Paddy, positively

Paddy Gower’s book is out, and he is looking for publicity. Gower is a great self-publicist, and I don’t mean that in a bad way. He just has a knack of talking about himself without appearing to be egotistical. 
The media release that went out last week announcing a nationwide tour to support sales of the book is full of Gower-isms like “ripper yarns” and “Paddy magic” and “there will be f-bombs”. Kiwis, he says, “will bloody love it”.
But more revealing than the colourful language, which has long been one of his attention-grabbing devices, is the photo of Gower at the top of the release. It is Jerry Seinfeld-esque. 
Maybe it is a coincidence, maybe not. Gower’s evolution involves stand-up comedy. His tour of 14 towns involves telling yarns, telling jokes and telling people how to live their lives (motivational speaking).
The stand-up bit is interesting. It has a middle-aged man crashes and burns feel about it, but Gower says comedy has always been part of him, a sort of secret part.
“I guess I suppressed it. My grandfather, my dad’s dad he was a great entertainer who played the harmonica and the piano and light up pubs all around the world and he earned more from that than being seaman.
“It is in my genes, literally in my genes and it is something that has popped up more and more and more. And I just like it, from being a class clown, a newsroom character and I’ve decided I am just going to embrace it. 
“I am going on a live tour, and I am going to be a performer and that is a long way from sitting in a corner of the Herald newsroom phoning the cops at nighttime.”
Gower’s first job in journalism was the overnight reporter at the New Zealand Herald in Auckland. He was nicknamed “Night Train” and spent most of his time calling police stations around the region seeing if there were any reportable incidents.
It is easy to see Gower being a success on his tour, particularly in small-town New Zealand. They like him and he borders on a celebrity in the regions as well as the big smoke. He connects with “real Kiwis” in the same way Paul Holmes did, and John Campbell did when he hosted Campbell Live.
Connecting with Kiwis through some highly watchable television documentaries (Paddy Gower on Weed etc) and milking the hell out of his one liner “this is the fucking news” from a law school skit has turned Gower into a cult figure for a decent sized demographic – mainly the 18 to 35 age group. But getting people to pay to hear his jokes and life hacks feels more challenging.
“I’m scared about it. I’m worried about people not showing up, I’m worried about it being a flop, I am worried about losing money [Toyota is providing him with a car but otherwise Gower is self-funding the tour].  
“Hopefully it will break even at least, and I think it will be an adventure. Like I say in the book, life is for living and I want to try it. I don’t want to be saying I always thought about doing a tour and I never did it, I don’t want to be that person.”
Mid-career journalists or broadcasters writing books about their careers to date tends to raise eyebrows in the industry. The hunger that mid-career journalists need to get to the very top levels of the profession seems to dissipate when they become a ‘published author’ – at least until the book turns up in the bargain bin at Paper Plus.
The egos of the authors make it tempting for them to omit or put a favourable spin on less flattering parts of their careers. Gower says his respect for everyday Kiwis kept him honest.
“I did set out to write a deeply honest book as I thought that was the only way it was going to work. But you have got to push yourself. It is harder to do that in practice.
“I am really into that idea of being a Kiwi. You see in the book I talk about the Kiwi dream, but it is hard to go out of that and go ‘I am a real Kiwi, and I love Kiwis and oh by the way I have a massive ego’,” says, laughing raucously. “It doesn’t really fit.”
Gower’s ego copped a serious check in August, 2018. Two alt-right figures, Canadians Lauren Southern and Stefan Molyneux arrived in Auckland for a speaking tour.
Mayor at the time, Phil Goff, had banned them from using a council venue and Gower interviewed the couple without preparing properly. He got hammered by the experienced provocatuers.
“I think I’ve learnt the hard way and put it (ego) away. Southern and Molyneux … It was pretty bad career-wise and something even worse. I could have written a chapter saying that interview went okay in my view, and it wasn’t my fault or something like that. But in reality, it was an example of my out-of-control ego. Now this whole ego thing came out of nowhere and I didn’t realise I had it and then you make a massive mistake like that interview, and you must learn to put it away or keep it away and realise when it is creeping back.”
In his book Gower is brutally honest about the disastrous interview. As a former TV news boss, I saw a lot of high-profile journalists and presenters wrestle with their egos. It is one of the dilemmas of success. The standouts need tremendous personal drive to do what they do. Gower was no different.
“Part of it is admitting it to yourself and that’s pretty bloody hard. I think it can creep up on you and suddenly you get to that stage where to coin a Kiwi phrase ‘your shit doesn’t stink’. But it does.
“Some of the things that I have done have required a huge amount of self-belief. If you change out the word ego and call it self-belief, then it can be another way of looking at it. I have needed that self-belief to pull off some of the things I’ve done and if you can get rid of the crappy parts, like being a maniac, then you can thrive.”
Gower had most of the book done when he and his Newshub colleagues got told Warner Bros Discovery was shutting down the news operation.
“Paddy Gower Has Issues was on air when I started the book … I was at the peak of my career, and I felt undefeatable.
“’Newshub Down’ became the last chapter. I pretty much wrote it while I was in the room listening to them telling us it was going to be shut down.”
Gower says the closure has sped up his evolution as a journalist. A journey that had already started but was missing momentum. 
“I look at it and I think shit maybe that was a big part of my career wrapped up with a bow that day, a section of my life that is boxed off and maybe some of those things in journalism I’m never going to do again. It is quite weird how it worked out … it does feel like a door has been closed and writing the book is part of it.
“While I have lost that fire for doing hardcore journalism, I have not lost the fire for connecting with Kiwis. The book is that, the tour is that, and the positive news thing is that.”
Gower’s decision to focus, with his new business partner Jon Bridges (ex-The Project) on covering positive news seems to come from a new sense of purpose, spiritual almost.
“Getting to this point I am at now has been a sort of six-month process, it didn’t happen overnight. Should I retrain? Should I just go and do some journalism I like and have a chill couple of years and see where it leads? There is something about the tour, the book felt like a bit of a calling. A calling to get out and find some new ground journalistically is pretty strong.”
From a financial and career perspective the call to cover positive news is risky. Possibly suicidal. We all say we want positive news but very few read it. The stories that generate big traffic are usually bad news ones.
Gower, of course, knows this but has had it reinforced by some of his colleagues at Stuff (his new home).
“One of the old-school Stuff journos said to me ‘I remember we tried that on the Sunday News. We had a whole edition of good news one week and it was the worst-selling Sunday News of all time.’ It was a typical journo remark.”
Despite the trainwrecks of past experiments in positive news, the Stuff bosses and Gower must see some chance of success. Perhaps it lies in broadening the definition?
“Positive can include inspiring things or Kiwis we know, well-known Kiwis, giving life lessons can be positive. Ideas on how to live your life better. It is not going to be like I am showing people the world’s largest pumpkin at the Epsom Baptist Church fair! A really good example of something I am really interested in is entrepreneurship and innovation. That’s positive news.”
Gower’s positive outlook extends to something that does look very positive at the moment. I wrap up my interview with him by asking how he feels about the current state of journalism and the media.
“It is not as bad as we all think, mate, and personally, I am going to find a way. There is going to be new ground out there and I am going to find it again.”
This is the F#$%ing News by Paddy Gower (Allen & Unwin, $34.99) is available in bookstores nationwide.