Richard Pamatatau

Richard Martin Pamatatau (born 16 December 1961 in Castor Bay, New Zealand) is a journalist in New Zealand.He is the Pacific Issues Correspondent at Radio New Zealand, the state funded broadcaster.

Background

He was born in Castor Bay, New Zealand and attended St Josephs Primary School on Auckland's North Shore before attending Rosmini College, a Catholic secondary school where he was taught by Rosminian priests plus non-religious staff and then sent to a boarding school, St Peter's College, also run by Rosminians, in Gore, a rural town in the South Island of New Zealand.He then studied at Auckland University where he matriculated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in English and Spanish.

Journalism and broadcast career

His early career included stints working for the political magazine New Outlook, followed by a period working as a publicist at Mercury Theatre. He also helped establish The Fish Shop Gallery, set up in a former fish and chip shop that dealt in emerging artists.

He then joined "The Auckland Star", followed by 12 year period on "The Dominion" - the metropolitan morning paper in the capital city Wellington. While on the Dominion he specialised in information technology and was the deputy editor of its InfoTech section.He has written for many New Zealand publications - including "The New Zealand Herald", "ON Film", "New Idea", "Metro Magazine", "Unlimited", "Telecommunications Review", and "Tuanz Topics". He is the Auckland and Coromandel editor of the "Fodor's 2008 guide to New Zealand" and is a contributor to the AEN journal, an online publication which examines ethnic issues in New Zealand He joined Radio New Zealand in 2005 as its first Pacific Issues Correspondent and has covered a wide range of issues both in New Zealand and around the Pacific.

Most notable recently reporting on the political situation in the Kingdom of Tonga, illegal fishing in the North Western Pacific plus poverty in the Pacific Community in New Zealand.

He also researched Fa'afafine Queens of Samoa - a television documentary for Television New Zealand. The gender surfing Fa'afafine are men who often dress and behave like women, sometimes known as the third sex.