a bit older and maybe don't get

the same kick out of it. But the funny thing is I can never I'm a really poor judge of what is a

good interview. I can some I can tell in the moment sometimes if it's good, sometimes if it's bad,

but I find I often come out of an interview thinking, oh, that was shit. And then my producer

will go, nah, man, it was good. And I'll be like, you're just saying that, bro. And then we get

there. And then and then again, it's like these the fickle measures by which we get validation,

you know, and then and then so and then I'll go back and watch it or I'll get all these messages

from people saying that was really good interview. And I think, oh, that's exact. Yeah, that's the

feedback. That's exactly what we go through every week. Yeah, that's triggered one little question.

And we're going to move on to the US. Yeah, when you were in school, you were on TV, right? You

were on like breakfast TV as a 17 year old. Oh, and there was one I was studying when I was studying.

Yeah, yeah. So when I were you were talking about that sort of that feedback, were you a bit of a

big dog on campus where people like this guy, this guy's on TV. And here he is. There he is.

No, I mean, you just see my photo from when I was when I started studying. It's just like,

I look like I'm 14 years old, you know, I was 18 or something. And it's just like so embarrassing.

Although I always think youth is nothing to be wished away. Jonah Hill vibes about you.

Oh, yeah, there was. Yeah, no, I was a bit, I was a bit, I was a bit, I meant just the hair.

Oh, I'm not going to go. I'm not going to body shame you. I'm just going to hear the hair.

I mean, you can, you can shame me on all fronts, really. I was a bit of a mess, but I,

I think I, I think I went and did, yeah, I was maybe on TV in the mornings and then came to

school. I don't think I was never a big dog. I was never, and I was certainly never popular with

girls or anything. But I probably rolling in and you ate like a roller. Yeah, no, I do.

Do you know what I had with my first car? It was a 1989 red Honda City. Yeah. I don't know

if you've ever driven a Honda City. Little hatchback number. Oh, it's the thing of beauty.

It's like driving, it's just like driving a go-kart. That's what it's like. And, and, um,

it was, it was like a gag with the, like the tank crushed it. No, no, no, no, no, no, no,

that was it. That was a very similar car. I'd actually, yeah, yeah, yeah. That was square,

like kind of very square, very square, very square, very boxy, very dangerous. The wheel

would shake at about 90 kph. Yeah. And so yeah, I wasn't super popular with the, with the ladies,

then or ever. But I, um, it was, I was, again, you know how I was saying, I just,

I did benefit from these kind of amazing little moments of good fortune. I just, I got,

as part of my project when I was studying, I was reading the news on CTV for a couple of weeks

and, and doing stories like news stories or sports. I was doing a lot of sports stories at the time

for CTV and TVNZ saw me and my tutor at the time worked at TVNZ as well and just said,

hey, uh, this, this guy's, you know, pretty confident on camera and, you know,

seems to, seems to have the goods and it's a hard worker and stuff. And so they just called

me out of the blue one day and said, literally at 5pm and said, can you come in for an interview

for a job tomorrow morning at 830? And I did. And then they called me that afternoon and said,

we'll give you a job while you study. And then as soon as you finish studying,

we'll give you an internship and then that'll probably give you a job as well.

So it was just this amazing kind of good fortune. Yeah. So fast forward,

do sort of five or six years of impressing the right people. You're doing, you're doing well.

People are starting to notice you. And then at 24, we're sort of mixing up the timelines a little

bit here. But before obviously the news talks at B job, you were the US correspondent at 24.

Is that, I'm assuming that's the youngest that anyone's ever done it. Was that,

was that a big call at that time? Yeah. Well, I mean, for who?

It was, I guess for TVNZ it was. I'd been a reporter for, I started reporting for TVNZ

when I was 19, which is just an outrage. I mean, I'm thinking about 19 year old me.

Yeah. I was young and cheap. And I was young and cheap. But the great thing was that it was

when TV had money. I remember my first or second summer that I was a six o'clock reporter for the

news. I was put in charge for the, for a few days, I was put in charge of the South Island,

like covering the South Island. And I remember, like, cool as you like, calling up and ordering

helicopters to like fly around places and to like pick me up and take me to the West Coast and all

this shit and just been like, yeah, it's all good. Like, yeah, that's when I felt like a big dog.

Yeah. And I mean, those days are long past our sadly, I, so I've been a reporter for a few years

and I'd kind of done my time, you know, in the trenches a little bit. Because I started young,

I'd, you know, I'd done, done four or five years. And when I'd gone to, I'd gone to America on holiday

with Big Bad Manny McLean. And when I was in the States, I had seen Tim Wilson, who was TVNZ's

first US correspondent in New York. Was he, did he have a bow tie on at the time? Yeah, it was

pre bow tie, Tim. It was, but he was like, yeah. Yeah. And so when I was there, I was, because I was,

you know, I was, I was quite nerdy. And so I'd asked him if I could go and hang out and see how

he did the job and all that sort of thing. I love New York. And I loved how he was doing the job.

And I just thought this would be so, this would be so sweet. And so I, I, and then Michael Jackson

died when I was over there. And so I went and I happened to be in LA. And so I went and saw him

and helped him out a little bit when he was covering Michael Jackson's death. Bad for Michael,

good for me. And came back to, came back to New Zealand. And Tim rang me and said, Hey,

you know, a year or two later or whatever, and said, Hey, I'm going to quit. I'm ready to move

back to New Zealand. I'm done. I want to live a different life now. You should come and do this

job. And I thought, Oh, no one's going to want the job for a couple of, well, I thought, no,

I thought no, no one's going to hire me for the job. But there are a couple of things in my

favor. Number one is a contractor, not a staff member. He's a contractor. And I don't know how

enticing that's going to be for people, especially if they've got families and that sort of thing,

move across the world. You don't know how much you're getting paid, don't know how much you're

going to earn and the nature of news, you never know if it's going to be a busy month, quiet month,

whatever. And so, and he said, but you know, you should go for it. I'm going to call the head

of news at TVNZ. And I'm going to tell him that I'm quitting. And then you should, and then I'm

going to text you when he's done, as soon as I'm off the phone. And if you want to do something,

you should go and do it then. And so he had this conversation. He texts me and said, I'm off. I've

just hung up on the head of news. I've told him I'm resigning in three months or whatever. And I

literally knocked on the door. He said, yeah, come in. And I said, I hear there's a job going

to New York. It was literally like that. And he was immediately started smiling. He said, okay,

yeah, right. And you're not going to believe me when I say this, but to the best of my knowledge,

no one else wanted the job. When they sent me, no one else wanted it because of the whole

contract situation. I was 24. I was single. I had nothing to lose. And when I went over there,

Tim, and he would be the first to admit this, was hopeless with technology. Because I was,

you know, maybe a little, little more technically capable than Tim. I was like, this guy should

buy a camera. Whoever's got their job should buy a camera. They should buy a tripod. They should

spend a bit of money set up. And they should get microphones and all that sort of stuff. And they

should film as much of their own stuff as they can. And so that's what I did. And TVNZ basically

had a fixed budget for America. But with Tim, they'd been spending money on Tim and a cameraman

who costs $1,200 a day. But with me, 70% of the stories they could do, I would film myself.

And so I could, by the breakdown of the contract, I could just do more stories and be on TV more

than perhaps other people would have been able to with those same, if they weren't, if they weren't

filming it for themselves. So I traveled to 40 states and I was basically just my own boss.

Like, you know, I could kind of, I could pitch any story, hope for the best and be away.

And there were some big stories while you were there, right?

I mean, it was, it was amazing. You know, I did, I was, so I was there for Obama's

second election. Although cruelly TVNZ made me cover Mitt Romney. Oh, I remember that. Yeah,

so that was, that was rough. Yeah, that was rough. But never mind. We, we, we forgive and forget.

I was there for, I was at the gates of Sandy Hook, the night of the massacre.

So I remember them, I remember the families outside Sandy Hook being supported and going

off to their houses. I remember all the, all the memorials and everything there. I

did the Hurricane Sandy, which was about the same time, which kind of completely,

you know, fucked up the Northeast. In fact, I had this amazing experience

in Hurricane Sandy when in the eye of the hurricane, I was in our little studio that we

sometimes broadcast live out of a New York back to New Zealand. It was on 33rd Street,

a 31st Street in New York in Manhattan. And the power went out below 33rd Street. So it got

completely wiped out. The whole of Lower Manhattan was plunged into darkness in the eye of this

hurricane. And I went out with my backpack and my camera. I'd wrapped it in a couple of plastic

bags. I'd put condoms over the mics because that's what you do. And I went out and was wading through

shin deep water on Fifth Avenue. And Fifth Avenue was just completely dark, completely black.

And I was just in the eye of a hurricane standing on Fifth Avenue, the only human being you could

see in any distance. It was this incredible experience. So I did that. I went to Guantanamo

Bay. I spent, you know, days in Guantanamo Bay. I filmed the prisoners in Gitmo. I went to the

50th Super Bowl. It was when Peyton Manning lost. The Broncos lost. It was in San Francisco.

Yeah. I went to, you know, I went to however many Donald Trump rallies over the years.

I covered the Pulse Nightclub shooting. I don't know if you remember that one. That was about

50-odd people. I did a lot. I did a lot of massacres. Yeah, I did heaps of things.

On the Trump stuff, when you go to something like that, is the goal to try to, like,

do you have to try to get a little clip of him talking to you? Do you walk past and you try to

like, shit, do you think about what's the best question he's going to respond to?

Yeah. And, and, and, and I mean, Patty Gower's the master of this. The key is just to, like,

not only do you have a question, Patty will just always go for like a New Zealand themed question.

Basically, like, what's your message to the people of New Zealand? And it's always like, you

know, I love your golf course. Yeah, that's what Trump said. Yeah. It was, it was hard when I was

doing that by myself. So getting access like that without a camera person is super hard. And so

I struggled sometimes to get, sometimes I got amazing. The funny thing was, I could, I could go,

you call up, right? Sometimes it made sense to play down how small and insignificant New Zealand

was in the context of New York media, or American media. So I would call, place it up and I'd go,

can we do this interview? Like, honestly, it's not, you know, when New Zealand, it's never

going to be broadcast in America. It's nothing. You don't need to worry about us. It'd be really

casual. And so people would let their guard down. And then other times I would call up and I'd be like,

we are the top rating broadcaster in New Zealand. People would be like the top rating. I'd be like,

yeah, the number one brought, you know, and you could kind of use that, use that in your favor.

And I mean, watching the Trump stuff was amazing to, you know, to watch it, to watch it unfold.

And I'll be the first to concede that I didn't think he would. I didn't think he would win.

I was with Hillary Clinton on election night. I've been, I've been with,

What does that mean? I mean, well, I was at the Hillary Clinton victory event,

Okay, all right, which was a very somber place to be. So I covered the, I did Mitt Romney one year,

I did Hillary Clinton, the last election I did Joe Biden. But in Joe Biden one,

but you remember he didn't win on election night, it took a few days to work it out. So again,

it was like, yeah, but it was a, it was an amazing period to be in America because I was there to

as, as perhaps the fabric of, of unity was kind of ripped for everyone to see. I'm sure it had been

tearing for some time, but the fabric of political unity across the country was ripped in the most

dramatic fashion. And how did that manifest itself in day to day America that you saw when you

weren't working? Well, what was extraordinary to me was I have, I have had and have friends who are

fervent Trump supporters. And, you know, like I thought,

I mean, I don't know how deep you guys want to go in this, because I still love American politics.

