Source: Radio New Zealand
Pioneering Māori journalist Moari Stafford. Moari Stafford
Pioneering Māori broadcaster and journalist Moari Stafford, who cultivated opportunity and empowered generations of Māori journalists for more than 20 years, has died.
He was 74.
Hailing from Waikato, Hauraki, Ngāti Maniapoto, Ngāti Apakura and Ngāti Te Wehi, Stafford spent much of his life in Kawhia situated on the east coast, under the shadow of Maunga Pirongia – the tallest peak in Waikato.
Stafford grew up speaking te reo in a community that recognised the language as a tāonga that must be preserved and protected.
He joined Te Karere as a reporter in 1987, the year te reo Māori was recognised as an official language in New Zealand.
At a pivotal time in history, he became part of a generation that championed Māori journalism through challenging times.
Veteran broadcaster Tini Molyneux worked closely with Stafford for many years in broadcasting and said it was a challenging time but his dedication to te reo was relentless.
“He didn’t pursue a career in broadcasting but had a calibre of reo that was becoming hard to find at the time, so he was encouraged to get involved,” Molyneux said.
“Throughout his career he prioritised te reo in his decision making which created opportunities for people who didn’t fit the status quo of mainstream journalism.”
Stafford was appointed editor of Te Karere in 1991 and over the next 20 years he played a vital role in launching the careers of award-winning journalists and broadcasters.
Māori broadcaster and journalist Mihingarangi Forbes remembers Stafford as an “incredible boss” and respected figure in the newsroom.
“I started at Te Karere in 1994, we were the last of the cadetships for Te Karere… we were so excited and we had a whakatau in the marae there at Māori and Pacific programmes. There would have been about 50 people who worked there at the time,” Forbes said.
“Moari was an incredible boss, so supportive: mātanga reo, mātanga tikanga, mātanga kawa. He had a huge heart, he believed in people.
“He would always see something in us. He would guide us through our hapa and our mistakes that we made which, when you work at Te Karere and Te Ao Māori, making a mistake can be fatal. He would always guide us through that and pull us out the other side.”
Forbes said Stafford would travel between Kawhia and the TVNZ office in Auckland weekly – a distance of around 200 kilometres.
“He was an amazing family man”, she said.
“He’d always bring us kai Māori, rewana bread or a boil up or any kind of Māori kai that he’d bring from home, kai moana, and he’d share it with everybody.”
“I’ll dearly miss him. I’ll miss his texts. He kept in touch with me for my last 32 years, encouraging me every time he saw me out there or doing something good, he’d let me know.”
Another veteran Māori broadcaster to work under Stafford was Julian Wilcox who, alongside Māori media mogul Bailey Mackey, joined Te Karere as a reporter in the late 1990s.
Wilcox told RNZ Stafford was a “quiet and humble” man whose time working manual jobs gave him a dogged work ethic.
“Moari just was worried about filling the half hour that we had on Te Karere… but he got into the gig because of, I found out later on, the encouragement of one of the great tohunga of Tainui, Henare Tuwhangai, who was a main orator for Te Arikinui Te Ataarangikaahu in his time, and one of the great tohunga of Māoridom,” he said.
“It was always about doing the gig, filling the half hour, making sure you had a kaupapa, and turning that kaupapa into a story, filling it out for two and a half minutes – which I know is a long time in news – but that was the average story length for Te Karere… he had that kind of discipline.”
Wilcox said Stafford was always interested in the voices of those the mainstream would leave out of the regular 6pm bulletin.
“How I figured out to please Moari was that if I could get kaumātua and kuia that people often didn’t see in news, particularly in mainstream, talking about news of the day, whatever it might have been at that time, the happier he’d be.
“I’d always turn up to work, and he would always say, ‘What’s your story?’ and I would tell him, ‘Well, I’ve got this kuia…’”
“He’d say ‘Kapai! Go get it’,” Wilcox said.
Stafford was part of a cohort of some of the first Māori broadcasters and journalists to appear regularly on New Zealand television screens like Hinerangi Goodman, Martin Rakuraku, Whai Ngata, Derek Fox, Tini Molyneux and Hirini Henare.
Wilcox remembers them all as “icons”.
“These were people who grew up watching… he was a cool, lovely, lovely man and [without] him I probably wouldn’t have a media career. We owe him a lot and we’re going to miss him.”
Former Te Karere journalist Dean Nathan joined Te Karere in the early 2000s. He told RNZ he met Stafford much earlier life as boy when Stafford worked in Forestry around the small, isolated town of Te Kao in the Far North.
“Who would have thought you would have met a forestry manager in television, right? Editing a national programme and obviously with turning over news it’s a demanding job and the team’s got to be out there and, you know, on the ball every day,” he said.
“I remember him as a really supportive editor and producer, a beautifully natured man.”
Nathan said Stafford gave him huge work opportunities.
“I’m grateful for Moari because he supported me and that was pretty much the starting of my career in television. He was the first editor to send me to repot internationally in America and North America, Canada and Hawaii and all over the South Pacific.
“Those are opportunities that really broadened my my skills and ability and I’m really grateful for that. I love Moari,” Nathan said.
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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand
