Russell Brown

After time as a music journalist and an OE in London, Russell Brown founded pioneering New Zealand online community Public Address (he wrote their Hard News blog). Brown is known on-screen for Media Take (co-hosted with Toi Iti), which dissected contemporary media. The show began in 2008 as Media7, before moving to TV3, then Māori Television, where it ran until 2017. Since then, Brown has been a freelance journalist for The NZ Herald, Stuff and Radio New Zealand. Brown was also a  Trustee of Digital Media Trust — which oversees the NZ On Screen and AudioCulture websites — from 2012 to 2016. 

I admire the investigative journalists — Fisher, Savage, Kitchin, Hager. And I have the utmost respect for the way Campbell Live stays with important, unfashionable stories. The worst of the media, sadly, is probably to be found in the comments sections. Russell Brown on the media, The NZ Herald, 26 June 2014