But, you know, I think, I think if you, if you grew up in the, in the Midwest, in the US,

as tens of millions of people do, if you grew up in the Rust Belt, you grew up in states that

enrich themselves through manufacturing and you're a baby Burma. So you were born in the

post-war years. You grew up in this period of incredible prosperity in America, right? And it's,

it's human nature to expect that you will have a higher standard of living than your parents.

We all kind of think that now, right? I think about when I was a kid, we never ate at restaurants.

My parents would never buy a coffee. And now just through progress or economic development or whatever,

you kind of take some of those things for granted, right? The same thing applies.

So you had this group of people, tens of millions of people who grew up in the Midwest,

in particular, in those Rust Belt states building, whose parents built stuff.

Maybe their parents did never college education, but they had a high school education and dad was

the foreman in a factory. He got four weeks paid vacation every year. He could afford a house in

the suburbs, two cars, health care, happy days. Everyone was having a great life. And so that

was the baseline expectation for a lot of those people, people in those states. They thought,

even if I don't have a college education, that's the kind of existence I can expect to have as

part of the American middle class. And after those free trade agreements were signed, particularly the

one in 94 and after North American free trade agreement, so much of American manufacturing

moved overseas. And those states, which don't have much media coverage and which don't have big

important universities and thus don't have the mainstream thought leading elites, were gutted.

They had all of those good jobs taken out of them. So now, if you were someone who grew up in the

sixties, saw your dad with that good job and your parents with a vacation home and all that stuff

in rural Ohio, if you have the same level of education as your parents, what's the best

job you can have today? Working at 7-Eleven, working at Walmart, maybe you're lucky to have health

care. You probably don't. You've probably got diabetes. You might have had an oxycodone,

you know, dependency at some point. Is it any wonder that those people rebelled? I think looking

at it now with a wider lens, it's totally understandable. The thing that surprised me

was that even in New York, I hadn't seen it coming. So I have friends who are well-educated people

working in big dog jobs in New York who are big Trump fans because of the media they consume,

I think. They listen to a lot of sports talk radio from rural Massachusetts, where they're from,

all their friends, Trump supporters, and that's it. Once they're in their bubble,

once they've chosen their team, once they've got their tribe, there's no changing anyone's mind.

And that probably works for both sides. It works for the Dems. It works for the Republicans.

I think the Trump phenomenon is really easy to understand why lots of people feel betrayed by

the system because they felt like they kind of had this promise of a middle-class existence.

It got taken away from them. And all the time it got taken away from them, the media said,

life's great. Life's awesome. Look at us in New York and Washington and Boston and wherever else.

We're living a great life. Everyone's prosperous. But actually, people in those states weren't.

It's best explanation. American politics, I think I've ever heard.

I kind of think that when you're a grandparent, when you get really old and you look back and

tell stories of the Trump era, it will be such an incredible story to tell and you being there

at the heart of it. I remember, I was at Gin Widmore's house,

randomly filming a story, and I had to do a cross to Hosking. And I remember it was the day

after Trump had declared he was going to run. And he'd slagged off John McCain, the Arizona

senator, who was a Republican candidate for president with Sarah Palin, remember him?

And he was an amazing guy because he was a staunch conservative, staunch Republican,

but he was quite a dignified man. And so, for example, he was in Vietnam,

not only was he in Vietnam, he was in the Hanoi Hilton, the prisoner of war camp in Hanoi.

I think he got shot down in Hanoi. He was dragged out of the plane completely fucked up. He was

totally crippled and he had his broken legs and broken arm and things. To the day of his death,

he couldn't put on a shirt by himself because he couldn't lift his hands above his head.

And he was taken to this prisoner of war camp. His dad was a senator. And the Vietnamese said,

we'll send you back to America. You know, your dad's an important dude. And he refused to be

sent back until every single prisoner of war before him, who'd come into the camp before him,

was sent back. So he was kind of this paragon of, you know, this American hero. I remember in the

debates, he said to Obama, someone said, someone stood up a town hall debate and said, why is

Obama? He's the epitome of evil. We all know how Trump would react to that, right? But John

McCain goes, no, ma'am, no, ma'am, I'm going to have to stop you there. I don't believe,

I don't believe Obama is evil. I don't believe, I think he's a great, God fearing man.

He wants the best for our country. We just have different beliefs on how to achieve that.

And that would never happen today, right? So anyway, Trump came out, I was day two or three of his,

since announcing that he'd want to run for president. And he said, I don't like John McCain,

I prefer war heroes who weren't captured. And it was like, I was like, campaign over.

That is an unforgettable one. And there we go. It's all done. And then of course, it just spiraled

from that point. I mean, there were just, you know, those, these incredible moments that you

thought were unsurvivable, the, the access Hollywood tape. I mean, that's an extraordinary thing,

any other politician, you know, if they were held to the same, same standards, you know, would,

would never have got away from that. But I think there is such a hunger within certain sectors

of America to just fucking tear the system down because the system has not, the system,

they've been told the system's working for them and it's not, it's not, they're living a shitty

life. And people are understandably angry about that. And it manifests in candidates like Trump.

