Stevie TV is a monthly column for the Spinoff by Steve Braunias. Here he looks back at David Farrier’s tremendous track record of clammy questioning throughout history.
Pity poor Newsworthy anchorman David Farrier as his pores dry up because one politician after another refuses his plea to come inside his sauna. Conservative Party leader Colin Craig did, and look what happened to him.
David asked Judith Collins. Her people more or less told him to go fuck himself.David asked the Prime Minister. His office all but told him to fuck off and die.
David then went to the top, and asked Governor General Sir Jerry Maratpere.
So, no, that didn’t work out very well either. He just has to try harder. He just has to remind today’s politicians of his fantastic track record with his sauna sessions through the ages. World leaders have beaten a path to the door of his sauna in the past, as the following screen grabs attest.
In November 1963, just days before the motorcade in Dallas, a young David interviewed US President John K Kennedy at length. Kennedy shared intimate details of his life.
Things didn’t turn out too well for Kennedy in the aftermath of the sauna, but he wasn’t the last President to agree to a session with Farrier. One of Richard Nixon’s last acts in the White Office was to grant Farrier an exclusive interview in famed Washington gay sauna The Crew Club at 1321 14th Street.
Things didn’t turn out too well for Nixon in the aftermath of the sauna, but David had long since forgotten that interview by the time he tracked down Osama bin Laden in a compound in Pakistan on May 1, 2011. The two men talked long into the night.
Things didn’t turn out too well for bin Laden in the aftermath of the sauna, but David continued to search the world for other world leaders. One of his greatest scoops was back in 1945, when he took a sauna with Hitler in an underground bunker in Berlin.
Things didn’t turn out too well for Hitler in the aftermath of the sauna – but sitting down with David in a steam room hasn’t done Winston Peters any harm. They met in 2008. David asked him whether he thought he’d have a future as a TV anchorman.
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Newsworthy airs weeknights at 10.30(ish) on TV3