A well-known Kiwi journalist has said the New Zealand news industry is getting better at showing care for reporters who cover distressing stories.

Alison Mau, who started her journalism career in Australia in the 1980s, said the industry had changed a lot since then and is now better at considering the wellbeing of journalists.

Mau’s first front-page story was the 1987 Hoddle St mass shootings in Melbourne.

READ MORE: NZ journalists focusing on ‘tragedy prevention’, says CJR research

The incident left seven dead and 19 injured. Mau was assigned to interview one of the bereaved families soon after the shootings.

“I went back to the office . . . quite traumatised.

“It didn’t cross their minds that we were in some way in need of any care. It would have been just, like, ‘Harden up’,” she said.

Now Stuff’s editor of its #MeTooNZ project, she leads a team investigating sexual harassment cases in the workplace.

Mau said some stories kept her up at night in a fury.

“My bosses are always saying: ‘Are you okay?’”

On the journalism industry, she said: “In a lot of cases, it’s kind of lip service . . . and that’s as far as it goes. But I think the intent is there and that’s a good change.”

Several news organisations are also offering counselling services through confidential assistance programmes.

Former reporter Eli Orzessek said one of his first assignments as a young reporter was to interview a rugby coach after three players in his team died in a car crash.

“I had some coaching from editors . . . I guess I just tried my best to be very sensitive,” he said.

“At the end of the call, he actually thanked me and said everyone in the media had actually been really decent.”

Orzessek said while there was a lot “you have to just deal with” when reporting on upsetting stories, he found unwinding from work and talking to colleagues helped.

“Sometimes you just go home and, like, want to cry about it a lot. Other times, it doesn’t really affect you.”

Lyn Barnes, who completed her PhD at AUT on the effects of trauma on New Zealand journalists, said younger journalists were more willing to speak about their experiences than reporters in the past.

“The thick-skinned journos, as they call them, I think they’re kind of a dying breed and the younger ones who are keeping up now and have got quite good editorial roles are supporting younger staff,” she said.

“A trauma counsellor is needed, often, because unless you know what you’re dealing with, you can’t support someone through it.

“To know that employers are willing to pay for that sort of support is fantastic.”

• Irra Lee is a final year Bachelor of Communication Studies student journalist and is editor of Te Waha Nui

Pacific stories spanning generations emerged through film and poetry at a South Auckland art exhibition about the Dawn Raids.

The Educate to Liberate exhibit at the Fresh Gallery Ōtara, which ran from early April until last week, featured photographs, artwork and Polynesian Panther memorabilia from the 1970s Dawn Raid era.

Filmmaker Robert George, alongside curator Pauline Smith, offered people affected by the raids a chance to tell their stories.

READ MORE: Dawn Raids – Pasifika ‘liberated’ to talk about painful past

The Dawn Raids saw police and immigration officials target the homes of Polynesian immigrants in the early hours of the morning in a government crackdown on alleged overstaying.

Reverend Alec Toleafoa of the Polynesian Panthers said the exhibition’s first showing in Invercargill last year saw people coming forward with “really powerful and really amazing” stories.

“What I’ve seen [the exhibition] do is bring out people’s own experiences of the Dawn Raids.

“Often, when those stories emerge, it’s the first time they’ve ever been told.

‘Telling often healing’
“The people who tell them often find the telling of it very healing.”

The Polynesian Panthers formed in 1971 and fought racism against Pacific people through political activism.

A week into the exhibition, the next generation of Pasifika also raised their voices through spoken word poetry.

Youth organisation, Action Education and South Auckland Poets Collective hosted an open mic evening at the gallery, where 60 people attended.

Spoken word artist Eric Soakai, 21, said he was inspired to write his poem after he learnt about the racial injustices against Pacific Islanders during the Dawn Raids.

Soakai said his poem They Will Remember Our Names — an “an ode to those who disrupt spaces” — started from a place of anger before it became a piece celebrating Polynesian people’s resolve.

“To perform it in a space that honours those who held it down in a political sense… it really brought a warmth to my heart,” he said.

Southside poem
Sixteen-year-old Aigagalefili Fepulea’i-Tapua’i, a fellow spoken word artist, said she wrote her poem 275 Love Letters to Southside — which reflected on what it meant to live in South Auckland — after she learnt about the Dawn Raids at school.

“I think the Dawn Raids had a very dramatic effect on all of the Pacific Islander community.

“I feel like it’s something that the newer generation or my generation take for granted when it comes to the Polynesian Panthers and how hard they fought for rights that we have now,” she said.

Despite this progress, Fepulea’i-Tapua’i’s said there was still work to be done to make sure Pacific viewpoints were represented in issues that affected them. She said spoken word poetry provided a good medium to encourage that voice.

“We’re always hearing that Islanders weren’t smart enough to be able to tell their own stories.”

“If kids are hearing that all the time, they’ll start to believe it and they’ll start to limit themselves. So, I think it all starts with encouraging our youth.”

Irra Lee is a final year Bachelor of Communication Studies student journalist and is editor of Te Waha Nui.

Spoken word poetry at the Dawn Raids exhibition. Video: Irra Lee/Te Waha Nui

Tikanga-based mahi toi and mental wellbeing come together in an Auckland artist’s work with pounamu and bone.

Maha Tomo, of Ngai Tahu, Rangitane, Tainui, and Ngāti Kauwhata, fuses indigenous values, education, and art in his carving workshops designed with mental health and rangatahi at its forefront.

Tomo says his workshops, run in schools and communities in East, West and South Auckland, are his way of giving back after his own struggles as a young person with mental health and addiction.

“I always thought if I ever got through my challenges that I would pay it forward and show gratitude by sharing my knowledge with others.

“I’ll always remember those who helped me, and hopefully I can be the same beacon of light to others,” he says.

Tomo’s passion for carving came from a young age after his grandfather gave him a bone carving from the South Island. The idea of combining mental wellness and art came to him when he was studying a Bachelor of Creative Arts at Manukau Institute of Technology.

“When I wasn’t studying, I was working a lot with people going through major challenges in their lives.

Creating wellness
“That’s where the component of creating wellness in my workshops came from because I studied cross-cultural supervision and mental health and other addictions as well.”

Tomo promotes wellbeing in his workshops by integrating indigenous and modern knowledge and concepts. He teaches from a Māori perspective, incorporating values such as tikanga (process), whakawhanaungatanga (togetherness), manaakitanga (support), and wairauatanga (spiritual resilience).

“There is a definite resurgence in pounamu and the interest in indigenous platforms as wellness strategies.

“I like to incorporate a lot of both worlds – taking the best of mainstream education but also adding those beautiful aspects of indigenous learning.”

He says his dedication to sharing indigenous ways of teaching through traditional values comes from learning from other community leaders. His experiences with rangatahi in schools also play a role.

“Working on these workshops, I find a lot of young people are kinesthetic learners that learn through actually doing rather than perhaps studying for a test.

“I see art as a vehicle moving forward that I can use to support mental health within the community and young people that are challenged by mainstream techniques of teaching.

“There’s nothing wrong with mainstream; I think it works well for many. But, for the ones getting left behind, I see my mahi with pounamu and with bone as a safety net that might catch some of the learners that are struggling. I’m just here to provide a safe environment,” says Tomo.

Irra Lee is a second year student journalist in the Bachelor of Communication Studies degree at Auckland University of Technology.