“A dazzling new talent” with “rigour and high-hearted passion for searching out stories of injustice against people who are too often invisible in our world.” 

Tina Brown

Pete McKenzie is a journalist based in Auckland | Tāmaki Makaurau. He writes about politics, foreign affairs, and the environment around the world, with a particular focus on the Pacific. Internationally, he writes for The New York Times, TIME, The Guardian, The Times of London, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times and The Economist. Domestically, he writes for New Zealand Geographic, The Listener and North & South. His photography has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times and The Guardian. 

His most recent investigation revealed that at least 34 Catholic priests and missionaries moved to the Pacific Islands after they abused or allegedly abused children in the United States, Britain, Australia, and New Zealand. In at least 13 cases, Church officials knew the men had been accused or convicted before the transfers, shielding them from scrutiny. In at least three cases, the men reoffended in the Pacific. The investigation was published on the front page of The New York Times on the same day that Pope Francis made his first visit to a Pacific Island nation. 

In 2024, he was selected as the Sir Harry Evans Global Fellow in Investigative Journalism. In that role, he works on long-term, long-form investigative projects for Reuters. Also in 2024, he was a finalist for the Livingston Award for International Reporting, which recognises the best American reporting by journalists under 35, for a pair of dispatches about the Marshall Islands for The New York Times. The first dispatch revealed the exhaustion through corruption and mismanagement of a multi-million dollar American trust fund for nuclear exiles, prompting inquiries in the U.S. Congress and changes to a major treaty between the United States and the Marshall Islands. The second dispatch highlighted how hundreds of Pacific veterans were being denied V.A. care due to decades-old regulatory barriers. That reporting helped prompt the Secretaries of State and Interior to pursue reforms, which later led to Congress requiring the V.A. to provide care in Micronesia and reimburse veterans who travelled to the U.S. for treatment. 

At the 2023 Voyager Media Awards, Pete was named New Zealand’s Reporter of the Year, the country’s most prestigious journalism award. He is the youngest person since 1981 to receive that honour. Pete has a master’s degree in global politics from Columbia University and a law degree with first class honours from Victoria University of Wellington. Before journalism, he worked as a judge’s clerk in the New Zealand High Court and served as an infantry officer in the New Zealand Army Reserve. He has reported from thirteen nations, interviewed four prime ministers and presidents, and is yet to find any country better than New Zealand. 

For his journalism, he has received the Ochberg Fellowship to study trauma-informed reporting at Columbia University’s Dart Center, the FASPE Fellowship to study journalistic ethics in Germany and Poland, and the Lynton Fellowship in Book Writing from Columbia University. He has received funding to report on colonisation and the environment in the Pacific from the Pulitzer Center for Crisis Reporting and the Acland Foundation. In 2022, Pete was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship to study at Columbia Journalism School in New York. He also received scholarships from Universities New Zealand and the Association of Foreign Press Correspondents for his study. Outside of journalism, he aspires to complete all of the Great Walks in Aotearoa.