News Travels: An Autobiography

The memoirs of Bob McNeil, who is best remembered for his work as an intrepid reporter for TV3, New Zealand, where he worked for over 20 years until his retirement. He has won a number of awards for television journalism and traveled to enough countries to lose track of the number of passports he's filled up. For most of his career he told stories from around the country and the world, through the medium of television and radio. The nature of television means you can't just stay at home and do interviews over the phone, you have to pack your bags, pick up a bulky tripod and go to real places to meet real people. As a child Bob loved reading about adventures, but never dreamed the stories he would hear and tell in his lifetime would far outnumber those he had read about in small town New Zealand.But thanks to his TV3 career he has had a number of real adventures of his own, and now retired there, is time to tell some of the tales behind the stories. Bob has traveled to countless countries to report on issues as varied as disasters in the Pacific Islands, yacht races in Milan and aid projects in Africa. The images he sent back for the news were snapshots of things he saw in person, and often the stories of how he got the stories are just as colourful. From his childhood in Taranaki to his first overseas trip, to being shot at in Fiji and interviewing one of his heroes, Sir Edmund Hillary in Nepal, this book is a chronicle of the importance of stories and an ode to the characters who bring them to life.

Bob McNeil was born in Wellington in 1942, the only child of young parents. During his childhood his family was constantly on the move and he lived in various small NZ towns. After a false start at becoming a journalist for the Taranaki Daily News, he spent time working as a teacher and living in London, before returning to New Zealand, and eventually to journalism with a job in radio. In his 18 years as a radio reporter and host, Bob became well known, working in Hamilton and Auckland and courting controversy with his public opposition to the Springbok Tour. He is perhaps best remembered though for his work as an intrepid and always smiling reporter for TV3, starting at the channel just before it went to air in 1989, and he worked there until his retirement- a career than spanned more than two decades. He has won a number of awards for television journalism and traveled to enough countries to lose track of the number of passports he’s filled up. Bob retired at the end of 2010 and since then has been working on these memoirs, his first book. He lives on the North Shore in Auckland with his wife Jeanette and they have 3 children and two grandchildren