Congratulations Kim Hill

Written By: - Date published: 11:56 am, June 18th, 2013 - 50 comments
Categories: accountability, Media, radio - Tags: ,

Kim Hill has been awarded a Gold Medal at the 2013 New York Festival Radio Awards. Congratulations!

What a pleasure it is to have a real interviewer on Morning Report for a change. In case you missed them, here are two recent Hill interviews, with John Key, and Hekia Parata.

A healthy democracy needs more of this.

50 comments on “Congratulations Kim Hill ”

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  1. Lanthanide 1
    18 June 2013 at 12:08 pm

    At the end of 2012 she also got the 2012 International Radio Personality of the Year award.

    Wikipedia says:
    “In 2012 Hill was awarded “2012 International Radio Personality of the Year” by the Association for International Broadcasting, describing her as “an experienced and warm broadcaster exercising full control of her content whilst coaxing her guests to reveal more of themselves; really enjoyable live and sparky content that demonstrates what is great about radio and illustrates how important lightness of touch is in speech content.””

  2. tracey 2
    18 June 2013 at 12:19 pm

    I concur… But she won’t last forever, who will stepup?

  3. Tiger Mountain 3
    18 June 2013 at 12:27 pm

    Some people cannot have too much praise and La Hill is one of ’em.

    Spikey yes, knowledgeable always, irritating sometimes but you can’t not listen. She often has politicians sagging on the ropes, usually by early KO with no gloating. Good with scientific subjects too.

    Who could begrudge her the easy Saturday slot after the filth she had to put up with daily in the 90s.
    But it would be great if she could come back for an hour or two during the week to hold the slippery bludgers that run NZ at the moment to better account.

  4. Rosetinted 4
    18 June 2013 at 12:34 pm

    Keep on trucking Kim. Don’t think you’ve done it all, time for a long snooze on a palm waving sunny beach with limpid blue water and coconut milk cocktails being ferried to you by smiling people who don’t have complex motivations. Sure have a bit of that and then come back to us and inspire us and we will try and inspire you. Symbiotic goodness..

    • Veutoviper 4.1
      18 June 2013 at 12:51 pm

      LOL – “.. a long snooze on a palm waving sunny beach etc”.

      That is so not Kim!

      Here is the Scoop press release on the award, which also records that she has received other awards in the last few months in addition to the NY and London ones.

      http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/CU1306/S00221/new-york-gold-for-kim-hill.htm

      “Twice in the past year Kim has gone head-to-head with the very best of the world’s broadcasters and both times has come out on top. With two major international awards and three New Zealand Radio Awards to her credit in less than 12 months, Kim has clearly been recognised as one of the outstanding broadcasters of her generation.”

      Congratulations, Kim – please come back to Morning Report – perhaps for just the big interviews. We need you.

      PS – To give some credit to others, I got a pleasant surprise with Jane Patterson’s interview of English this morning when she actually queried his claims and figures. Would not have happened if Mercep had done the interview IMO.

      • Viv K 4.1.1
        18 June 2013 at 6:09 pm

        Jane Patterson was good interviewing English this morning. Kim Hill’s interview with Catherine Issacs on charter schools was also very good. Neither interviewer let the interviewee get away with unsubstantiated claims. We need more of this type of journalism, far too much of what passes for current affairs seems to just be people making press statements. Congratulations Kim.

  5. Saarbo 5
    18 June 2013 at 12:46 pm

    Well deserved…a couple of my favourites interviews: John Howard and Owen Glen.

    In a class of her own, Brian Edwards does his credibility no favours when he suggests that Rachel Smalley is better….she is good but not close to Kim Hill I reckon.

    • tracey 5.1
      18 June 2013 at 2:21 pm

      brian must be getting long int he tooth and succumbing to a pretty face. Smalley is not better, if she were she would ignore some of the chains put on her by the owners of TV3…

      Has Geoff Robinson retired? God I hope so.

    • Rogue Trooper 5.2
      18 June 2013 at 3:37 pm

      Wot! Brian…tsk tsk, doing a Dunnie.

    • Colonial Viper 5.3
      18 June 2013 at 8:13 pm

      Oh come on people, Smalley has another 30 years to perfect her craft. No she is only a journeyman and not yet a master. However I think that she will get there.

  6. insider 6
    18 June 2013 at 12:46 pm

    Imagine the mess she’d make of David Shearer, given the chance

    • AmaKiwi 6.1
      18 June 2013 at 12:53 pm

      I have have inside information that if Shearer is still Labour leader at election time, Max Key (John’s teenage son) with replace his father for the last debate so it can be close to an even match.

