The award-winning broadcaster and journalist looks back on his life in television, featuring early morning All Blacks games, his love for The Repair Shop and why he’s turning into his parents.
John Campbell doesn’t remember his first ever appearance on television. “Funny, eh?” the broadcaster chuckles over the phone. All Campbell knows is that it was 1991 and he was a shy junior reporter in Three’s Wellington newsroom, reporting for 3News. “Someone recently found an early piece of camera from me, probably from about 1991 or 92, really early in my career,” he says. “I was incredibly posh, like I’d been to elocution lessons with Prince Charles. Ridiculously rounded vowels.”
Those ridiculously rounded vowels have seen Campbell through an illustrious and award-winning broadcasting career, one that has traversed shows, networks and lockdown weather reports. After that early stint as a junior reporter, Campbell rose through the ranks to present 3News alongside Carol Hirschfield in 1998, and in 2005, launched the beloved 7pm current affairs show Campbell Live. When Campbell Live was controversially cancelled after a decade, Campbell shifted to RNZ’s Checkpoint and then to TVNZ in 2018, where he helped to wake up the nation on Breakfast for several years. He’s now TVNZ chief correspondent, where he reports on everything from water infrastructure to sport to tenants’ rights.
Now Campbell is venturing into new journalistic territory with a six-part documentary series that drops on TVNZ+ this weekend. The Woman at the Bottom of the Stairs tells the story of the mysterious death of Levin woman Rachel Molloy, who was the victim of a crime in 2020. Two years later, Molloy was found dead at the bottom of her stairs, and while police called it an accident, the family was left with questions. “I couldn’t get that story out of my head,” Campbell recalls, and after his official information request into the case raised even more queries about Molloy’s death, he went in search of answers.
Campbell spent the past 18 months working on the documentary, and found the process to be far more intensive than the fast-paced turnaround of news reporting. “It’s tough work, and often there’s no resolution,” Campbell says, adding that he was determined to be hyper-methodical in telling Molloy’s story. “You don’t want to join dots that don’t warrant joining, so it’s taken a long time to do. But I feel like Mandy, the mum who lost Rachel, has got a voice now. That feels really important to me, and really valuable.”
Ahead of the premiere of his new TVNZ series, Campbell looked back on a long and rich life in television, including the warm thrill of watching early morning rugby with his dad, the joy of befriending his man crush and the transformative power of a classic British drama.
My earliest TV memory is… My dad getting me up in the middle of the night to watch the All Blacks play in England. I might be wrong, but I think it was the first time that games were able to broadcast live at two in the morning, so early to mid 1970s. The only other people watching were friends of my father’s. It was all men and being allowed to join them as this little guy, I can still feel how big and grown up and wonderful that felt.
The TV show I was obsessed with when I was younger was… When I was in my teens, Brideshead Revisited started. It was on TV1 on Sunday nights. My mum and dad had these beautiful friends who didn’t have a TV and they would come over and have Sunday dinner with us and we would watch it. I remember the impact of the silence in the room. It was the first time I’d ever really appreciated a drama. It’s Evelyn Waugh, it’s all about the cost of love and whether or not we’re true to ourselves, and all those big things are really impactful as an adolescent.
I watched it again five or 10 years ago in an Airbnb that had the DVD set. Unlike a lot of the drama from my childhood, it stood up. It still says something. It was profoundly impactful on me. I don’t know if it was the themes of usability and identity and class, but I loved it. Once again, it was being allowed to be part of a thing that felt special. Roast chicken, then Brideshead afterwards. This is more than 40 years ago, and I can still picture the experience of it.
My earliest TV crush was… I’m a huge fan of TV crushes, and I’ve had some beautiful ones over the years. I remember having the most beautiful crush on Rove McManus when Rove first came on, and we became lovely friends. We had the most wonderful time together. He’s exactly as you’d expect off the telly.
One time we went to Melbourne to watch him make a show. I think we interviewed Anthony Bourdain as well, which was just one of those trips where you think, “I cannot believe this is my life, I cannot believe that this is considered work”. I remember Rove Live and the precision that everyone knew what they were doing, and yet it felt completely spontaneous. I was in awe of that, watching them make it in the studio. It was wonderful.
