You have to have a sense of the ridiculous to be a political reporter, says Paddy Gower. Photo / Brett Phibbs
'I thought you might have been more friendly. I really did, said Paddy Gower, TV3's 3 News political editor and fearless attack dog journalist.
He said this plaintively and, because this is what he does, he said it again, a number of times, in different ways, all of them plaintive. He looked more like a kicked kitten than an attack dog. "One thing I'm really down on is attack dog journalism," he said, giving me one of his mad dog stares. "When it's like an article's already written. I never do that. I always have an open mind." I was remembering him chasing Chris Carter down those stairs. Remembering it wasn't having an open mind. It was four years ago, he complained. And only remembered by people like me, "who are hellbent on pinning things on me". It wasn't me who chased him down the stairs. "Ha, ha! I know!"
Now, could we please have another drink? he said. "Relax a bit? Are you going to have another wine? Please." He said that a number of times too.
Some time earlier, he said: "You have to have a sense of the ridiculous." He meant to be a political reporter, but also to be Paddy Gower, political editor. I'll say! And I was going to say just that, about the very idea that I was interviewing Paddy Gower, political editor. Because who would ever have predicted it? Not me, and not him either. He likes to get in first about the incongruity of the very idea. This is mostly, but not entirely, based on the fact that he doesn't have the conventional face for TV. I knew him, not well, when he was at the Herald (he arrived in 1999 as an intern) and was, I said, always hanging around making a pest of himself. I don't actually remember whether he did, but as he accused me of never troubling with facts, I made it up to annoy him. I failed. He said: "In that I haven't changed!" No. It is rather a badge of honour, in his job, to be a known pest and pesterer.
Still, who would have thought? Audrey Young, the Herald's political editor, as it turned out. She was his first Gallery editor and must have remarkable soothsaying powers to have seen the makings of a political reporter in him, I said, if rather more bluntly. He wasn't a bit offended. "Because at the time people just thought I was a crime kind of, you know, ambulance-chasing kind of guy. People didn't realise that I could become this sophisticated political journalist!"
He was wearing a nice suit and a tie but the knack of wearing a tie with ease seems to still elude him. He always looks a bit as though he'd knotted his ties in a hurricane. I did seem to remember that he had a penchant for hideous Argyle golfing vests but he said that he had one, and it was a jumper, with sleeves, so not a vest at all, and "they were quite fashionable at the time". An image of this flashed through my mind: "You looked like Goofy!" I said. I didn't mean this in a cruel way. Who doesn't like Goofy? Anyway, he is always banging on about what he looks like and saying thank God for make-up "for your sake" and variations on that theme. But he does look like a cartoon character playing a political editor and I think this works for him and that he knows it. He looks friendly and non-threatening, in other words. In one frame he might whack you over the head with a ruddy great rubber hammer, but in the next frame the bump on your noggin will have gone away - and so will he, to have whacked some other target with his hammer. It's not personal. He's without guile. He doesn't hate politicians and they seem to mostly like him. He said: "I'm sure a few of them hate me. Ha, ha." I don't believe he really thinks so. It's a strange job, and a strange game and the tone of it is matey while chasing each other about with rubber hammers. (Which may account for his complaint that I wasn't matey enough with him.)
It is a serious job though. He once said: "I'm aware that there's a certain view of me out there."
Yes, so what is that view? "Oh that I push things too far. You know, that I'm crazy. That I'm only there for the entertainment, the game. That I don't have a brain. That I'm dragging the media into some sort of ... " Tabloid hell? "Ha, ha. Some sort of tabloid hell."
You'd think that these views would, or ought, to worry him. "Not everybody can be a feature writer and have a week to do things." That wasn't very friendly. I got my rubber hammer out. He's also seen as a beat-up merchant. He editorialises the news. "Well, what's the problem with that? It's politics. It's not meant to be a vanilla news report where we hold up a press release from the Labour Party and a press release from the National Party."
He's not defensive, "at all. You want me to be defensive about it."
Later he said he was "openly defensive" about his journalism being attacked. "When people try to imply that I'm a poor journalist, that really, really annoys me. And it's not true. I put in so much effort and I take it so seriously." He said, hopefully: "So, you don't think I do anything bloody good on TV?" I did sometimes shout at the TV when he was on, if that counts (and it might.) He can take a knock on the noggin. He said: "I sort of hear that!"
