TOP 10 PEOPLE OF 2008

As part of my media commentating and magazine reviewing work for TV ONE Breakfast, the team asked me to compile a list of my top 10 people of 2008. Here it is, from number one on down:

Barack Obama - for inspiring America and the world at a time when inspiration was in short supply.

Helen Clark - for being one of the best PMs we've ever had, for her incredibly hard work for NZ, and for her dignified and gracious exit.

John Key - for a great start.

Murray Burton (Elim College Principal) - for extraordinary dignity at an appallingly difficult time.

Rob Fyfe (Air NZ CEO) - for the same kind of grace under pressure with the Air NZ crash.

Valerie Villi - for her Olympic win and her modesty and grace.

Mahe Drysdale - for battling on at the Olympics when he was terribly ill, and for not using it as an excuse for not winning gold.

Tina Fey - for being a better Sarah Palin then the real Sarah Palin. And for giving us all a laugh in a year when we really needed it.

Prince Harry - for being the only even slightly interesting Royal since the loss of Princess Diana, and for stopping falling out of nightclubs for a moment and becoming a minor war hero.

Rob James-Collier who plays Liam Connor on Coronation Street - for being the first genuine spunk in 48 years of the show. Beats all the Hollywood hunks hands down.

TOP NZ WOMEN'S MAGAZINE COVER STARS

So who has featured on the most covers of our three weekly women's magazines this year? It's a tie between the two Kates - Middleton and Holmes.

As of this past week, Kate Middleton has featured on 17 covers - 10 for Woman's Day, four for New Idea and three for Woman's Weekly. She is the Day's favourite cover girl by far.

Katie Holmes has also been on a total of 17 covers, but more evenly spread between the three mags - WD 7, NI 6, WW 4.

Angelina Jolie is in a close second place with 16 covers -NI 8, WD 6, WW 2.

Woman's Weekly and New Idea both had 30 different cover stars for the year. Woman's Day was more repetitive with 15 different stars - Victoria Beckham and and Jennifer Aniston were two big favourites for the Day with eight and seven covers respectively.

In terms of local covers, Woman's Weekly had 17, New Idea had 16, and Woman's Day just five. The Day definitely seems to have decided that it sells just as well by using the regular overseas celebrity favourites as its cover stars.

THE IMPACT OF THE INTERNET ON NEWSPAPERS

Much has been written and said about the impact of the rise of the internet on the newspaper industry. Rupert Murdoch recently came out and said some people are over-reacting in their cries of doom - that there will always be a place for good journalism and that readers will always trust newspapers more than the net. Johann Hari is a columnist for the Independent in London. The NZ Herald runs some of his work, and it is always impressive. This past week there was an excellent Hari piece about the most over-rated and under-rated things of 2008. Here's what he wrote for "Most Under-rated Phenomenon:"

"Newspapers. Here's a weird paradox. If you include the internet, more people are reading quality newspapers than ever before. Yet newspapers are - as the bankruptcy of the Los Angeles Times and the Chicago Tribune shows - dying. We don't just want it all, we want it free. Does it matter? As good as some bloggers are, they don't have the army of foreign correspondents or in-depth investigative teams that are necessary to make sense of the world. If print newspapers - for all their manifest flaws and corporate biases - die, there will be an aching hole where news-gathering used to be. Newspapers: buy them or lose them."

FAREWELL TO PAUL HOLMES

Love him or hate him, and these days there seems to be much more love than hate, you can't deny that Paul Holmes has been an extraordinary contributor to New Zealand broadcasting. Paul will do his last breakfast shift at Newstalk ZB this Friday (December 19). His show has been number one in the the Auckland market for most of its 22 years of existence, and this year it hit number one in Wellington for the first time as well. Forty-three successive ratings surveys have had Paul at number one in the tough Auckland market. In his last survey, he had 20.9 per cent of the market. The second highest rating station had six per cent. That's all pretty incredible.

Paul also had 15 years of television success with his nightly current affairs show Holmes. Yes he's had his ups and downs with both his television and radio careers, not to mention his colourful personal life, but there is really no-one else to rival him in his NZ broadcasting success. He's been a pioneer of a certain style of populist current affairs that he does so well and with such heart that you can't help but be captivated.

Newstalk ZB boss Bill Francis has handled Paul's departure from Breakfast brilliantly. He has an excellent successor in Mike Hosking; the succession plan was announced a long time ago to give listeners a chance to get used to the idea; and Paul will still have a role with ZB, contributing some words of wisdom to Breakfast every morning, and taking over the Saturday morning show that Hosking does now. TVNZ could learn from Francis and ZB in how to manage dignified exits for veteran broadcasters.

Good luck in your new life, Paul. You will be missed, and your legend will live on.