The TV moment from my own career that haunts me… This isn’t a moment that haunts me much, other than I hadn’t realised it was such a disaster until quite some time later. I was interviewing Ken Ring the Moon Man. I’m not a fan of what I regard as bogus science, I’m sure he would say it’s not. Also, it was three or four days after the quake, and people in Christchurch were just empty, they were spent and there was all sorts of speculation about more earthquakes in relation to the moon. I’d been at the CTV building and I was exhausted, there were aftershocks and I really hadn’t slept for three or four days. I was interviewing him in the field, but I didn’t have an off-air monitor, so I had no idea what he looked like. I didn’t know that he looked like Santa Claus, and so I was kind of just tired and venting and almost yelling at him, in an entirely unprofessional and inappropriate way. Little did I know that all the viewers were seeing was this guy who looked like Santa, looking upset and bewildered while John Campbell was having a go. I didn’t realise until three or four hours later when people started demanding my resignation. I still get tight in the tummy when I think of that.
The TV ad I can’t stop thinking about is… I’m a big fan of ads, because they pay the bills. So I just want to say to all the advertisers who are reading this, I love your ad breaks. I do remember Dear John, the cassette ad. That was brilliant.
The TV show I like to escape into is… I love The Repair Shop. That program stands for kindness and grief. The things that people bring along to The Repair Shop have almost always been left to them by someone who died, or is a reminder of somebody who died. So it’s people dealing with grief, and I think that speaks to me.
Also, when I had Covid I watched Very Important People. It’s an interview show where people are put in makeup and costumes, and they don’t see who they’re becoming. They’re given five minutes to work out who their character is, and then they’re interviewed by this woman who has to find out the story of their life. At first, it’s ridiculous, but all lives contain the same stories, which is the desire to love and be loved, to have purpose and meaning, and the expression of this in a slapstick, fictional way is so funny and clever. I was bedridden and I just kept watching it over and over, thinking, “who came up with this brilliant idea?”
The most stylish people on television are… Carol Hirschfeld, who’s not on television anymore, but when she was she just filled the screen with style, and Scotty Morrison. He is genuinely charismatic. He’s very styley. If you were going to take a New Zealand presenter team to the world stylish people awards, Carol and Scotty would be the two people to pick.
My most proudest TV moment is… The advocacy work. I look back to Christchurch after the earthquakes on Campbell Live, Pike [River mine] on Campbell Live, zero hours and child poverty, the All Blacks to Samoa, and Samoa and the tsunami, and then we continued that work on Checkpoint. And actually, although it was less seen and less well regarded, we actually did a lot of that work on Breakfast, too. With Breakfast, you’re making journalism for a different kind of audience and I really love that.
I was always part of a team. Some of the best work Campbell Live did, I was only fronting the show, I wasn’t doing the work. I always felt that when we collectively perceived an injustice or an inequality or an unfairness, and we responded to it in a way that captured the public, that was amazing. They’re the moments where you sit there and think, “I can’t believe we’re doing this”.
The show I wish I was involved with is… I sit in the newsroom at TVNZ about 12-15 meters away from the Te Karere team. I watch them work and support each other and affirm each other. Also, the mystery is that they’re often talking in te reo Māori, and so I only have the vaguest thinking of what’s happening, and I feel a kind of delight and joy for them, but also a tiny little envy. Also, I appeared on Outrageous Fortune a couple of times. I went out and watched them have the time of their lives. I’ve never done any drama, but the joy they took in each other was pretty lovely.
My most controversial TV opinion is… I’ve never been a fan of broadcasters who punch down on soft targets. I think we are in a position of profound privilege, and if we don’t use it to lift or to question or to elevate or to hold to account or just to give people a voice, then what, you know?
The show I’ll never watch, no matter how many people tell me to is… Married at First Sight. I’m sure it’s probably way better than I give it credit for, but I just don’t want to know.
The last thing I watched on TV was… 1News, last night. Here’s the funny thing, because I work in that newsroom, so I watch it most nights. I know all those people, and I care deeply about them. But also I think I’ve turned into my parents. About three minutes to six I start getting some Pavlovian response and think, “I better go and watch the news”.
The full series of The Woman at the Bottom of the Stairs streams on TVNZ+ from Saturday October 5.