I met Rod on a miserable London day. He was on a list of people that award-winning former business journalist Ivan Fallon had drawn up for me. I was looking for someone to lead the planned Business Herald and wanted ‘new blood’.
I can’t recall how many of the nominees I had interviewed before Rod walked into the room, clutching his beaten up leather brief case and looking slightly dishevelled. At the end of the interview, I knew: He’s the one.
He had done his homework, had a good feel for what we wanted with the Business Herald, but, most importantly, he thought outside the box.
I was sure of him, but he needed to be sure of us. The Orams came to New Zealand, liked what they saw, and we had our Business Herald editor.
I never asked Rod, but I wondered whether he had been swayed by the sight of the Waitemata Harbour after Britain’s indifferent climate and, before that, the brutal winters of Chicago. One thing became clear over time: Rod Oram was very interested in climate.
As Business Herald editor his thinking was never bound by orthodoxy, and he encouraged the Business Herald team to follow a similar path.
It was exactly what we needed. For too long – even though it did well by standard measures of reporting – the Herald’s business reporting had seldom pushed the boundaries. Now, it did.
Yet it also had the advantage of Rod’s deep knowledge of economics and business practice. He pushed the boundaries from a rock-solid base. And part of that was to get New Zealand businesses to think about sustainability.
Ultimately, his advanced way of thinking brought him into conflict with my immediate successor as editor and the Herald lost someone I regarded as one of our great assets. Perhaps that was what was needed to propel Rod onto the national and international stage – where he created his real journalistic and environmental legacy.
I’ll remember him for that, and for his bike-riding. No, not the amazing journey that he was unable to complete, but his commuting to Radio New Zealand where we both had Tuesday slots on Kathryn Ryan’s show.
Rod would turn up on the third floor, wheeling his bike and expelling sweat at a prodigious rate. He would go into the studio before me, still sweating like the proverbial, clamp on the headphones, and start talking as though he was in the cool, cool, cool of the evening. Out he would come, in I would go … and give thanks for the fact there were two sets of headphones.
I will miss, and forever admire, a man I regard as a good friend and a wonderful colleague.
Rod’s columns were my first real Newsroom hook. I waited each week for Sustainable Future Weekly to read his next instalment. I was particularly excited about the new long form articles he had planned. I never knew him but I greatly appreciated his work and miss him dearly.