Three of New Zealand’s top journalists and a well-known broadcaster have been recognised for their contributions to the industry in the New Year 2026 Honours List.
Richard Harman has been made an officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to journalism and broadcasting.
He has worked for more than five decades in the industry, reporting for Television New Zealand’s (TVNZ) 1News, Eyewitness News and Frontline.
Harman found out he was getting the gong while overseas in Tanzania after receiving a call from the Department of the Prime Minister.
He told the Herald it was not an award he ever imagined he would get.
“Any political journalist has got to just have a little check on themselves every now and then,” Harman said.
“I think if you look at that period when I was doing news with TVNZ, which was from 1982 through to 1994 in the press gallery, it was an amazing time in New Zealand politics.”
As a long-time political reporter for TVNZ, he reported on the Rainbow Warrior bombing and the passing of the baton from Robert Muldoon to David Lange.
That was the subject of his award-winning documentary Five Days in July.
In 1999, he founded the Front Page, where he launched current affairs shows Agenda and The Nation, the latter becoming Newshub Nation.
He is currently the managing editor of Politik.
Harman said it was personally thrilling to receive the honour, but said it represented something more.
“I think what’s important about it is that at the moment, the media’s under a pretty substantial siege.
“A lot of people are attacking the media. And I think this is an endorsement by the Government of journalism.”
Harman said in recent years he had really enjoyed working with younger journalists, highlighting those particularly in Parliament’s press gallery.
“There’s just the constant deadlines, and they’re under these enormous financial pressures. It’s hard being a journalist today, and I think our young journalists are doing really well.”
Leighton Smith has been appointed a member of the New Zealand Order of Merit for his services to broadcasting.
Smith is a familiar face to Newstalk ZB listeners, having spent 33 years on the station, holding the 8.30am to midday slot until his retirement in 2018.
The award-winning former talkback radio host was presented with a Scroll of Honour from the Variety Artists Club of New Zealand for his contribution to New Zealand entertainment in October 2018.
He told Newstalk ZB that radio represents everything that he ever wanted to be.
“I loved and still love having conversations. In fact, before I ever got into radio, I was indulging in conversations, and I loved a good debate or a good argument,” Smith said.
“But it’s the people you talk with, not just those who are listening.
“Those you engage with and discover things that they might not want to reveal or take care of things that they’re asking advice on.
“The people you talk with are the most important of all.”
Since departing the mid-morning slot on Newstalk ZB, Smith has hosted his own-named podcast, now with more than 300 episodes.
One thing that interests him the most about the podcast is the number of people who correspond with him from places beyond our borders, noting how there are a number of listeners in Texas.
As to whether Smith has considered stepping away from the microphone, he said it took him years to get out of radio.
“I wanted to for about six years, and I kept getting persuaded to stay on.
“I have made a lot of friends around the globe, and some of them have become very good and close friends. The more I discover people, and shall we say, uncover their contribution, the more likely I am to hang about a bit longer.”
John Roughan has also been appointed a member of the New Zealand Order of Merit for his services to journalism.
Roughan’s career spans more than 50 years, observing and writing on New Zealand politics.
He began his newspaper career on the former Auckland Star newspaper in 1974 before travelling extensively, working on newspapers in Japan and the United Kingdom at the time of the election of Margaret Thatcher.
He joined the New Zealand Herald in 1981 and was posted to the Parliamentary Press Gallery two years later.
Roughan covered the dramatic final years of the Muldoon era and the beginning of the Lange–Douglas Government’s rapid reforms of the New Zealand economy.
In 1988, he became the New Zealand Herald’s chief editorial writer, and in 1996 was invited to write a weekly column to appear in the Weekend Herald.
He wrote his final column in the New Zealand Herald in May 2023 after 27 years.
Roughan received several Qantas Media Awards over his career and in 2003 won the Qantas Fellowship to Wolfson College, Cambridge, and pursued a research project on accommodating indigenous peoples’ nationalism within a cohesive state.
He was a New Zealand Press Council member from 2014 to 2018, representing the Newspaper Publishers Association and in 2014 wrote a biography of then Prime Minister Sir John Key.
Roughan said it was a great thrill to receive the honour.
“You don’t expect this level of recognition in journalism. I have worked with many journalists on the Herald who are equally, if not more, deserving of it,” Roughan said.
“I hope they all share my pleasure at this recognition of the work we do.”
He said the honour had come at the end of a frightening year for himself.
In February, Roughan was diagnosed with leukaemia and given “only a year or two at best”.
But after undergoing a stem cell transplant in August, Roughan said he was on the mend, noting his awe of the young Australian who made the donation.
“I’m just coming off anti-rejection medication now and feeling fine. Even my hair is growing back.
“Words cannot adequately express my gratitude to the haematology staff at North Shore and Auckland City hospitals, especially the transplant team at Auckland City, and most of all, to a 22-year-old Australian, whose name I’m not allowed to know, whose tissue was a close match to mine and who donated his stem cells to me.”
Donna Chisholm has also been appointed a member of the New Zealand Order of Merit for her services to journalism.
Chisholm has more than 40 years’ experience in the media covering science, health, social issues and crime.
The investigative journalist and author was the first female chief reporter at the Auckland Star newspaper, and has written for leading magazines and newspapers, including the NZ Listener, North & South, and Metro.
Chisholm is perhaps best known for her campaign in the Sunday Star-Times to free David Dougherty from prison for a rape he did not commit.
Her six-year investigation was dramatised in the 2009 TVNZ film Until Proven Innocent.
Chisholm said she found out about the honour a few weeks ago, describing it as a huge shock and very humbling.
“I still don’t think it’s sunk in,” Chisholm said.
“I was extremely lucky to start in journalism in the mid-1970s when print still ruled, becoming a cadet at the Auckland Star under the guidance of the legendary Pat Booth, then at the peak of his Arthur Allan Thomas work.”
She said it was a different time to work in, with no computers, mobile phones, and no access to Google.
But she praised the work of young journalists today, saying they have it much tougher.
“Trying to get the same cut-through in an era of paywalls and, elsewhere, disinformation overload, but their work has never mattered more.
“I hope this honour is recognition for them too, knowing that quality journalism counts, that it can change lives and be a force for good.”
Tom Raynel is a multimedia business journalist for the Herald, covering small business, retail and tourism.