But, but it's kind of a culture of celebrity as well, right? Like, yeah, yeah. And you would,

you during your time there, you would have brushed shoulders with a lot of celebrities and a lot

of famous people. Yeah, I did. Yeah. I always had to do those movie junkets. You know this,

I went to the Oscars like five times and I, part of me loved it, part of me hated it because

people thought that was so important and cool and all that. But does that mean going to the Oscars,

you're going by yourself, you're not dressed up and you're not really, you don't know anyone

else. Are you just in the media scrum? Yeah, it's not like, oh, like Jack, Leonardo was

there. Who are you wearing? I'm sorry. It's not like that. It's not like that. It's, no, it's,

it's very much like you get certain, you pay however many thousand dollars for tiny windows on

the red carpet in which you pay. Oh yeah, because we'd like pay to the broadcasters. So TVNZ would

have to pay, I think maybe 1500, two grand or something for five minutes or 10 minutes. And

you'd have to like hit your slot and you got to walk in, you walk straight in, you put your little

one news cube. There's a French guy who's talking before you or a, you know, an Uzbek journalist

who's doing a cross. I remember one time there was, I see what you're trying to do here, neither of

those two are in the world, they're not the world, I see what you're trying to do here. This is maybe

the first world that I've really failed on and the grandest stage as well. The, I remember one

time there was a famous Mexican puppet was on before me. So it was like a, like a ventriloquist in

his kind of puppet doll thing was on before. I remember that. Yeah. And it's, but I would like

run on and then, you know, they're like, okay, New Zealand's up, go, you're just gonna get your

microphone, but, and you just, and you're on and you're immediately like, yeah, here I am on the

red carpet. Like, yeah, I'm schmoozing with all the celebs. You know, there's no, there's just no,

there's no prospect for a shit kicker like you to go and hang out with the cool guys.

You would have turned a few heads though, because you were Al magazine's most eligible

bachelor number 41. And anyone who like scrutinized that list a little more closely would notice

that the author of that list was a very good friend of mine who happened to be from New Zealand

and that the L 50 most eligible bachelors seem to include about 35 expat New Zealanders living in

New York. You know, I got, I got like a lot of messages though, from that sort of messages,

we're just like, like women and being like, Hey, I live in North Dakota and like, I've read

a thing and like, did you get the same sort of feedback when you were in the 2013 most sexy news

presenter? Oh, do you know how we did you dig that up? Don't worry about us. Don't worry about our

team of two. It's very easy guys to join our team. Jesus, we can do you on Q and a the I still have

the pink sash that Durex sent me. They got presented me with a sash saying sexiest whatever

was it? Was it sexiest news presenter or sexiest man sexiest man sexiest TV personality. Yeah,

yeah. So you know, I don't want to be I'm sure if they did some IP address analysis there,

there might be some concerning results. So Steven and I, there's contention between us

because I read that you flirted with Miley Cyrus, whereas Steven's got it on good authority

was Anne Hathaway. It was both. Yeah. No, I just had this terrible thing where I would just become

I don't know. And I wouldn't, it was again, it was like when you do an interview and you don't

know how, how well you've done. I would do an interview and I was like, I definitely wasn't

flirting. And then I get back and I'd be like, fuck, this is shameless. This is like, this is,

this is borderline problematic. You know, like this is going to be, this is going to be an issue.

And it was, it was just that I don't know what it, I get, you get three minutes with these people,

right? Maybe I think I had about 25 minutes with Miley Cyrus, actually, but most of the time,

when you do a movie star, you get about three minutes with them. And you'll maybe interview 40

for the day. And so I would always try and make a connection that differentiated me from the other

journals. Whirdle. Whirdle. Exactly. Something like this. But I would go in and I would say,

you know, I would often go in and I, because a lot of the people who do those things,

just like they're desperate to be on the, you know, they're kind of leeches on the celebrity,

you know, Jock Sniffers, we call them. Exactly. You know, it's just, and you're like, oh my god,

have some dignity, you know, they'll go in and say, oh my god, you're amazing. And oh, you sign

this for me, whatever. And I just wasn't into that at all. And so I wasn't really hard to get.

Yeah, exactly. But I would go in and I'd be like, hi guys, I'm Jack. I'm from New Zealand.

I know you don't want to be here. I can only assure you that, you know, this isn't going to be

great fun for me. But why don't we try and do something? I'll give you a word each, and you've

got to try and slip that into your answer, right? So I'd say, right, Anne Hathaway, octopus. You've

got to try and slip octopus into this. Okay. And they'd be like, right, you're rolling. I'd be like,

lame as a rub, great film, loved it. And tell me about your character or whatever. And she'd be

like, yeah, you know, it was, I felt like I was being pulled in all sorts of different directions.

And at times I just had to, you know, catch up with a little octopus or whatever. And I'd be like,

oh yeah, Anne Hathaway. I remember I said to Rihanna, as in Riri, I was like,

we know who she is. It was like, the T20 World Cup was on. And because she's from Barbados,

right? I was like, yo, what do you think of, what do you think of Gale opening the banding at the

moment? He said that last night he scored 60 off 22 or whatever. And she was like, ah, you're a

cricket fan, right? And I was like, ah, yeah, you know, a little bit Riri. Just totally, totally

shameless. It's gold. So what did you open with with Sir David Attenborough? Oh, that was crazy.

There was a, there was a life highlight. You know, sometimes they get me to go and speak

to universities and the kids and the students will say, oh, what's your, what's your best interview?

And I'm like, well, because probably, yeah, I didn't mean for that to sound nearly as patronizing as

it was. No, no, no, it was halfway down the stairs. That's a, that's a, you know, and I say, it was

the time I was in Antarctica. I spent the day, I had a helicopter. I flew from the Mcmurdo Drive

Alley's, which is the biggest area without, without ice in Antarctica. Obviously the thing

in Antarctica is being white. It's not all white. And then I flew to a penguin colony with 180,000

penguins and I just lay in the penguins. And then I flew back to base and I shared a bottle of wine

with Sir David Attenborough as we looked out over whales breaking through the sea ice in front of

us. It's pretty hard to beat that, you know? So he was filming one of his things in Antarctica

when I was there randomly. And I, there was this big sort of hubbub at Scott base. They said, oh my

God, David Attenborough is coming for dinner. He's going to come because he's been staying at Mcmurdo

