Jesse Mulligan

"We are the last generation of TV presenters". 

Jesse Mulligan's words first elicited a gentle laugh, before we realised there was no punchline.

We recorded with him two weeks ago, after his show The Project had been axed, but before the catastrophic news that Newshub was going under.

"People don't watch free to air as much, no one's really making it, the business model doesn't work, there's massive money problems," Mullligan said.

The waters were stormy, but I don't think any of us could have predicted what was about to come.

The shutting down of Newshub will mean redundancies for more than 200 staff, many of whom will probably leave the journalism profession for good.

Which puts the release of this episode at an interesting time. 

We talked a lot about Jesse's career, the state of journalism and the TV news industry and how he thinks about the future.

And it all hits a bit different after one of NZ media's darkest weeks.

Biggest Surprise: From sixth form to university Jesse smoked 32 ciggies a day!

Best Insight: Early in his career Jesse was trying to break into the Auckland journalism market and went searching for advice. He sent a cold email to Paul Holmes - whose response was as impressive as you'd expect.

Best Laugh: The story of Jesse at the NRL Grand final in 2011. We've heard Ben Hurley and Dai Henwood's version of it - and this time we got to hear Jesse's.

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