Obituary: Rod Oram A champion of business, climate journalism ...

Longtime financial and climate journalist Rod Oram was much loved and respected in the local business and media community.

Oram, who was a journalist for more than 40 years, died on Tuesday afternoon, after having a heart attack while cycling last weekend.

He was the inaugural editor of the Business Herald when it was launched as a distinct unit in 1997.

Born in the United Kingdom, Oram spent 20 years as an international financial journalist in Europe and North America, and travelled extensively in those continents and in Asia.

From 1975 to 1979, he held various journalist positions in Canada and from 1979, until joining the New Zealand Herald, he held a variety of posts at the Financial Times in London and New York City.

Fran O’Sullivan, NZME’s senior business correspondent and a longtime colleague and friend of Oram, recalled his passion for his work.

“I first met Rod Oram when I travelled to London on a Foreign and Commonwealth Office scholarship in the early 1990s. I was then editor of National Business Review - he was city editor at the Financial Times,” she recalled.

“His bubbling enthusiasm was contagious - right from the start. I like to think I also excited him with the derring-do that was possible in New Zealand business journalism at that time; particularly on the investigative front.

“We next met when Ivan Fallon was headhunting business journalists to join Wilson and Horton (predecessor of NZME) to launch the Business Herald. Rod set out to create the Business Herald as - what he used to call - a ‘beacon of hope’ for top-notch journalism in New Zealand.

“I will never forget his opening gambit - ‘well hello” - down the phone, as he navigated the frustrations of leading a team within a general newspaper environment as opposed to a dedicated financial newspaper.

“He ultimately left the Herald and became a brand in his own right - specialising in particular in the climate sphere.

“But he never lost that contagious enthusiasm - whether it was talking about his plan to reach 100 (sadly not to be); his great bike adventures across central Asia, travelling to the COP meetings under his own steam or talking about the family he cherished. Agree with him or not, he is a great loss to civil discourse in this country. He will be missed.”

Senior Herald journalist Simon Wilson said Oram was one of New Zealand’s leading champions of climate action.

“He had an encyclopaedic knowledge of New Zealand business, which made him an unusually acute analyst of the problems and opportunities facing the country as it confronts the need to reduce emissions.

“He wrote and spoke often about corporate activity, farming and infrastructure, and was relentless in holding Governments on both sides to account.”

Wilson said Oram took a global view.

“Oram attended many of the United Nations’ annual COP meetings, filing daily and often trenchant commentaries on the gap between popular hopes and minimal official progress. Alongside his reports from Cop26 in Glasgow, in 2021, he wrote movingly of revisiting Birmingham, his old home town, once a powerhouse of the British Empire and now a city trying to come to terms with what that meant and what it could become.”

In addition to his journalism and books, Oram was a commentator on Newstalk ZB Drive for 27 years, as well as doing frequent spots on RNZ. He was moderator of countless conferences, seminars and other events. In all that work, he had the remarkable gift of remaining polite and patient, while always seeking to push home his big message: climate action is urgent.

Last year, Oram began a travel project he had been planning for years: to cycle from Beijing to Birmingham. The “simple and true” reason he was doing it, he wrote, was, “I love cycling and long adventures.”

But he had another reason.

“As I ride, I want to learn lots about the past, present and future. I’m seeking answers to the twin questions that underpin all my work: how will 10 billion people live well and in the right relationship with the Earth by 2050? And what distinctive roles will we play in Aotearoa New Zealand?”

Oram had already addressed this question in his 2016 book Three Cities, in which he looked closely at Beijing, London and Chicago.

“Oscillating between hope and despair,” one reviewer wrote at the time. Oram had a “pretty grim view of the task ahead”, wrote another. But he added, it was “tinged with rays of hope”.

It was more than tinged. Oram was determined to help find solutions that worked. And when he did, which was often, he advocated tirelessly for them.

Oram was in training for the next stage of his cycle tour, which he planned to start within weeks.

Murray Kirkness, NZME editor-in-chief said: “The NZME team is deeply saddened to hear of the passing of Rod Oram. Many of our journalists, past and present, worked closely with Rod during his time as NZ Herald Business Editor in the late 90s and throughout his career. Our thoughts are with his friends and family.”

Prime Minister Christopher Luxon said Oram “lived a life of mission and purpose. He leaves a legacy of hard work and steadfast commitment to business, journalism and the environment. My thoughts are with his family and friends at this time.”

Oram is survived by his wife Lynn and daughter Celeste.