FEBRUARY 29 2020 LISTENER 7
OBITUARY
Tony Reid
Ground-breaking journalist and
former Listener editor. by GEOFF CHAPPLE
1943-
T
he journalism of the years 1960
to 2000 is littered with masthead
casualties now, but it was within
those publications that Tony Reid
became what’s now called a destination
journalist. Reid, who died on February 14,
was the one you’d buy the magazine, or the
newspaper, for – just
to read. Within those
years he’s acknow-
ledged as a master of
long-form print jour-
nalism – the in-depth
interview, or the reveal-
ing personal profile.
Reid learnt his trade
on provincial news-
papers, but progressed
quickly to the Domin-
ion Sunday Times and a
weekly interview series,
“The Frank Portrait”,
that established a
lifelong pattern. Sir
Edmund Hillary, Denis
Glover, Sir Ernest
Marsden, Sir Eruera Tirikatene and many
others were all ushered through “Frank” and
emerged afresh. If Reid’s Catholicism gave
him anything, it was his priest-like ability to
draw from his subjects far more than they
might want to give.
In 1967, he joined the NZ Weekly News,
and trialled stories that centred on himself
as observer. For a story on the New Zealand
Post Office, he mailed himself as a stamped
item from Cape Reinga to Stewart Island,
loaded en route into trucks, railway guards’
vans and ships.
But he had a darker Irish side, too. When
Paremoremo’s high-security D Block opened,
in 1968, he spent a night inside. His fellowinmates staged a noisy demonstration for
him alone, and his interest in prisons led
to an interview series called “The Criminal
Mind”.
After a stint at the Sun in Melbourne, Reid
returned in 1972 as a feature writer on the
Listener. The intuition within his big round
head was formidable;
his subjects often
sleepwalked towards
revelations that are the
profiler’s holy grail. In
1974, his profile on
Hugh Watt, the then
Labour Government’s
deputy prime minister,
began – “In a word?
Dull? I suppose that
would be the adjec-
tive.” It’s widely quoted
as the beginning in
New Zealand of the
so-called new journal-
ism, but Reid had been
doing it for years.
Encouraged forward
by editor Ian Cross, Reid became, in 1977,
the magazine’s fifth and youngest editor. But
in 1980, he stepped down to return to his
first love, reportage and writing. The Listener’s
coverage of the 1981 Springbok tour by Reid
and Phil Gifford would win the top feature-
writing prize for that year. His long 1983
interview with the intensely shy redhead,
Janet Frame, published in the NZ Herald,
remains a classic of literary journalism.
He was diagnosed with multiple sclero-
sis in 1995, but, although the long illness
quelled his journalism, his reputation
endured. In 2010, the Qantas Media Awards
honoured him with a lifetime-achievement
award. lcompetition was held. The
winner featured a turquoise
koru curling over horizontal
bands of blue and black (see
previous page). Perhaps its
creator could step forward?
Russell Campbell
(Aro Valley, Wellington)
ELECTRIC NIGHTMARE
Richard Bould’s description of
New Zealand’s poor electric-
vehicle-charging infrastructure
(Letters, February 15) conjures
up a picture of a road-rage
incident in which EV drivers
are attacking each other with
their power cords and hurling
such insults as “my car takes
100kW, yours is only 50kW –
get out of my way”.
There may be only a few
moving parts in an EV, but if
you can’t charge it, you can
add the driver and passengers
to what isn’t moving.
G Spencer
(Pukekohe)
QUAKE DATE MISTAKE
“All shook up” (That’s Enter-
tainment, February 22), about
the screening of a documen-
tary on Christchurch’s 2011
earthquake, mentions that “it
is important to tell stories and
remember the dead, acknowl-
edge the living and salute the
heroes” of the seismic shocks.
Although commendable,
in order to do so, it would
be appreciated if journalists
who were obviously not in
Christchurch at the time, or
have not had to live through
the chaos and rebuild of a city
and lives, would check their
facts before going to print. The
February earthquake did not
happen on the 23rd, as the
article says, but the 22nd.
A small point in print,
maybe, but for people – the
living, the dead, the heroes
and the survivors – it is very
important.
Sarah Helleur
(Christchurch)
We apologise for the error.