New Zealand's best columnist, the Herald's John Armstrong, has been labelled both "a Labour lackey and a National toady".
"One reader has twice offered to drive me to the airport if I would agree to leave the country. Such responses from both sides of the spectrum suggest I have got it about right," says Armstrong, whose portfolio of columns won him the Canon Media Award last Friday.
He describes the win as a proud moment, but remembers the sage thoughts of a former colleague on leaving the Press Gallery.
"Working as a journalist at Parliament, he said, was as much a privilege as a right, if not more so. It is privilege which carries obligations. The chief one is to this newspaper's readers. I approach writing political columns as having a conversation with the reader.
"You still have to capture and then retain the reader's attention. As much time can be spent settling on the opening sentence as the rest of the column. It also took me a while to realise that column writing was difficult because it constantly involves working out what to leave out as much as what you put in."