Station and at Mcmurdo Station, the American base is about two or three Ks from the New Zealand

base, just over a little hill. And they said he's coming. He's been staying at Mcmurdo, but we're

going to bring him into Scott base. We're going to make him dinner. You know, that's it. And so he

came over and he was in the New Zealand bar at Scott base. I don't know if it's still the case,

but when I went, everything was $2. So you want a beer, $2. You want a wine, $2. You want a coke,

$2. Everything's $2. And he was sitting, still standing there holding court, talking to, you

know, and everyone was just sort of hanging on his every word. And he had these producers with him

for the BBC. And I walked up to them and I did the whole,

Hi, excuse me, I'm sorry to bother you. My name's Jack and I'm a reporter from New Zealand. I work

for TVNZ and we're the state broadcaster. And now the BBC is out, you know, we've got an affiliation

above. And do you think so, David might possibly have a couple of minutes for me to, and the guy

goes, I don't know, just ask him. And I was like, okay. And so I went up and just said, Hey, can I,

you know, could we have a minute? You know, could I steal you for an interview? And he goes,

why don't I bring this bottle of wine? And I was like, why don't you then? And so, yeah, we went

and sat down in Scott base and I remember thinking like, what the fuck am I going to ask David

Edinburgh? And I had like three minutes to prepare or whatever, right? So, you know, ask him about

climate change. And he'd be really good at getting octopus in. Yeah, he would be. That was not a

challenge for him. But he, um, yeah. And then I think I asked him who would win in a fight between

a beer and a lion or something. You know, good question. Yeah, he did a beer. And yeah, it was

just this kind of amazing little life highlight. And then I flew back on the same plane with him

and had to go and like take him his lunch, the Scott base cooks made him this made him this big

packed lunch for the plane. So I had to go on like on the plane drop off. So David Edinburgh's

lunch term, which is just, yeah, surreal. Amazing. Yeah, absolutely. Before we leave Antarctica,

two niche questions. One, the penguin colony, did it stink?

So bad. Interesting that you raised that.

Are you a big penguin? Where's that question come from?

No, I'm a big wildlife guy. No, I remember.

There's lots of layers to me, Steve.

That was, that is the thing that to this day, I remember the most because you think, oh my god,

200,000 penguins, 150,000 penguins, that'll be so cute. And there's an element of cuteness.

But the thing is, like those penguins are all eating fish and they're all shitting

where they live. And also with 150 or 200,000 living penguins, there are a lot of dead penguins

and stuff in Antarctica doesn't, you know, doesn't deteriorate very quickly because it's so cold.

And so they're sort of like dead carcasses being picked at by skewers everywhere. And then everything

smells like fishy shit. And you're like, uh, yeah, it's not really that nice. But it was, I mean,

it was an amazing, it was an amazing thing, you know, amazing to see it. But yeah, the smell,

I think, yeah, like curled my ears, you know, it was pretty rough.

Because that's the seventh continent, right? You've been to all the other ones.

All of them. Where was that on the list?

Nearby to Sub-Saharan Africa, though.

Oh, still time.

Embarrassing. Yeah. Yeah. We was that on the list.

Did you hit that one earlier than others?

Yeah, no, I did. My last continent that I reached was Africa.

And it was only, I went to, I was having a con, I have like two very nerdy mates from high school

with whom we kind of have geography related contests and play world. I'm not going to be

telling them about this. And they, uh, yeah, we, we, um, we had a contest between the three of us

to see who could get to the continents first. And, uh, in order to get to them first after

I'd been to Antarctica, I knew it was mine for the taking. So I deliberately flew to Morocco,

like to the huge dog league trip to spend three days in Morocco or something so that I could,

I could tick it off. But we also did things like, um, we went to our antipathy. Did you know what

that is? It's when you, uh, if you drill directly through the middle of the earth,

where you pop up on the other side of the world. So if you did it from Auckland or I think from

Hamilton, you'd just end up in the ocean. Most places, because two thirds of the world is ocean,

end up in the ocean. But Christchurch is one of the few places on earth that has a land-based

antipathy. It's, it's this town called Foz in the north of Spain. And so we worked out the exact

coordinates of the hospital in which we were born in Christchurch, flipped them and then traveled

to the exact inverted coordinates in the north of Spain. And then I had a mate in Christchurch who

got up in the middle of the night, got a piece of bread and I got a piece of bread in the north

of Spain. And we both took a photo and so we made a world sandwich at the time. And it's funny,

because if you think about it, the space shuttle flies at what, like 150 Ks, I think above the earth

or maybe 300 Ks, I can't remember. But, um, uh, provided the space shuttle isn't directly above

you, you are further away from any other human being on the face of the earth from your home.

Kind of interesting. Just going to let that one sit. Yeah, yeah, just, yeah, profound.

Before we let you go, I want to bring you back to New Zealand and talk a little bit about Breakfast

TV. And I'm fascinated in the dynamic there of, of how you get that job, how they match you up

with Hillary Barry, like what the conversation is like between you two. Do they test you for

sort of on camera dynamic or are you both well known enough at that point that it was just

they guessing that it's going to work well? Yeah, it was pretty like we, I was in America,

I'd been there for five years and I was tired because I was doing a lot of massacres.

Covering them. Yeah, yeah, yes. You were covering them. You know how you were talking about how

like the hero or whatever just gets that one quote and puts it out, yeah. We'll clip that, we'll

definitely clip that bit out. Um, yeah, no, I was just, no, you're fine, you're fine. It's, yeah,

context is everything. All right. Um, I was, I was just tired and so I was looking for a change

and kind of ready for a, you know, a bit of just to mix things up. And so, um,

I think, yeah, they contact me and said, oh, would you be interested in hosting with Hillary?

