National
Business Review
Jock
Anderson | WEEKEND
REVIEW
It is refreshing to see a book by a
seasoned journalist who values the use of simple, straightforward questions to
get revealing answers.
Veteran television journalist Rod
Vaughan’s Bloodied But Not Beaten – a marketing hook to the celebrated
left hook he copped when he dropped in uninvited on Bob Jones’ fishing patch –
is not only a fascinating behind-the-scenes yarn of a truly global
correspondent, it is a sharp reminder of what real journalism is about.
For more than 40 years Rod Vaughan’s
award-winning assignments took him not only all over New Zealand but to every
corner of the world to cover the biggest stories of the day.
From his well-documented clobbering by New
Zealand Party founder Bob Jones in the upper reaches of the Tongariro River – a
fearless encounter which made him one of television’s “bloody legends” – to a
host of hair-raising and life-threatening ecapades in foreign parts Mr Vaughan
was there to bring the news home.
He and his crew cover pre-democractic
elections at gun point in South Africa, stroll the lawns of the Duchess of
Bedford’s Woburn Abbey, get the inside bully from Andy McNab on an ill-fated
SAS mission in Iraq and risk their lives assessing the consequences in Pakistan
just 24 hours after the 9/11 attacks on America.
To get the best stories he put the heat on
the Irish economic tiger, took a dip in Mururoa Atoll during anti-nuclear test
protests and “conned” his way into a golf round with Fiji coup leader Major
General Sitiveni Rabuka.
There was still time for the big stories
at home such as Bill Sutch and a succession of Russian spies, the demise of
corporate high-flyers such as Goldcorp’s Ray Smith, the exposure of German
conman Ralf Simon, David Gray’s Aramoana massacre and the still nagging Peter
Ellis Christchurch civic creche scandal.
Vaughan’s book is sprinkled with direct
lifts from interviews which made big television news, all of which demonstrate
his well-researched grasp of the topic and his trademark “what happened next?”
style.
But this book is much more than a swing
down memory lane.
As one of New Zealand’s best television journalists, he
weaves his own experiences of how the many headline stories came about with his
personal reflections on the back-stories of poverty, deprivation, violence,
corruption and intrigue so common in news zones.
He is also not afraid to take swipes at
the dumbing down of television news and current affairs, the demise of
investigative reporting and the tacky emergence of so-called “celebrity”
journalists.
Vaughan’s journalism is proudly of a
time when the story – not the reporter - came first, which is a far cry from
the current breed of television’s heavily-marketed show ponies.
A good and enlightening read.
Rod Vaughan (right in 1978) reinvented himself this year
as a part-time reporter for NBR ONLINE, applying his talents to secure
exclusive stories such as one-off interviews with disgraced Lombard chairman
Sir Douglas Graham and fresh-out-of-jail Nathans Finance’s Roger Moses.
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