Journalist Paddy Gower went viral after swearing in a library and initially worried he'd lost credibility. He came to see the moment as a gift that let him connect with people through humor, then pull them into conversations about politics and social issues.
The news, you know, when I said that in the library, this is the news YouTube that sent me viral globally saying that. And I just didn't actually like it, you know, and. And I thought it was distracting from all of this journalism I wanted to do. And. And people were getting tattoos of it and yell it out at me, and everywhere I went, the F word was getting hurled and people wanted me to say it again and again. And I actually didn't want to because I wanted to distance myself from it because I. Because I thought I've got to be this journalist with gravitas and holding politicians to account and that kind of thing. I realized that this is the news gave me a gift, a taonga. It gave me the power of connection with all sorts of kiwis who wanted to have a laugh and a joke. And it essentially let me sort of grab them and have the laugh and joke with them, but then hold them there and talk to them about all the other things. I want to talk about things that are happening out in our country. All of these different things that I've. I've wanted to bring up with New Zealanders and raise with them, you know, because of going viral on YouTube for swearing in a library. Because of that, it gave me this gift of connection.
