Be Brave - The Life of a Pacific Correspondent | Barbara Dreaver

‘Some things I’ve seen I can never share.’From a television journalist on the Pacific frontline comes this candid, startling and intensely engaging memoir.

Barbara Dreaver has covered the Pacific for over 30 years. During this time the vast ocean’s many island nations and territories have gone from being largely ignored by world leaders to the focus of big-power rivalry. And Dreaver has gone from a reporter struggling to get a job to one of the world’s leading Pacific correspondents.

With warmth, humour and astonishing honesty, she takes you inside her gruelling, often crazy life as she and her TV team attempt to stay ahead of power plays, coups, resource grabs, criminal activity and natural disasters across the world’s largest ocean.

Fearless and determined, Dreaver has gained the grudging respect of some leaders and the undying enmity of others. She’s been locked up in Fiji, threatened in Papua New Guinea, detained in Nauru, endangered in the Solomons. At great personal risk she has exposed the Pacific’s methamphetamine trade and its shadowy figures. She has uncovered Robert F. Kennedy Jr’s role in a deadly Samoan measles outbreak, and borne witness to the machinations of China and the United States as they vie for dominance in the region.

Above all, Dreaver reveals what goes on behind the scenes as she faces her biggest challenges, both personal and political.

BARBARA DREAVER has received multiple journalism awards.Born in Kiribati, she moved to Aotearoa at the age of eight. Shehas reported for Cook Islands News, Cook Islands Press, NewZealand Listener, National Business Review and Radio NewZealand. In 2002, she joined TVNZ’s 1News and in 2003became its Pacific Correspondent. She was named Reporter ofthe Year at the 2022 New Zealand Television Awards and in2024 became an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit forInvestigative Journalism and Services to Pacific Communities