Award-winning Newshub journalist Patrick Gower featured on traditional 'enemy' TVNZ's Breakfast show on Thursday, saying "the enemies now are much bigger than us up against each other" in the wake of confirmation Newshub is closing down.
In another interview with Newstalk ZB, Gower lashed out at keyboard warriors, telling them they can "get stuffed" if they claim media is suffering for "going woke".
The round of media interviews followed Warner Bros. Discovery ANZ confirming on Wednesday it will move ahead with its proposal to close its local news operations.
They followed Gower on Wednesday issuing an impassioned plea to save Newshub, telling audiences the news operation was "taonga".
"Newshub is full of amazing people and is capable of doing amazing things for New Zealand. New Zealand needs Newshub - it is a taonga," he said on Newshub.
"We need a lifeline. We know there are talks going on with outside companies, we need the some of the magic of Newshub to be saved."
On his Newstalk ZB show, Hosking asked Gower if he had any response to those who claim "you go woke, you go broke" and that the media was bribed by the former Labour government.
"Get stuffed," Gower replied.
"Actually go away and - to use the term they use - do your own research.
"At the end of the day, I'm not going to sit here and listen to sort of people like that say that kind of thing after I've slaved away my bloody life alongside my colleagues, 25 years in my case, putting damn good news out there.
"When it comes to the sort of Facebook keyboard warriors, I ain't got no time for that, Mike.
"I'm about the 250 people who lost a job yesterday and actually the millions of other Kiwis that I know that trust me and trust my colleagues."
In his Breakfast interview, Gower acknowledged how unusual it was to be in the TVNZ studio as it's long been the rival of Three.
"For a long time, this has sort of been termed 'enemy territory'. But I think everybody in New Zealand can understand at the moment that the enemies are now much bigger than us up against each other," Gower said.
He also paid tribute to the 68 people who had been made redundant at TVNZ in a restructure that had seen shows Fair Go, Sunday, One News at Midday and One News Tonight axed, as well as cuts to the youth news service Re: News.
"Walking through your newsroom today and seeing some of the young journalists out there working and starting their careers made me really, really sad. It's the young ones that I see at Newshub or in here that haven't had the opportunities yet that you and I have had; to have these amazing careers and amazing adventures. They're having things cut short, or are looking at a journalism career and asking if there's a future in it - that breaks my heart," he said.
"But journalism is going to survive in this country. There is an audience there. I see Kiwis every day and they want us.
"We've got a huge amount of complex problems that we're fighting through, but we've got to be optimistic that we can do it. We've got to back ourselves as journos. We've got to fight."
Gower also appeared on RNZ's Morning Report saying Warner Bros. Discovery needed to do a deal for another party to take over the news bulletin.
He revealed more about a proposal put forward by seven senior journalists including himself to present a pared back Newshub news operation that the company could get behind.
However, Warner Bros. Discovery turned down the proposal, with the head of the company's Asia-Pacific region James Gibbons telling Newshub's Laura Tupou on Wednesday night it didn't show a path back to profitability and that's why the company chose not to adopt it.