      Imagine Shearer versus Judith Collins!

      • felix 6.1.1
        18 June 2013 at 1:15 pm

        I’d like to see that to. Arrogant bully vs normal person. Should play ok.

      • Bill- I didn't go to the Sky Box 6.1.2
        18 June 2013 at 4:24 pm

        AmiKiwi
        You mean he is Leader at present?
        Do you have any inside information on when he was last sighted acting like a Leader?

    • felix 6.2
      18 June 2013 at 12:59 pm

      Careful what you wish for.

      I think you’ll find that Kim’s approach has a great leveling effect on bullshit and bluster. Shearer ain’t great at the media stuff, sure, but Key has always won on bullshit and bluster alone.

      Strip it away and there’s nothing else there. Something tells me that sans all the bullshit, Shearer wouldn’t come off to bad.

      Yep, all politicians should be subject to this sort of vigilance. Bring it on I say.

      • insider 6.2.1
        18 June 2013 at 1:09 pm

        I’m not sure shearer’s record of less than skillful command of facts and figures would do him any good.

        the big thing about Kim Hill that is different to me is that she always comes across as well researched, so never short of questions. I never get that feeling with mercep – he tends to run out of puff.

        • felix 6.2.1.1
          18 June 2013 at 1:13 pm

          Key’s command of facts and figures is no better though. He just relies on nobody questioning him on them, which generally they don’t.

          That’s what I mean, strip away the bullshit and the fight looks a lot more even.

          • Colonial Viper 6.2.1.1.1
            18 June 2013 at 1:33 pm

            That’s on the many occasions Key hasn’t been briefed or just doesn’t give a damn. When he has prepared however he can pull out a stream of economic facts and figures very credibly.

            • felix 6.2.1.1.1.1
              18 June 2013 at 1:39 pm

              True that. But his streams of economic facts and figures are usually irrelevant – he pulls them out to avoid answering the question and usually gets away with it.

      • felix 6.2.2
        18 June 2013 at 1:11 pm

        *too

  7. felix 7
    18 June 2013 at 12:47 pm

    What a change to hear Key interviewed by someone who challenges his answers. I don’t think he’s had that before, apart from the BBC one (never doing that again).

    Be nice to have Kim around at least until the election to hold ALL the candidates to account, including Key and Shearer – sadly no one else seems interested in doing so at the moment.

  8. CnrJoe 8
    18 June 2013 at 1:06 pm

    I love this growing old with Kim – justwish she was morning reporting, checkpointing and then can have sunday morning off!

  9. Mary 9
    18 June 2013 at 1:31 pm

    Kim Hill’s one of the only broadcaster/journalists in New Zealand who listens to the answers of those she interviews in a way that enables her to ask the often crucial next question. If an answer is unclear she’ll ask for clarification. If an answer cries out for another question not on the script, she’ll ask it. Too many others just run blindly through the list of questions one after the other giving a free ride to whoever’s being interviewed – question and answer, question and answer in the lazy journalist tradition we’ve all become so inured to.

  10. Michael 10
    18 June 2013 at 1:38 pm

    Well done, Kill Him. How about taking over the Labour Party – it’s one way to save National Radio from the Media Works lackeys currently calling the shots.

  11. Tim 11
    18 June 2013 at 1:56 pm

    Someone on here once asked me if we could ever get PSB TV back, and I replied yes.
    Kim Hill would be of a diminishing number of people that actually seem to understand the concept. I.E. that of a healthy 4th Estate, and a Public Sphere – even given ‘new technology’, ‘ specialisation & multichannelism’ and and the divergence and convergence that is at play.
    There are others (actually across the political spectrum), including one or two hanging on by the skin of their teeth in TVNZ, and having to push shit uphill at every turn.
    We’ll just have to wait and see whether or not Curran and Co put their money where their mouths are.
    Meantime Kim Hill deserves all the awards and accolades people throw at her.

    • Rosetinted 11.1
      18 June 2013 at 5:41 pm

      Tim
      And I like how Kim stands firm on her approach. The criticisms levelled at her range from naive to ridiculous. Some people take ridiculous offence to her questions and probing as if they were listening to light social conversation at an afternoon tea party instead of discussing something cultural in depth or that is of importance to society. She reads out some of the finer examples of silliness and nit-picking about her approach. The mousy NZr who doesn’t want light on his or her illusions or them to be shaken or stirred gets quite ratty when faced with some alternative reality.

  13. rod 13
    18 June 2013 at 4:12 pm

    IMO I don’t think we will ever see or hear John Key ever interviewed by Kim Hill again.

