Jane Bowron of the Dominion Post once wrote of Dougal Stevenson: “His voice is authoritative. If there is an end-of-the-world broadcast kept in readiness for the final moments on Earth, I hope TVNZ has chosen Dougal to announce it.” The quote raises a hearty laugh from the man who did, indeed, become a voice of authority for a generation of Kiwi TV news viewers until the 1980s – so much so that Stevenson was an obvious choice to co-host I Was There, a Heartland TV series that reviews many of New Zealand history’s defining moments in four decades since the 1960s
