Making the Papers

When you're on the coast the rest of the country — well the rest of the world — is as they say here, 'over the hill'. And that is 'the hill' [points to the Southern Alps]. So you're pretty isolated. Consequently they generate their own fun here, and as usual the staff of the Star are either enjoying it, reporting it or generating it...

– Presenter Peter Hawes on West Coasters making their own fun, late in this documentary

Hopefully the piles.

– A Greymouth resident is asked what they'll do with a power company pay-out

Sheree's great. She just does anything. She's so keen to get out on assignments and she's so energetic, and she's like a sort of an inspiration to us all.. [For] old people like me to see her energy is just amazing. I once had that sort of energy myself, but it seems to be flagging a wee bit at the moment.

– Senior Greymouth Star reporter Sue Gailbraith on her young colleague Sheree Smith

Wellington's arts festival, Auckland's Americas Cup, forget it — down here, this is the event of the year...

– Peter Hawes on Hokitika's Wild Food Festival

What I'm doing here is I'm taking a reasonably tight shot of the guy that's eating the sheep's balls, and I'm just cropping it in a little bit harder. That's quite in your face sort of sheep ball-ish, isn't it...

– Reporter Ian Gill reframes his cover photo from the Hokitika Wildfoods Festival

Where else can you play cowboys and Indians when you're over 40?

– A member of the West Coast Black Powder Shooters Association

If Kit's small staff can make him eat bull bits, what could the Herald's staff make their editor do, hmm?

– Peter Hawes mentions editor Kit Carson

I'm quite happy for you to make a documentary on the paper, but I'd like to think that you'd get away from continuous rain, rusty buildings, dope-smoking hippies, rednecks and greenies. I think there's more to the coast, much more than that.

– Greymouth Star editor Kit Carson on avoiding West Coast clichés, early in this documentary

Friend and colleague Doug Sail says the community adopted [Kit] Carson as one of its own. He attributes this to Carson's willingness to always state his opinions fearlessly, a trait much admired on the coast.

– Writer Mike Crean in a profile of Kit Carson, who edited The Greymouth Evening Star from 1995 to 2005, The Press, 21 March 2015

Greymouth, surely the most literate town in the land: 10,000 people, with four local newspapers.

– Peter Hawes introduces this documentary