  14. lurgee 14
    18 June 2013 at 4:27 pm

    I have to differ. Kim Hill is a dreadful interviwer, continually interrupting her subjects to bark out some new half thought through question or yammer about some irrelevant detail. She seems to have become caught up in the image of herself as a ferocious, merciless griller, or watched too many cop shows. Maybe she’s better now – I haven’t listened to her saturday morning show for a long time, because her strident style grates. I want to hear the people she is interviewing talk – particularly when they are condemning themselves out of their own mouths.

    Just because most of the TV interviewers on TV and radio are rubbish does not make Hill good. She’s just rubbish in a different way.

    • Anne 14.1
      18 June 2013 at 4:44 pm

      Well, now we know the level of your intelligence lurgee. Can’t tell the difference between shouting over the top of people so that their points can’t be heard, and someone who is genuinely trying to get to the nitty gritty of something by coaxing their interviewee to elaborate or clarify.

      • Galeandra 14.1.1
        18 June 2013 at 5:29 pm

        And, as is so often the case, the truth is half-way between….

      • lurgee 14.1.2
        22 June 2013 at 12:07 am

        Sorry, forgot. Can’t disagree with someone hereabouts and be intelligent at the same time. I’ll remember 2+2=5 and that Kim Hill is excellent, Big Brother. Will you put the rats away?

        I despair of the left. Sometimes I think all the other commentators here are rightwing infiltrators. But then I realise if they were trying to pass themselves off as genuine leftists they wouldn’t make themselves seem so stupid. Like George W Bush, the idiocy emanating from some is so stupendous it must be genuine.

  15. Maggie May 15
    18 June 2013 at 5:35 pm

    Wow thank you Kim,

    Makes us remember why we miss you, I remember my friend and I told you Katherine was good but we missed your approach and wanted you back.

    Katherine is good but she isn’t Kim Hill.

    Katherine can you step up and interview like Kim does or are you shackled by the powers that be?

    • instauration 15.1
      18 June 2013 at 6:24 pm

      Yes congratulations Kim

      “What a pleasure it is to have a real interviewer on Morning Report for a change”
      – is unfair to Kathryn (not erine)
      Her strengths are humility, lack of pretense and doggedness (godessness ?).
      The colloquial lilt always renders a smile.

    • gnomic 15.2
      18 June 2013 at 7:38 pm

      That’s Kathryn I think, just to be picky. However I think the answer to your question is no, no, never. Kathryn is just a simple downhome country girl who doesn’t like to offend people or rock the boat. At least she seems to have learned to read the clock correctly these days, there was a time when she would be an hour out regularly. She does have a tendency to go on and on about nothing at times, reiterating more or less the same questions about matters that don’t signify whatsoever. Sometimes passable when she feels an affinity with topic and/or interviewee.

  16. Viv K 16
    18 June 2013 at 6:09 pm

    Jane Patterson was good interviewing English this morning. Kim Hill’s interview with Catherine Issacs on charter schools was also very good. Neither interviewer let the interviewee get away with unsubstantiated claims. We need more of this type of journalism, far too much of what passes for current affairs seems to just be people making press statements. Congratulations Kim.

  17. Frank Macskasy 17
    18 June 2013 at 8:29 pm

    Kim thouroughly deserves her Award. Good on her!

    (And I miss her on Morning Report…)

  18. Chrissy 18
    19 June 2013 at 9:39 am

    Just listened again to Kim Hill’s verbal whipping of little johnnyboy.It does start my day off well.Interesting to hear him doing the same throat clearing thing that english does when he is forced into a defensive position and obviously even he doesn’t believe anything that comes out of his mouth..Genuine question.Does fog really interfere with cell phone reception?

  19. felix 19
    19 June 2013 at 10:16 am

    “Does fog really interfere with cell phone reception?”

    Lol, see that’s the question he wants you to ask, focusing on whether what he said makes sense. He doesn’t know either, and he doesn’t care. Fact is he never said anything about whether fog affects cell reception, all he said was there is a lot of fog in Auckland and it might be affecting “things”.

    Petty distinction, yep, but it’s one he uses all the time. He speaks in very broad generalities but when challenged on them, suddenly he’s only responsible for the very, very specific literal meaning.

    So that’s what he didn’t say. The next question addresses the facts of what he did say. Was there really fog in Auckland at the time? Maybe. Auckland’s a big area, there’s probably always fog somewhere in Auckland at this time of the year. You could easily look up the weather records and find out if there was or not.

    But that doesn’t bother him either. Know why? Because he never said he was in Auckland anyway, and by the time you figure that out he’s already got through three or four bigger lies.

    See how he works? And this is why we need journos like Kim.