Career
The origins of Hard News was the Hard News radio segment written by Brown from 1991 to 2002 on Auckland student radio station bFM. The text of the radio commentary was circulated on the internet by various means from 1993, and the bulletin officially became a blog with the launch of Public Address in November 2002. In 1986, he moved to England where he wrote for various publications, before returning to New Zealand in 1991. From 2008 to 2012, he presented the media commentary programme Media7 on the Television New Zealand 7 digital channel.
Following the closure of Television New Zealand 7 after its funding was not renewed, the show was picked up by TV3 in 2013 and renamed Media3 for one further series, however TV3 declined to produce any more series.
In 2014, it re-appeared on Maori Television as Media Take.