And so we talked on Skype a couple of times and then came back and I, but I'd maybe met her in

person once. So that's definitely a suboptimal thing. We were very lucky in that we got along

super well and we actually had quite a similar background and some of the values and interests

and stuff. So we, we kind of got along really well. I will say this. I don't think I was very

well suited to breakfast. So I learned that the hard way, I think. And that I was working too much.

So doing breakfast and a radio show on the weekend is not a good idea because, um,

breakfast just completely saps you of all your energy. I think also it's a,

it's probably a show where it's quite good to have people who have kids and can kind of talk

about those experiences more because you're more relatable to the audience. And I was kind of

interested in, you know, longer interviews and harder interviews and that sort of thing, which

maybe wasn't super well suited as well. So I, um, I just found that, um, breakfast after, I did it for

I don't know, two and a half or three years maybe. And it was, I felt like it was the best show with

the worst hours, which is something that people always say. And that there were just these amazing,

funny light moments and I loved working with my team. But I also, um, I just felt jet lagged

all the time. I felt that I just, I felt like it was every day that I worked it, I was aging two days.

Um, and I just wasn't maybe the best version of myself. So, you know, I was quite, um,

by after two or two and a half or three years, I was quite like,

because what time is the alarm clock going off? I said, I was going to like bed at three. I was

getting up at three. Yeah. That's early. I mean, don't get me wrong. It's early, right? I mean, look,

it's awesome. You're paid super well. It's a position of absolute privilege. And like, I always

thought you're the first voice that people wake up to in the morning, which is, which is huge.

But there's something about, um, TV even more than morning radio that is just gruelling. And I, um,

I mean, John Campbell's found that as well, you know, like it just,

most people don't last in it that long in New Zealand because you just, it just fucking,

it just wears you down. And again, using all of that, um, using all your social energy, using

all of that kind of enthusiasm you have and communicative energy and, you know, thinking

on your feet, using all of that in a space of three hours, just kind of left me with nothing

else for the rest of my day. And so I wasn't super happy. Yeah. But, um, honestly, if you're

going to go and do something like that, do it with Hilary Barry because she's just the best. Yeah,

yeah. Come on, Hilary. Have you, have you listening? Always, um, super emotional goodbyes on that

when people leave it. I mean, John Campbell's last super emotional, right? Yeah. Was really

charged. Daniel Fyte's hours was, but they were slightly different because he had a personal

circumstance with his brother who was, who was, um, too maleal. Yeah. Was yours like that?

Or did she just, later guys? No, I think it was, although I couldn't find it on, um,

anywhere. So maybe it wasn't as emotional as some of the others. I don't even fucking remember.

I think it was, you just said, I'm leaving and John Campbell's taken over. I think that's when,

yeah, I think I, maybe I wasn't into the big emotion at the time. I felt emotional about it,

but I also, I, I think I was probably pretty, like I knew I just had no doubt that it was the

best thing for me to do. I was, I was honestly, I was spent. I just couldn't, I couldn't really

function. Hey. And so I just, um, outside of work and like, it was just consuming me and I was single.

I was like, you know, 31 or 32, trying to date. And I was like, you know, no one, no one on the

death bed or whatever thinks, oh, I wish I'd worked harder. Um, and so yeah, I was really

sad to leave because the team is really tight when you work together in those crazy hours and

you're often dealing with big breaking news. Oh, there's a tsunami alert or whatever. There's

something massive that's happened overnight. Everyone's got a scramble. Everyone's got to

pull together. It is really emotional. And like, I've stayed good friends with the breakfast

team. I mean, I work in the same office with them every day. So we go and get lunch and stuff

all the time, but it is just, you can't understand how, well, I couldn't understand how it affected

me, how grueling it was over time. Yeah. There's also, there's also, sorry, one last thing. There's

also a real incentive, um, to be provocative. And I just wasn't into that. It wasn't me.

Wasn't, I couldn't come out and be like, Hey, you know what I hate beneficiaries?

Wasn't, you know, it just, and that's maybe a, you know, some people maybe just have stronger

opinions than I do. But I, I'm an opinionated person, but I'm sort of not, I'm always one who's

like, well, I can't, I can't just come and rock. I can, I can always kind of see both sides of

things at a little bit, you know, and that doesn't necessarily make for good TV. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

So, um, yeah, I don't, I don't miss those alarms. Is your balance better now? I mean,

you've had some fucking amazing jobs. Q&A is one of the great jobs as well. It appears that you,

you can kind of work the week to your schedule better. Are you in a better place now? Yeah,

totally. No, it's, I was talking to JC last week, it's a John Campbell and said, um, Jesus, yeah,

the name drop there. It was Easter. I was talking to both. Um, no, no, I was talking to John and

I was like, one thing I do remember is that is when I stopped getting up at three, how quickly

my body was like, yeah, that's right. We wake up at seven now. Like I was took two days. I thought,

I was going to take me months to transition back and no, it was like, oh, good. We get up at seven

o'clock now. Um, and yeah, so I do have better balance. I still work super hard. But one of the

problems with broadcasting is that you feel like there were, there were a finite number of jobs,

especially in New Zealand, especially for someone like me. And so you kind of, it's kind of hard

to say no to things. Um, and I also just enjoy it. It's all I've ever known. I started, I started

working when I was still studying and I probably get an unhealthy amount of my kind of sense of self

and, um, purpose and things from work, but I absolutely improved it so much in the last few

years. Um, and that I, you know, hold regular hours and have good relationships and stuff. And so I,

um, yeah, I don't, I don't, I don't regret doing early mornings as such. And I have just benefited

from the most amazing opportunities throughout my career so far. I don't know how long they're

going to last, truth be told. No one lasts forever. You know, HomeSea didn't last forever.

Paul Henry didn't last forever. No, no broadcaster last forever. And so I just sort of am quite happy

to be appreciative for the opportunities while I've got them, make the most of them and then

see what comes next, I guess. How far into the future do you look 10 years down the track?

