Petrie, Dallow are One for news

Of all the special skills needed to read the news, "disaster magnet" is not usually listed, but it may well have helped Wendy Petrie to take on the mantle of one of TVNZ's 6pm news anchors.

TVNZ news boss Bill Ralston has finally confirmed Simon Dallow and Wendy Petrie as the One News presenting line-up to replace Judy Bailey next year.

Mr Ralston said Dallow was a well-established and popular news presenter who had shown his calibre as an interviewer in two seasons as host of Agenda.

He said Petrie had wide experience as a reporter and news anchor.

Asked if it was expected, Wendy Petrie said "not in a million years".

She joked that one of the things that got her the job was her unique set of skills: "Bill [Ralston] thinks I'm a bit of a disaster magnet because I seem to be presenting when major stories happen."

Petrie, 34, was in New York on September 11, 2001 and just happened to be rostered on as fill-in presenter when the London bombings occurred in July this year, for which she presented live for three hours, as well as for the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami in South East Asia.

She reported back to TVNZ from New York for the September 11 terrorist attacks and, in Toronto, presented during the US-led war in Iraq, the space shuttle Columbia tragedy, the death of the Queen Mother, and the Sars outbreak in Toronto.

She said she had hoped do presenting when she returned from jobs in Canada as news anchor on breakfast show Canada A. M. and 24-hour news channel Newsnet.

She said she was proud of One News, and her background in reporting - "really hard work" - gave her a strong knowledge of how the bulletin was put together and would be invaluable in her new job.

"I want to bring that passion for the reporting and the news in general to my job."

It will take until early next year to find out what the public thinks of the appointments.

Judy Bailey will read the news for the last time on December 16. Petrie and Dallow begin on January 23.

However, the pairing got the nod from media commentators.

University of Canterbury journalism school head Jim Tully said Ralston had made a sound choice in walking the tightrope of trying to attract younger viewers without alienating the older, established audience.

Dallow had "safe hands" and Petrie would appeal to younger viewers.

Paul Norris, head of the broadcasting school at Christchurch Polytechnic, said it was good to see TVNZ return to using two news presenters and it would aid them in the battle against TV3 because there was a wider appeal for viewers.

Judy Bailey had been reading the news alone since the end of 2003, when Richard Long's contract was not renewed.

News of the appointments leaked out last week, but there were delays in the announcement while TVNZ and Simon Dallow negotiated.

In former lives, he was a lawyer and tour guide in Europe, she was a cheerleader and modelled to pay for her studies.

But Simon Dallow has since presented news in various forms for the past 12 years, and Wendy Petrie has reported and presented for the past 10.

Those years have seen the pom poms and legal tomes forgotten.

Dallow made his television debut in February 1994.