Paul-Robie, who worked at the network for more than three years, remembers watching her first broadcast back and thought she looked washed out and sick until she realised the lighting was not tailored for a non-Pākehā presenter.
“I said there’s something wrong, I mean I look dreadful, I look like I’ve been drowned and come out of the Titanic. What’s wrong? And I went over and over and finally figured it out, it was the lighting.
“The lighting was for white people. That all the lightings had always been set up for white people on air, they’d never been set up for brown people,” Paul-Robie said.
Paul-Robie went on to present Nightline alongside Belinda Todd. She left the network in 1992 and went on to help establish Māori Television between 2002-2004 as a general manager of programmes and production.
Last week she revealed on RNZ’s Matariki programme she was terminally ill.
“I have cancer in its fourth stage. How long I have left is anybody’s guess, it’s a very rare form of breast cancer. It’s a rare and aggressive form and that is very saddening for my whānau mostly and my friends,” Paul-Robie said.
“I hope that I’ve done something for Māori, I hope that I’ve advanced our causes, I hope that I have protected and promoted who we are as a people and the best of us.
“I hope that my legacy for women counts that putting us on-screen, saying you can do it, not only can you do just one show, you can do two shows a night if you want to ... You can do anything you want to do in this industry that’s what I hope my legacy says to people,” Paul-Robie said.
The new Three news broadcast by Stuff that will replace it tonight has only taken a handful of former staff from Newshub.
For the ones following the end of Newshub tonight
Posted by Tui Emma Gillies on Friday, July 5, 2024
- RNZ
