Broadcasting Minister Willie Jackson and the Te Rito graduates of 2022.
After a year of intense training, journalism cadets from Te Rito have graduated.
Te Rito is a collaboration between Māori Television, NZME, Pacific Media and Newshub to train 25 budding journalists to develop more diverse voices in the industry.
Kahumako Rameka is one of the cadets who graduated this year.
“It was a challenge I thought I could meet, that we could meet. So I thought, ‘Let’s give it a go’. Now we have made it - it’s finished.”
The majority of cadets are barely in their 20s, with the programme’s aim to train the next generation of journalists. Atutahi Potaka-Dewes, who has gone on to find work at the Pacific Media Network, says the time has come for a new approach to news.
Industry crying out
“It’s not just Māori, it’s all walks of life here in Aotearoa, all those stories coming together. But being told truthfully, being told respectfully through the lens of those indigenous groups.”
About 100 people applied for one of the 25 places on the cadetship, with NZ on Air investing over $2 million in the course. Around $1.7m is to be spent on the next cohort starting this year.
NZ on Air journalism head Raewyn Rasch says Te Rito is something the industry has been crying out for.
“We have had no mechanism to build capability within Māori journalism or Pacific journalism or even diverse-voice journalism and, without that capability, even if newsrooms wanted to hire Māori journalists, they just weren’t there.”
Broadcasting and Māori Development Minister Willie Jackson said Te Rito was a great success.
“I had the privilege to speak and present the certificates to the first cohort of graduates - one of the largest ever to complete an industry programme like this. There are Maori, Samoan, Cook Island, Fijian Indian, South East Asian, Finnish [people] - all up, about ten different languages and 21 graduates,” Jackson said.
“A fantastic achievement for our up-and-coming journalists of the future.”
‘This is about a bigger sort of commitment that we have to te reo Māori.’