Jack Tame? Is he more TV? Is it radio? Is it writing? It might honestly be no, none of those

three things. I don't know. I have no grand plan. I have no desires to, part of me thinks I would

really like to run a business. Part of me thinks, uh, I would really like to, uh, my brother works for,

um, the ministry of foreign affairs. And, um, part of me just thinks I'd love to do that. Part of

me thinks, you know, I did a couple of years ago, I did a few months in, uh, Columbia just doing,

just going to Spanish school every day. And I was like, ah, this is me. You know, I'm quite happy

to do this. So I'm kind of open to, open to whatever comes next. I do think that as you get

older or, you know, as you go through life, your priorities change, right? So whatever you valued

at 20, you don't necessarily value at 30 and 40, et cetera. And so I can imagine that having a family

or that sort of thing would, um, change my priorities once again. But for the time being,

I'm quite happy just to go, you know, thank you for letting me do this. It's so much better than,

you know, being an accountant or working at Bunnings or whatever. And I mean, not to back on

those, but, um, yeah, yeah. Bunnings accountants right now are feeling really shitty. Sorry about

that. Uh, no, you know what I mean? Like I'm, I'm, it's fuck man. There are so many people who'd

want my job. And I try not to forget that. Yeah. It's also an industry where it's impossible to

predict what the future is going to look like. You're talking about 10 years time. My job won't

exist in 10 years time to stories for a website. Like, yeah, who knows? No, no, no. I mean, the

media is changing so, so rapidly that I, um, I'd like to think that in New Zealand, we will still

put value in, and actually I wonder as the world becomes more tribal and we see these kind of crazy

politics in the US and France and Europe and everywhere else, that, um,

that maybe in New Zealand, we will buck the trend and we will go, actually we value,

uh, you know, good information more than ever. Like it's, it's nuts how social media is kind of

taken over the, taken over our media space and is completely unregulated. And we have no idea

what it's doing, except that it seems to be leading to all these crazy tensions and divisions and

mad tribalism that's tearing the fabric of democratic societies apart.

I don't know what the solution is. I sort of hope that it's like fast food and that,

you know, McDonald's has a big surge and, you know, if everyone goes, oh my gosh, it's amazing,

you know, and the places that lead the fast food revolution, namely the, the, the coasts in,

in America, the East and West coast in America are the same places that are now leading the

farm to table and the vegan and all that sort of thing. And I wonder if the,

optimistically hope that the media might follow the same trajectory and that the places that

have undermined faith in good information and have undermined an equitable distribution of

honest information are the same places that will go, oh my God, actually we need to find a way to

use these tools in a way that is better for democracies and stuff. And that in little old

New Zealand, where it might mean that actually we put more value in good, honest news and information.

Sounds to me like you're saying the answer is long form podcast with a bit of a sports twist.

That's it. We don't even talk sport. No, we don't need to. We don't need to.

Few little bits and pieces. It's getting on. Shay, I know you've got a little,

little checklist there. How are we doing? Good. Very good. The only thing I do want to check,

fact check, are you a Seattle Seahawks fan? No. Why did you say that? I just thought I heard it

somewhere. No, not really. I was hoping that we'd have more commonalities. I mean, I dated a girl

who was from Alabama once and I got really, for about six months, I got really into college football.

Yeah, yeah. So, but in terms of, I'll cut that out. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,

it's good. This is a gold shake. No, no, no, no. So, I'm not a Seahawks fan specifically,

but I am a football fan. I think that football is totally underrated by New Zealand. The thing I

love about it is it's like war and the coaches are like generals and that everyone has a really

specific role. And I love watching, I love watching American football. I was a massive

Marshall Lynch fan. Ah, Beast Mode. Yeah, Beast Mode. Oh my God. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean,

I don't know if you follow him on. Seattle Crackin now. Yeah, yeah, exactly. With Macklemore.

Although that was a very disappointing into his career. That Super Bowl, remember that pass?

Well, I mean, he came back for the Raiders. I know, but you know, that was a, anyway. Yeah,

I watched, I was in, I was in, yeah. Yeah, that was an amazing moment. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

When did you use Beast Mode gear together? And then I'm a big basketball fan, of course. Stephen Adams.

I did do it. I did a lot of coverage. You can't just say basketball players when he says he likes

basketball. No, no, I did. I did. I did the whole career, right? I did. Yeah, yeah. I was there.

I was there for, I was, I shot with him when he was in Penn, when he was playing like College

Bourne, Pennsylvania. I went to, I was there on draft night with him. I was there. I went to the

playoffs. That sounds like quite a cool story. Does it make you feel like a tiny little human

of a man? Do the crazy thing about Stephen Adams is that he. I thought you were going to say like

a tiny little piece of his sess that you were there. You were there that night. Like, yeah, thanks,

man. I mean, obviously he's an enormous human being. I'm maybe six one. And look, I look at Stephen,

I, you know, crane my neck. Like he's a foot taller than me. But when I was in New York, the first

time he went to New York, and he was playing in, he was playing in March Madness, or maybe it was,

no, it was a head of the draft, maybe. Draft combine or, I don't know, whatever.

It was head of the draft. He was there for a few days. And I was like, yo, let's um,

like, I'll show you the city, we'll go out, you know, do some stuff. And

he was just super scared about a few things. So like, he felt really uncomfortable on the

subway because he thought it was dodgy. He was going to be robbed. No, no, no, that's what I

thought. I thought he's going to be uncomfortable. He was, he was, he didn't make walking through a

turnstile a very, like he didn't look good when he did it, you know, but he got to your dancing

soon. But he, but he, um, he thought he was going to be robbed on the subway. And I was like,

Steven, no one is going to rob you. You are two people standing here, you know. And I, you know,

it was, it was nuts. He, he, he had this evening with him once where we went to Chipotle and got,

got burritos. And I bought him a burrito. It was when he was a student before he made the MBA and

he had no money. And he was just like, thank you so much, man. You know, I really appreciate it.

