Writing for the Newshub website, the award-winning journalist admitted that the transition from newspaper reporting to live TV wasn’t an easy one.
He started working for 3 News in 2011, and recalled feeling out of place and awkward in front of the cameras at first. Now, he credits the 3 News crew for “saving” him and helping him with everything from stories to scripting to wardrobe.
Patrick Gower started hosting his current affairs show Paddy Gower Has Issues in 2023.
“The people I worked with made me feel at home, like I was wanted, and there was no better feeling,” he shared, adding that if he started listing all the people he wanted to thank, “it would take a week”.
Now, Gower faces uncertainty as to what’s next for him, admitting; “I have gone from being scared to start at TV3 to being scared to leave. What does the world outside hold for me?
“Will I ever feel the same again? Where will I go if I can’t go home?”
After 14 and a half years at what is now Newshub, time no longer means anything to him, he wrote. Rather, it’s the Kiwis he met and the stories he got to tell along the way.
“I’ll just remember the amazing people I worked with, and the amazing people who watched.
“And I’ll say: ‘That was f**king Newshub’,” he concluded, echoing the viral skit that’s since become his catchphrase.
Gower started his career at the Herald, working as a night reporter before covering police and politics. He then made the move to TV and has worked with Warner Bros Discovery for several years in different roles, including a six-year stint as Newshub’s political editor.
He left that role in 2017 and worked as a national correspondent for Newshub before turning his focus to his documentary series Patrick Gower: On..., which covered social issues from alcohol to drugs.
He transformed this into a current affairs show, Paddy Gower Has Issues, in 2023 and went on to winBest Presenter: News and Current Affairs for his work across Newshub Live at 6pm, Paddy Gower Has Issues, AM, The Project NZ and Paddy Gower On... at the 2023 New Zealand TV Awards.
Gower hasn’t yet revealed what’s next for him career-wise, though he recently spoke to Media Insider about the upcoming release of his book This is the F***ing News, revealing that he is “determined to get back to journalism”.
His show and documentaries could survive with NZ on Air funding, though the outcome is yet to be confirmed.
Gower’s book, titled This is the F#$%ing News, will be on shelves from September 24.
He told Media Insider the book will cover “25 years of the f***ing news”.
“It tracks my career from a night duty reporter at the NZ Herald through to where I am today.
“It’s got some really funny yarns from behind the scenes of newsrooms dating back to the days of Granny Herald, my first employer, going through life in the press gallery – 10 years in the press gallery, or Paremoremo, as I describe it in the book with fellow inmates likeDuncan Garner – and then inside the final days of Newshub and those meetings.”
She wrote on the Newshub website: “I had planned to stay for three years but TV3 held my heart for 23, each year a wonderful and unforgettable adventure”.
Reflecting on her journey from the moment she left the Gisborne Herald to audition for TV3′s Nightline in 2001, to working in Three’s Christchurch and Wellington bureaus and returning to Auckland with Campbell Live, she wrote: “I have loved every moment, every bureau, every story and, most importantly, every workmate.
