New Zealander of the Year: Rachel Smalley

Rachel Smalley.

This week, we name the finalists for the Herald New Zealander of the Year. We’re profiling high-achieving Kiwis each day and announce the winner in the Weekend Herald.

Rachel Smalley
For her work with World Vision and The Forgotten Millions campaign.

New Zealanders got to know journalist Rachel Smalley through her lively work in television and radio.

This year the public met another side of the broadcaster through her compassionate and compelling reports from refugee camps in the Middle East and eastern Europe.

Smalley hitched her wagon to The Forgotten Millions campaign, a fundraiser launched by World Vision with support from the Herald.

The aid project was a response to the devastating Syrian crisis. Half the country's pre-war population - more than 11 million people - have been killed or forced to flee their homes as a result of civil conflict. Millions are in desperate need of humanitarian support.

The Forgotten Millions assignment meant Smalley travelled to some of the most wretched parts of the world, as a tide of humanity streamed out of the Middle East and into Europe.

The fleeing families were often not welcomed by the countries in their path, a response Smalley captured in her coverage.

In her frontline reports she emphasised how she could not help but be affected by what she encountered.

In September, she reached Serbia's border with Hungary, and watched soldiers building a fence to block the desperate refugees.

"What I saw on the border, I don't think will ever leave me," she reported. She spoke to a Syrian man with two young daughters who told the New Zealander that insurgents had killed his wife.

Smalley reported: "I was with him as we passed that fence. Soldiers were building it as we passed, unrolling razor wire, and he quietly said: "It's as if we are animals."

Her vivid accounts struck a chord at home. New Zealanders gave generously to the aid campaign, and donations passed $1.2 million. In October, the Government matched the tally after a gala fundraiser.

Smalley, 44, has an extensive career in journalism. She has reported from Europe, Africa, Asia and America. She joined Newstalk ZB as host of KPMG Early Edition in 2013.

No shrinking violet, the mother of one earned headlines this year with her remarks after John Campbell, a former colleague at TV3, took up a job at Radio New Zealand.

Wrote Smalley in an opinion piece at Newstalk ZB: "We have a near-monopoly of white male broadcasters who shape our day, who direct our news agenda, who influence our perspectives."

Her comments earned her a tide of abuse on social media, but Smalley is not known for taking a backward step. "I know it made people uncomfortable, but I'm going to say it again. Nobody wins if our world is being shaped by the perspective of one gender and one race, irrespective of their politics."