There is something about Amanda Gillies’ broad, warm smile that is at once both deeply restorative and thoroughly refreshing. Which is probably why, in 2017, she was shoulder-tapped to front TV3’s The AM Show alongside Duncan Garner and Mark Richardson – Amanda is the soothing, reasonable morning balm to her co-hosts’ controversial staccato banter.
Part of Amanda’s appeal may just be that she has been in New Zealanders’ living rooms for two decades, having started as a journalist with TV3 in 2001.
Her long and varied career has taken her around the world, with concentrated periods in Australasia as the Australia and Pacific Islands news correspondent; as well as working across NewsHub, 3News, Campbell Live, Story, 3rd Degree, 60 Minutes and Nightline.
It has also won her many awards - including the Qantas Award for Best News Reporter for her work on the Victoria bush fires, and a TP McLean Sports Award for Best Feature.
Amanda has covered some of the century’s biggest stories to date; deadly Fijian cyclones and Australian bush fires; the Bali bombings; volcanic eruptions in Tonga; the first murder trial on Norfolk Island and the political elections in Australia and Fiji.
She’s hidden under a mattress in a bathtub in the eye of a deadly cyclone; had a microphone hit out of her hand by an aggrieved international prime minister; held the hand of a bushfire survivor as she returned to her home to find it burned to the ground, and filmed under a volcano that had just erupted.
The natural disasters she has covered - their increased frequency, size and power - have prompted a real interest in climate change; the science behind it, the effect, the future and the fall-out; she is a self-professed “weather nut.”
But it hasn’t all been all dramatics and disaster - Amanda covered the first-ever New Zealand Fashion Week for Nightline, from which sprung a genuine love for fashion, still evident today in the bright and colourful NZ-designed styles she dons for The AM Show. She also very much embraces recycled and eco-friendly clothes.
Amanda also regularly MCs events across the country, including the Gisborne Wearable Arts Awards; the NZ Radio Awards, and the Foster Hope Fundraiser events, a cause close to her heart, for which she is an ambassador.
In Amanda’s spare time – because you can take the girl out of Gissie, but not The Gissie out of the girl - she loves being at the beach; and travelling to experience new cultures. Her secret passion is dancing and theatre – you’ll find Amanda watching every dancing series on TV and attending every show that comes to town!
TESTIMONIALS
Amanda is a brilliant MC. Capable, calm, curious and always in control of both the topic and her audience.
Karen Harker, CHORUS
There is something about Amanda Gillies’ broad, warm smile that is at once both deeply restorative and thoroughly refreshing. Which is probably why, in 2017, she was shoulder-tapped to front TV3’s The AM Show alongside Duncan Garner and Mark Richardson – Amanda is the soothing, reasonable morning balm to her co-hosts’ controversial staccato banter.
Part of Amanda’s appeal may just be that she has been in New Zealanders’ living rooms for two decades, having started as a journalist with TV3 in 2001.
Her long and varied career has taken her around the world, with concentrated periods in Australasia as the Australia and Pacific Islands news correspondent; as well as working across NewsHub, 3News, Campbell Live, Story, 3rd Degree, 60 Minutes and Nightline.
It has also won her many awards - including the Qantas Award for Best News Reporter for her work on the Victoria bush fires, and a TP McLean Sports Award for Best Feature.
Amanda has covered some of the century’s biggest stories to date; deadly Fijian cyclones and Australian bush fires; the Bali bombings; volcanic eruptions in Tonga; the first murder trial on Norfolk Island and the political elections in Australia and Fiji.
She’s hidden under a mattress in a bathtub in the eye of a deadly cyclone; had a microphone hit out of her hand by an aggrieved international prime minister; held the hand of a bushfire survivor as she returned to her home to find it burned to the ground, and filmed under a volcano that had just erupted.
The natural disasters she has covered - their increased frequency, size and power - have prompted a real interest in climate change; the science behind it, the effect, the future and the fall-out; she is a self-professed “weather nut.”
But it hasn’t all been all dramatics and disaster - Amanda covered the first-ever New Zealand Fashion Week for Nightline, from which sprung a genuine love for fashion, still evident today in the bright and colourful NZ-designed styles she dons for The AM Show. She also very much embraces recycled and eco-friendly clothes.
Amanda also regularly MCs events across the country, including the Gisborne Wearable Arts Awards; the NZ Radio Awards, and the Foster Hope Fundraiser events, a cause close to her heart, for which she is an ambassador.
In Amanda’s spare time – because you can take the girl out of Gissie, but not The Gissie out of the girl - she loves being at the beach; and travelling to experience new cultures. Her secret passion is dancing and theatre – you’ll find Amanda watching every dancing series on TV and attending every show that comes to town!
TESTIMONIALS
Amanda is a brilliant MC. Capable, calm, curious and always in control of both the topic and her audience.
Karen Harker, CHORUS
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