Delving into the grief of strangers is always a challenge, but award-winning crime reporter Kirsty Johnson is now confident she can give back through her work.
She tells Lynn Freeman turning "big, heavy, systemic issues" into stories about real people and highlighting women's experiences are the two key aspects of her mission.
Kirsty Johnson Photo: supplied
After the death of UK backpacker Grace Millane in 2018, Johnson expressed her own anger in public for the first time.
In the year before she wrote her "deeply feminist piece", Johnson been reporting on these so-called 'unresolved' rape cases where it was "fairly obvious" there'd been a sexual assault, yet the justice system hadn't been able to deal with it.
"By the time the Grace story came along, I was just so annoyed … I'd seen case after case after case exactly the same and it felt like I was bashing my head against a brick wall."
Johnson sought advice from a friend – journalist and "expert in messaging" Jess Berenson-Shaw.
"She said to me 'put yourself in it, put yourself in the story because it allows people to connect with it on an emotional level'. So I tried it and it did really do that, which was really surprising to me. And it felt really against everything I'd been taught so far, which was objectivity. But it did really work and women in particular responded well to it."
The overwhelmingly positive response to Johnson's comment piece demonstrates the appetite for change, she says.
"Whenever there's a story like that reflects the actuality of women's lives … holding your keys in your hand when you're walking int he carpark or not going for a drink by yourself too late at night – all of that kind of thing – when we see it in print it's somehow empowering. And I really think that could help with the change."
Johnson's 2018 article about 'unresolved' rape cases revealed some startling police behaviour.
'What we uncovered with that investigation was that police, effectively, had been gaslighting victims for 30 years. And instead of writing their cases down as 'unresolved' they were saying those cases where they didn't have enough evidence weren't a crime. That artificially dampened police statistics and it also fed into this false belief that women are liars … because a lot of people conflated [unresolved complaints] with false complaints."
This investigation led directly to an annual government report on sexual violence in New Zealand and formed the basis of new legislation.
After a week of intense reporting, Johnson keeps her weekends low-key.
"I take a lot of time for myself and do a lot of yoga and meditation and spend a lot of time watering my plants and lighting candles and reading novels. At one point I would have been 'what a boring life' but I think recharging like that is what allows me to then throw myself into the next thing. I don't think it would work for everyone but that's how I like to do things."
