Posted by Kelvin Davies on Jun 14, 2019

Last Monday we welcomed Melissa Chan-Brown, Newshub presenter and reporter, to our meeting and we were delighted to tune in to her presentation. 

Do you recall Melissa visiting our Pakuranga Rotary some 20 years ago as a member of the Pakuranga College debating team? I am sure Peter Woodcock does.

Melissa joined TV3 12 years ago and was based in London for 5 years reporting on Royal activities, terror attacks in Paris and no two days were the same but there was always the challenge to be first with developments then write up the story and edit it for the news that night. She is now filing stories for radio and various news slots.

On an average day she will commence with an 8:30 morning meeting where decisions are made as to how they will fill in 33 minutes of evening news. Local news items take up 18 minutes leaving 15 minutes for international stories.

Her assignments have included Gallipoli, the Mandela Funeral, America’s Cup, RWC in 2015, Riots in Cairo in 2011.

Melissa was assigned to Christchurch following the Terrorist attack which was a sad and a surreal experience, and yet she still had to maintain her professional standards.

This week we noted Melissa was at the Field Days enjoying the Waikato Mud - another interesting change of venue and topic to report on.

Thanks was given by our local correspondent Ian Handisides who is related to Melissa.