You could never accuse him of being precious. He said he knows he was terrible when he started (as a gallery reporter before he took over as editor from his great mate and mentor, Duncan Garner). So, "Michele, it's not very hard to go from absolutely shit to just bloody average." And he still thinks: "How the f*** did I end up on there?"
Still, I did wonder whether there was a problem with those views of him; whether he was in danger of being thought a clown; whether there was a problem with his profile. "No, no," he said, because only a small number of people, meaning me, think this. He was giving me the Gower glare, which I'm afraid I find too funny to be convinced by. Also, he may not be precious, but he seldom suffers self-doubt about his journalism - maybe once or twice a year he thinks he might have pushed something too far, he said. The self-deprecation is a bit of schtick. He does like to look agog at the idea of himself as the "perceptive and intelligent political editor".
But he doesn't much like being asked to examine himself. "Are we getting another beer? Because this is stressing me out". What rot. What was stressing him out? "I know your attack journalism. You can't actually win, can you, with you? You come in with preconceptions! And I've known you for 15 years! Whereas I come in with an open mind."
I didn't ever get around to saying "I can't believe this is happening" because he did, as soon as he arrived, and over and over again. He does this of course with politicians - he asks the same thing over and over until he wears them down and gets some sort of answer. "I can't believe this is happening!" he said. Two minutes later: "I can't believe this is happening! I really can't!" You have to have a sense of the ridiculous.
He is resilient and competitive and dogged. He doesn't vote and claims to not have any time for political views, which is entirely different and really must be rot. He thought of a political view. "I hate smoking." That's not a political view. "Yes it is. Controlling smoking to improve people's health." He must be for Labour then. "Ha, ha, ha." Who would he rather have a drink with: Cunliffe or Key? "Oh come on!"
He was raised a Catholic. He still believes in God. He prays, "when the shit hits the fan". He is married to Bridget, an intensive care nurse, and they have two young children, Maeve, who is 15 months old and George, now 4, who was a premature baby and very ill when he was born, so he prayed then. He loves cats. He and Bridget have a Cornish Rex called Lily.
"They look like aliens. They're beautiful." It pees in the house and he'd have preferred a moggy but he still loves it. Does he have charisma? "No. None." He doesn't have any hobbies. He thinks he should say he's reading three books and subscribes to the New Yorker. But he isn't and doesn't. He can be very sweet.
He was so excited about the interview, he said, that he ran over the road from TV3 to the pub. "I know you're not supposed to say that." And now: "I really did think you'd be more friendly." Was he upset? "I'm inconsolable."
He doesn't spend any time fretting about what other journalists think of him. "No. Because I would have quit." He said he is exactly the same as he used to be (a pest, then) and is exactly the same on TV as he is off it. Although most people on TV are at least slightly exaggerated versions of their off-screen selves, he isn't. "Not really. Nah." He doesn't, off-screen and thank goodness, do those peculiar hand movements - like a manic hypnotist, if such a thing was possible. I wondered where on earth he'd learnt those and he said: "Well, you don't really." Where do they come from then? "They come from inside!" This is rather a worry (it is rather a worry to watch) but other than that, strange things can happen to people when they go on the telly. Big heads, for one, is what I meant. It is something he keeps an eye on. "Yeah, absolutely. You'd hate for anyone to think you've changed ... And of course I'm going to say no."
He has to watch himself, sometimes, and after the news has screened, obviously, and this is a sort of torture, I'd have thought. "Watching yourself is bloody unusual. Of course it is." I wondered what he thought when he did watch himself and he said, sarcastically: "That it's perfect and I go away and meditate."
These sorts of questions make him nervous so I asked another one: Does he like the person he sees on TV? "Jesus! What is this?"
He was immensely cheered by the arrival of the photographer. They are old mates and went on Gower's first Herald job together. They had a jolly blokey reminisce about how the photographer sent a rude text to Gower about how he looked on his first night on TV.
He got a sophisticated reply worthy of a future political editor: "F*** off!"
I managed to get a few words in, in a further and fruitless attempt to get him to examine himself. This was received with scoffing contempt by both interviewee and photographer.
"He's Paddy, mate!" said the photographer, in what was quite possibly the most intelligent and perceptive observation made that day.
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