It was like a $7 burrito. I remember he had no money on his phone, so he couldn't text you back.

It was fucking annoying. And, um, and I, and then, you know, and then a couple of years later,

he's starting a $40 million contract. I just think it's, it's like, it's extraordinary that

in the space of a couple of years, he kind of had the contrast of those experiences.

But do you keep in contact with him? Like, no, no, no, I mean, I, I have his phone number and

occasionally text him. And I don't know, maybe he's still not got any money on his phone.

Yeah. But I mean, it's, it's, it's pretty remarkable watching someone like that. Yeah, yeah.

The come up. Yeah. Yeah.

They're, okay. Last, last one from me. And then I will, yeah, the outro. Okay. And it's again,

we're going back to Chang, unfortunately. Oh, you see, he started with the nice stuff and this is

going to be the best stuff. Yeah. He says, um, despite his apparent coordination issues and being

more akin to a wounded pterodactyl when exercising, he went through a spell when he was regularly

attending bachata dance classes, bachata, bachata dance classes. Yes. I did, I did, I did, uh, do

some, I briefly did some bachata classes. That was great. I wasn't very good. Um, but I, um,

uh, thought for a while there that I would get into bachata dancing, but I just,

maybe it was a pandemic. It just didn't seem like the best thing to be doing. I do love dancing.

This is how Beyonce came around. I once upon a time was in with a cool set in New York.

Jay-Z. Yeah. And went to a club and was like, ah, there's no one in the club. And we knew

the bouncer for whatever reason. So we went to this bouncer downstairs. We went and I was sitting

in the club and I was like, no one here, no one here. That's all good. And I was dancing away,

not bachata, but whatever. And, uh, I looked across the room and I was like, ah, is that

Jessica Biel? I was like, is she next to, is that Timberland? Yeah, it's next to Timberland.

And I'd inadvertently walked into the after party for Jay-Z and Justin Timberlake's,

um, Madison Square Garden, no, Yankee Stadium gig, right? And honestly, there were like 30 people

in the room and no one was dancing, but I was super keen to dance and I had to be drinks,

whatever. And so I was like dancing away and it was me and this one other woman. And then I

looked at her and I was like, oh my God, it's Beyonce Knowles. I'm dancing next to Beyonce Knowles.

So I went up and I bro shaked Jay-Z and then I went to Justin Timberlake. I walked over to him

and I panicked and I said, I really love everything you've ever done. My name's Jack and I'm from New

Zealand. Yeah. Yeah. Right, Shay, wrap us up. Oh, look, amazing to spend some time with you. We,

like we, we only ever see the little screen, right? And there's been snippets of your personality

through all the different things that you've done, but to spend this time to kind of unpack

everything that you've done and it's an unfair criticism. Like you look so young. How can this

guy know what he's on about? Like when you sit here and you rattle off the things and the experiences

that you've had, it's phenomenal. Absolutely phenomenal. My only wish for you is that you

would have got today's world all in two guesses. Okay, so are we going to finish this? Should we,

just for the sake of the narrative? Yeah, just, just for the sake of the narrative. So I've got

three more guesses. Well, Paul Holmes said this. We build the narrative. I've said Turkmanistan,

I've said Azerbaijan, I've said Georgia, 780 kilometers southwest of Georgia.

Don't look at me like I'm going to give any sort of product. Now you're not looking at the map.

Okay, I'm going to say Romania. Oh dear. Are you even trying? 94%. Okay, look at the map.

No, I know, I could shut up. I'm stressing out here, okay? Yeah, let's take it easy. Okay.

Come on, Jack. Come on, you got this. Come on, the people need this. The people that are still

here, they need closure. Okay. I know I'm panicking. No, it's just slow down. Okay.

Maybe you can give him a closure. Maybe look at the map. No, no, no, no, no. It's okay. So we've

got, yeah, we've got Syria. We've got, yeah, we've got, yeah, we've got Jordan Lebanon. He's

flustered, guys. I'm flustered. Okay. I don't know if he's getting this. I don't think we're getting

this. I'm going to say, I thought you'd be like right into, I honestly thought you'd be good at

geography. I'm, I'm, I'm as disappointed as everyone else. You've run a whole column on this

about how I'm as disappointed as everyone else. What did you just put? I put a rock. Oh dear.

Oh no, it's just getting worse and worse and worse. Oh dear. What am I, what am I missing?

Yeah. Rock. I mean, you were, you were good with your first guess. You were right in the area.

I know I wasn't. I was 2000 kilometers away. Yeah. But I mean, in terms of the,

like the sound of it. Turkmenistan. Yeah. Oh, it's Turkmenistan. It's Turkey. That's embarrassing.

Yeah, it isn't. You're right with the sound of it. It's a hollow victory really, isn't it?

Yeah. It's kind of a bit of a downer to finish. I feel like he, he feels defeated.

I thought I'd see the Dardanelles a little more clearly. Yeah, no, he's just trying to show off.

Look, thanks guys. It's been my pleasure. Thank you for whipping me in Whirldle. Yeah.

Traddle. I won't forget. I won't forget. Hurdle? You don't, you do Hurdle? I haven't done Hurdle.

Or Loodle? Is that the one with the words? Yeah. Right. I'm going to shut this down guys.

Thanks guys. Thanks Jack. Thank you so much. No, no, my pleasure guys. Keep on great work.

Yeah, thank you. Cheers. Ciao. Hey guys, thanks for tuning in. To see short form videos of all

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Machine-generated transcript that may contain inaccuracies.