Te Rito, a programme to train 25 budding journalists from diverse communities, has been launched.
Te Rito is a collaboration between Māori Television, NZME, Pacific Media and Newshub, with 10 reo Māori speaking trainees basing themselves at Māori Television for the year.
Although it’s only day one, some of the students are already setting their sights on changing the industry. Waimanea Nuri, a radio announcer for Te Arawa FM, hopes to take the skills she’ll be learning back home.
“I hope to be able to widen my basket of knowledge, and take those teachings back to Te Arawa FM,” Nuri said
NZ on Air journalism head Raewyn Rasch says the agency is trying to keep up with demand. “We’ve created this demand, where all of a sudden, everyone wants a Māori journalist, everyone wants a Pasifika journalist, they’re just not there. And this is the first step to actually meeting that demand.”
Te Rito programme manager Gesa Luamanu believes this programme can make a transition into the industry a more comfortable path than the one she had to follow. “I know what it was like to go into a place, where no one looked like you. So that’s why Te Rito is dear to my heart.”