The voice from Washington

Press, 5 March 1982, Page 3

The voice from Washington

By FELICITY PRICE Time is an asset that Connie Lawn, Radio New Zealand’s voice in Washington, cannot afford to waste.

Working in Washington and from her home a short drive away in the Virginia countryside, Connie Lawn puts in an 18-hour day, seven days a week, and manages to exist on four hours sleep a night. Every moment is ecious.

Time is money, as far as she is concerned. To make time for her present threeweek tour of New Zealand, meeting her employers as well as some of her listeners, Mrs Lawn has had to give up three weeks income.

If she doesn’t file any stories to the radio stations all over the world who use her as a permanent freelance broadcaster (her total audience is about 80

million), she doesn’t get paid.

Radio New Zealand is her biggest client, however, so she decided to make the trip to see what the country is like. She says she has fallen in love with it, and thinks it is the most beautiful country in the world. The visit has been far from a holiday, however. She may be used to leading a busy and demanding life, but she arrived in Christchurch

exhausted yesterday after a hectic schedule in the North Island.

A 20-minute nap in her hotel room was all she had time for before being whisked into “The Press” for a hurried interview.

After 15 years working as a reporter in Washington, and more recently sending stories to. the Middle East, Europe, Africa, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand (for

the last five years) she has earned the respect and confidence of many in the White House, on Capitol Hill, and in the State Department. Married to a public accountant who commutes to Washington every day, mother of two boys (aged five and three), and a holder of three degrees, Mrs Lawn began her career as a typist on Capitol Hill. She hated it, and yearned to be a journalist.

“So I took off with a sleeping bag and tape recorder and followed the hot spots,” she said. “It was a baptism by fire. I slept in churches and on floors, and I never made any money, but I travelled the world and found the stories.” Such stories included writing about what it was like in Czechoslovakia after the Russians moved in; following Eugene McCarthy around America on the campaign trail; doing the same with Bobby Kennedy, befriending him a little, and then being next to him when be' was assassinated.

“I’ve still got the dress I was wearing, with his blood on it, back home in my wardrobe,” she said. "I was nearby when Ronald Reagan was shot, too. I was inside the Washington Hilton Hotel, on the telephone filing a story, when I heard shots outside. I ran out to see what was going on and was able to file a report to Radio New Zealand three minutes later.” Mrs Lawn said that Radio New Zealand was always the first to get her stories because it was her “major client.”

Although at first she wanted to be a print journalist, she quickly changed her mind when her first story was printed. '

“It was when I was on the McCarthy campaign trail in New Hampshire,” she re-

called. “I sent off the story to a newspaper and it appeared the next day under someone else’s by-line. I was furious. And I didn’t get paid for it. So I switched to radio. They can steal a story, but they can’t steal your voice,” she said. “Now, I love the immediacy of radio. I can be in New Zealand at the press of a few buttons on my telephone.” Mrs Lawn thinks that New Zealand reporters have much higher standards than those in the United States. “You have much stricter libel laws here,” she said. “But you must be aware of your position of power. I decided to leave it a month . before filing a story on your Washington Ambassador, Mr Frank Gill and his illhealth,” she said.

Mrs Lawn supports the appointment of a politician rather than a career diplomat to head the New Zealand Embassy in Washington. “Politicians are more open than diplomats. From a reporters’ point of view, politicians are easier to talk to. As long as they have the back-up of a good diplomatic staff, political diplomatic appointees are an asset,” she said.

“New Zealand doesn’t have any problem with the White House or Pentagon, but there are problems with the politicians — the ones who draft the- bills. They’re the ones that our politicians are able to deal effectively with. Mr Gill would get in the room with them, roll his sleeves up, and fight for New Zealand’s interests.”

Mrs Lawn spends most of her weekdays in Washington, travelling between the White House, Capitol Hill, the State Department and the embassies, interviewing people, attending press conferences, and all the time dashing off to telephones to file her stories around the world.