Introducing Stuff's National Correspondents team
Wednesday, 29 November 2017
Stuff has appointed an elite team of National Correspondents.
We announced several months ago that we planned to assemble a crack squad. Happily for us, this rare opportunity attracted dozens of high-calibre candidates from New Zealand, the US, the UK and South Africa.
The six-person team we're announcing today features a vibrant mix of award-winning journalism experience and the fresh voices of emerging stars.
One of the country's best sports reporters, Dana Johannsen, has joined from the NZ Herald, while the very experienced Carmen Parahi comes fresh off a producing role for Native Affairs.
Charlie Mitchell and Katie Kenny have been promoted from internal roles, while Steve Kilgallon is moving from a newsroom leadership role back into reporting and Michelle Duff is signing up full-time after a period of freelancing.
Stuff editorial director Mark Stevens said the team would aim high: 'We've promised these journalists the time and support to produce inventive, impactful reporting on a national scale.'
The National Correspondents will have a broad remit, but their priority areas include health, the environment and climate change, social issues, Māori affairs, sport, and the impact of technological changes on our way of life.
Stuff editor Patrick Crewdson said: 'We're excited about the wide range of creative ideas these journalists have already pitched and the opportunity to realise them through Stuff's full multimedia suite.'
Like the award-winning Stuff Circuit team, these journalists will have the freedom and support to dive deeply into stories of significance.
Our National Correspondents are:
DANA JOHANNSEN
One of New Zealand's leading sports journalists, Dana Johannsen is an adept news reporter, feature writer and columnist who treats the sporting arena as fertile ground for analysis and investigation.
Dana's journalism has earned her many awards, including Sports Reporter of the Year at the 2015 Canon Media Awards and the top prize at the Sports Journalists Association Awards in 2012.
Among Dana's award-winning stories are a series of news breaks on the fallout from Team NZ's failed 2013 campaign, the anatomy of the split in netball's trans-Tasman league, and an investigation into the Government's sport in education scheme. Dana has covered the past two America's Cups and is recognised as a leading voice on the sport and its politics.
She comes to Stuff from the NZ Herald, where she has worked for a decade after starting her journalism career with TVNZ and the Radio Network.
As a national correspondent, she will bring deep reporting to the intersection of news and sport.
See stories from Dana Johannsen.
CARMEN PARAHI
Carmen's belief in the power and importance of journalism is infectious.
A journalist since 2001, she started in print but moved to television news and current affairs for Māori Television, TVNZ and TV3. Her stories have featured on Marae, One News, 3 News, Campbell Live, Te Karere, Te Kāea and Native Affairs where she was, until recently, the producer.
Her career highlights include a two-month secondment reporting for APTN, the Aboriginal Peoples Television Network in Canada; Project Tamariki - a one-year Marae campaign focused on children; and international reporting trips to Australia, Europe, Japan, and Fiji during the Bainimarama military regime. This year, while producing Native Affairs she had an exclusive interview with Sir Mark Solomon about his controversial departure from Ngāi Tahu, and helped produce Māori Television's six-week election campaign coverage.
Carmen brings a wealth of broadcasting, online and print experience to the national correspondents team, where she plans to focus on social and Māori issues.
See stories from Carmen Parahi.
CHARLIE MITCHELL
Charlie joins the national team from Stuff's Christchurch newsroom, where he's quickly established a reputation for meticulous, engrossing environmental reporting.
His notable recent work includes 'Eaten alive', visiting a West Coast town being consumed by the sea, and the moving tale of the last resident of a Christchurch red zone. In Kiribati he looked at the rapid - and regionally significant - impact of climate change for his compelling project 'The angry sea will kill us all'.
A former Fairfax intern, Charlie is also a two-time Canon Media Awards finalist.
Charlie will now bring his climate change and environment reporting to the national stage.
See stories from Charlie Mitchell.
MICHELLE DUFF
Michelle believes the most interesting stories come from the things we take for granted.
Her most prized work includes an investigation into the 'white flight' of middle-class parents skipping local schools and her story for Broadly on the resurgence of moko kauae - Māori female facial tattooing.
In her decade of reporting, Michelle has worked on staff for Stuff, the Sunday Star-Times, The Dominion Post and the Manawatū Standard. Her freelance work has been published by Vice, the Listener, the NZ Herald and North & South.
A Canon Media Award-winning feature writer, Michelle has also carved out a distinctive voice as a columnist for Stuff covering health, women's rights and lifestyle.
As a national correspondent, she intends to tackle health and social issues.
See stories from Michelle Duff.
KATIE KENNY
Since starting at Stuff in 2013, Katie Kenny has been involved in some of our most innovative projects.
Her work has won multiple awards, including Best Investigation at the Canon Media Awards for Faces of Innocents. She has also been awarded travel grants that have allowed her to study multimedia journalism at Columbia University in New York and report for the New York Times in Hong Kong.
Katie is attracted to big issues - such as the evolution of mental health, and New Zealand's record of child abuse - which she can break down and humanise.
She will report as a futurist, looking at the trends and technologies changing the way we live and work.
STEVE KILGALLON
Born in the English city of Leeds, Steve Kilgallon started in journalism with the Oxford University student newspaper Cherwell, where he was sports editor and consultant editor. His CV includes contributions to The Guardian and the Wigan Observer in the UK and stints with the Sydney Morning Herald and the Sun-Herald in Australia.
After moving to New Zealand, Steve took on a string of roles with the Sunday Star-Times - sports reporter, features and investigations reporter, then features editor - before becoming Stuff's entertainment channel director in 2015.
Steve has won five Canon Media Awards for his journalism and is particularly proud of his investigative work, including a series on pokie machine frauds which led to several criminal convictions. He enjoys telling stories about people and unearthing issues other journalists haven't covered.
Away from work he has a partner and three children, enjoys long distance running and playing sport, and is one of New Zealand's top rugby league referees.
See stories from Steve Kilgallon.
Update: In April 2018 we added a seventh member to the band — Tony Wall.
TONY WALL
Tony is one of the country's most experienced and decorated investigative journalists, having won the Reporter of the Year award three times (and been a finalist on three other occasions) and Feature Writer of the Year twice.
Originally from Christchurch, he has been a reporter for 28 years and has worked on newspapers including the Ashburton Guardian, Waikato Times, New Zealand Herald, Irish Independent, Daily Telegraph (Sydney) and Sunday Star-Times.
In 2000, he helped establish the Weekend Herald's investigations team and has been in various investigative roles since.
In 2015 he won the Jubilee investigative reporting prize which took him to the Storyology conference in Sydney where he learned about digital storytelling techniques.
Tony's passion is for people stories — especially when the little guy takes on the system.