Anna Murray: How John Campbell and Hilary Barry comforted a nation

Hilary Barry delivering breaking news about last week's terrorist attack in Christchurch. Photo / Supplied

COMMENT:

When a gunman walked into two Christchurch mosques on Friday afternoon and brutally murdered 50 Kiwis in their place of worship, I felt many things.

There was the initial disbelief. There was the horror that the hate-fuelled slaughter of these innocent men, women and children was being live-streamed. There was unbelievable sadness.

Hilary Barry crossing live to John Campbell in Christchurch. Photo / Supplied

And as more details of the attack began to filter through, I also felt some relief that I no longer worked in a newsroom, trying to make heads or tails of a situation for a reeling public. I didn't envy the journalists around the country who still had to. And I especially didn't envy those journalists who had to do all that on live TV.

Of course, those broadcasters who did swing into action on Friday afternoon were not bearing the terrible brunt of this crime. They hadn't lost their lives or their family members. They weren't responsible for apprehending a heavily armed suspect. They didn't have to treat a sudden influx of victims at Christchurch Hospital.

But with an expectation in these moments to inform the public and help New Zealanders process their own shock and grief, the storytellers at Newshub and 1 News were still left with an overwhelming task, both logistically and emotionally.

The flow of information would have been frenetic – and harrowing – that day. There would have been the usual pressure to accurately ascertain exactly what had happened. And even though this atrocity didn't actually befall our storytellers, they still would have seen and heard things that will stay with them for a very long time. Perhaps forever.

John Campbell live outside Christchurch Hospital. Photo / Supplied

I missed much of the early coverage of the shooting that afternoon. With my two preschoolers at home, I made the decision to keep the TV off.

But as soon as the kids were tucked up in bed, I flicked on the telly to watch the networks' interpretations of what had happened.

I found TVNZ had done away with both Seven Sharp and Jeremy Wells for the evening.

Instead, Wells' co-host Hilary Barry was left alone in the studio to helm the network's rolling coverage, with her old friend John Campbell on the ground in Christchurch. I can't have been the only one to feel strangely comforted knowing Campbell was there.

He and Barry made for a truly exceptional team over the course of nearly four hours that evening. They barely faltered as they presented the facts that came to hand, interviewed those close to the trauma and eloquently conveyed the horror of the situation. They then delicately balanced all that out with some genuine emotion and compassion.

Hilary Barry covering the terrorist mosque shooting on 1 News. Photo / Supplied

"It's shattering to be here," Campbell told Barry at one point and I didn't doubt him for a second.

Over at Three, the network ploughed ahead with their usual longer Friday night edition of The Project NZ, but decided against having their live studio audience or a fourth guest host.

Instead, they left Jesse Mulligan, Kanoa Lloyd and Jeremy Corbett to present a show that was very, very different to the lighter news fodder they usually trade in.

At times, it made for uncomfortable viewing as they battled through as best they could, with much of their hour-long broadcast taken up by Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern's incredibly poised press conference.

But it was actually left to one of their trans-Tasman counterparts to deliver the most impactful insight of the evening.

In a clip from the Australian version of The Project shared later that night, co-host Waleed Aly offered up his thoughts about the attack on Christchurch's Muslim community, apologetically saying "these won't be my best words".

He spoke about his own regular visits to his mosque.

"I know exactly what those moments before the shooting began would have been like. I know how quiet, how still, how introspective those people would have been before they were suddenly gunned down, how separated from the world they were feeling until the world came in and tore their lives apart," he said.

Aly then reiterated a message he'd shared on The Project several years earlier, following an Islamist attack.

"Now we come together. Now we understand that this is not a game, terrorism doesn't choose its victims selectively, that we are one community and that everything we say to try to tear people apart, demonise particular groups, set them against each other, that all has consequences even if we're not the ones with our fingers on the trigger."

Aly might believe those weren't his "best words" - but I'm not sure truer words have ever been spoken.