The 28-year-old covered the Queen's funeral last year.
The 28-year-old covered the Queen's funeral last year.
Welcome to the second season of the Herald’s dating podcast: It’s A Date. Join Herald dating columnist Lillie Rohan as she takes notable Kiwis on a fantasy date, finding out about their relationships and love lives along the way.
Mitch McCann has hit the journalist jackpot. At only 28 he has found himself smack bang in the middle of New York as Newshub’s US correspondent.
From covering former US president Donald Trump’s rape trial to tragic mass shootings and - thankfully - some light news in between, the Voyager Media Awards finalist drops all the Big Apple’s secrets on his date with It’s A Date podcast host, Lillie Rohan.
Including one he is yet to hear from a neighbourly psychic.
New York is full of characters. From vibrant, fashionable individuals to white-collar Wall Street locals and the people you’d rather avoid, McCann found himself in a bit of a peculiar situation not long after moving into the city.
Revealing he lives next door to a psychic, he says, “The other day I was walking home and she was standing outside the house and she goes, ‘you’ve gotta come inside’. This is a true story. And I said, ‘no, no, no thank you.’ And she goes, ‘no, I’ve got a message for you. I’ve got a reading for you.’ and I just kind of freaked out and I was like ‘oh no, I’ll send my wife’.”
McCann says the psychic was persistent and kept asking him to come inside. But he never did. To this day he’s curious but doesn’t know if he wants to hear the message.
Recalling the vacation he and his wife and partner of 12 years, Olivia Schwass, took after their wedding and before their big move to New York, McCann explains he barely got to enjoy what the island had to offer.
“I got food poisoning,” he pauses before dropping the second bomb, “And Covid. So like eight out of 10 days was spent either on the toilet or being sick, and so it didn’t really get much worse than that.”
Thankfully the journalist can laugh about it now but at the time it wasn’t an enjoyable experience.
Mitch McCann is Newshub's US correspondent.
Wildest Instagram message
In a connected world, it’s not unusual to receive unsolicited Instagram messages. And while McCann admits he hasn’t received many, his local celebrity status has opened the door for a bit of a wild DM’s.
When asked what the sexiest comment he’s ever received from a fan is, he takes a second to ponder the question before his face lights up. Revealing it wasn’t really a comment but a picture, the Newshub reporter has one thing to say about the person’s bold act.
“They went real rogue,” he says laughing.
To hear what the “rogue” photo included, where Mitch McCann wants to raise kids and this date’s red flag, listen to the full episode of It’s a Date.
It’s a Date is a NZ Herald podcast, with new episodes coming out every Thursday.
