Patrick Gower (born 1976/1977) is a New Zealand political journalist and National Correspondent for Newshub (formerly called 3 News). Prior to his current role he was Newshub's political editor. Early life Gower grew up in New Plymouth where his father was a fitter and turner at a power station, and his mother was a doctor's receptionist. He had a Roman Catholic upbringing and schooling, having attended St Joseph's Catholic School and Francis Douglas Memorial College. He has a BA with honours in politics from Victoria University of Wellington, choosing the university because it was near Parliament. While he attended Victoria University he got involved in Salient magazine. After finishing his politics degree, he studied journalism at Auckland University of Technology. Journalism career Gower started his journalism career working the graveyard shift (6pm–1:30am) at The New Zealand Herald, later becoming one of the newspaper's two police reporters. He subsequently moved to the UK and worked at Jane's Police Review. Once back in New Zealand he worked again at the Herald, covering politics and working under Audrey Young. Later he made the move to television journalism and began working at 3 News, where he was initially a political reporter. He has said that the transition involved a big change in reporting styles: He took over as political editor of 3 News from Duncan Garner in November 2012. Despite controversy about political bias on social networking sites, Gower claims to be a non-voter on the grounds of impartiality, stating: In 2018, after five years as Newshub's political editor, he shifted roles to become its national correspondent. Viral skit In December 2014, a clip of Gower swearing on what appeared to be live television went viral. In the video, a library-goer stands up and says, "This is a fucking library!", to which Gower replies, "This is the fuckin' news." A remix of the video later went viral. The incident was part of a law school revue skit. Cannabis documentary In 2019, Gower featured in a two part documentary series Patrick Gower: On Weed where he explored issues related to medicinal and recreational cannabis in advance of the 2020 New Zealand cannabis referendum. The documentary, produced by Three and funded by NZ on Air, was filmed in New Zealand and the United States. A final third episode was released in September 2020, in advance of the referendum which had been delayed due to the COVID-19