Bennett Bows Out

TVNZ has set a new course for its current affairs show Sunday, but frontman Cameron Bennett is out...after 24 years! The channel's refreshing the TV One and Sunday brands, and that involves a reduction in reporting and current affairs positions. Curious how one can run a current affairs programme with fewer current affairs journalists...

There's speculation that Breakfast co-host Pippa Wetzell may take over as Sunday presenter early next year after her maternity leave...but she's really just lightweight fluff. It's interesting that, even though he's still employed by TVNZ for another six weeks until the end of August, his comprehensive profile has already been wiped from the TVNZ website! For the record, here it is:

“Cameron Bennett is both the host and a senior reporter on Sunday.
As one of NZ's most experienced journalists, his wide-ranging career includes 20 years reporting for TVNZ, both as a News and Current Current Affairs reporter.
He was TVNZ's Europe Correspondent, based in London, between 1991-95 and his extensive international reporting experience has included coverage of the Bosnian civil war and the post-genocide exodus from Rwanda.
Reporting assignments have taken him from Somalia to Palestine, Iraq to Afghanistan. Cameron has also covered conflict in East Timor, Fiji, ethnic rebels in Myanmar and the rebellion against Boris Yeltsin in Moscow. He reported the historic post-apartheid elections in South Africa, extensively in Western Europe, SE Asia and the Pacific.
More recently, there has been an undercover assignment in Zimbabwe, coverage from the rebel zone in Ivory Coast and the aftermath of the Indian Ocean tsunami in Sri Lanka.
His career highlights as a reporter for ONE News, Holmes, 60 Minutes and Sunday have included the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks in New York and Washington DC and a challenging insight into the prison centre at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
He also anchored TVNZ's Foreign Correspondent programme and co-authored the best-seller 'Foreign Correspondents' about his reporting experiences out of London in the 1990s.
Cameron has picked up Qantas and New York Festival awards since joining TVNZ in 1986.
He began his journalistic career as a general reporter on the Northern Advocate (Whangarei) and later as a general/industrial round reporter on the Evening Post (Wellington).
He began his career in television as a script-writer with the London-based news agency Worldwide Television News (WTN). ”
When one reads that, one does wonder why such a multi-talented extremely experienced journalist has become yet another budget casualty. What a bloody waste!
PS: 29 Aug.2010 - Tonight was Cameron's last night on tv. As always, calm, poised, professional til the end...