The brief ‘News Review’ slot screened on Christchurch television’s local news programme, ‘The Mainland Touch’, a popular nightly regional round-up on Thursday 23 July 1987. The segment covers News Review’s production rehearsal with two Deaf presenters, Susan Thomas and Ava Agnew (now Buzzard) who interpreted the news read by Madeline David, the host of News Review.
In ‘The Mainland Touch’, Tony Mooar, the editor of News Review talks about the new style of presentation using ‘hand sign language’ which was considered as an additional tool to lipreading and captioning, utilising an interpreter who could ‘read’ sign language.
News Review was a summary of major national and international news of the week for all New Zealanders. This programme was produced in Christchurch and was captioned. It was not until 1987 that two Deaf presenters joined the programme. News Review stopped broadcasting in February 1991. To date, there has not been a similar programme using Deaf presenters or NZSL in full.
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