Te Reo channel microphone collar

How often do we take notice of the microphone when watching a sombre press conference or a journalist giving a dramatic report on the spot? The microphone is a constant witness to political briefings or global tragedies. It is a conduit through which millions of media watchers receive a verbal relay of mediated news and information; and while it is clutched by an enquiring journalist or commanding news anchor, it is a symbol of broadcast authority, freedom of the press, and an implicit promise that the viewer is a democratic participant in a global media landscape, even while they sit passively in their homes watching events unfold.

Of the raft of microphones observed at most major New Zealand press briefings, framing the iconic image of authority and power of a speaker addressing the New Zealand public, the MTS microphone stands out withthe un-customary colour choice of orange to grace the collar and a graphic white koru. It is an unapologetic sign that Māori are now explicitly participating as media citizens.

For MTS, while not the first independent Māori broadcaster; of the Māori media organisations on the scene, it has certainly the highest profile. And as an advocate for Māori participation in the televised media, the presence of the microphone is even more politically charged, tasked with the responsibility of canvassing, reflecting and disseminating Maori opinion, a segment of the New Zealand population never really fully or independently represented. Furthermore, the importance of revitalising te reo rangatira as a major establishing driver for MTS, the microphone has become a contemporary rākau of oration, an agent of language proliferation and promotion.