Kumi Taguchi faces up to the raw honesty of Insight

In the two years since Kumi Taguchi has been hosting Insight there are some aspects she has always found difficult.

While the SBS forum show may be a privilege to hearing peoples’ stories, nothing can prepare an experienced host for the rawness of recounting some ordeals.

“When you see someone tell their story in front of you, and you can see their face, and they’re telling it in front of other people, it’s quite extraordinary,” she tells TV Tonight.

“We work on each episode for six weeks, then record and edit. When I get into that studio, I know 95% of what every single person in that room is generally going to say, because we’ve pre-interviewed them, with extensive notes and scripting. We know how we want the show to unfold.

“When a person actually says those words in front of me, it’s quite confronting”

“But when a person actually says those words in front of me, it’s quite confronting. There’s so much vulnerability in hearing someone say something that’s so personal.”

Taguchi had been with ABC for a decade when she was approached to succeed longtime SBS host Jenny Brockie in 2020.

She admits to having hesitations about saying yes.

“I’d watched the show, and I thought it was an amazing program and what Jenny did was so incredible with normal people telling their stories. I just had never thought of it as something that I would be considered for,” she says.

“I really thought about it longer and harder than any other job I’ve ever taken up, because I thought, if I’m going to do this job, and I get through the audition process, I have to 100% own it. It can’t be something where you’re thinking, ‘I’ll see how it goes’. It just didn’t feel like that kind of gig.”

It was an unsual baptism of fire with COVID impacting records across her first year and well into her second. There were plenty of episodes with guests via zoom, before a handful of socially-distanced guests were welcomed back to the studio. Some time in 2022 there were finally full studio audiences.

This year the show will explore another fascinating range of topics including “Identity Crime”, “Mid-Life Sexual Awakenings”, “Discovering A Hidden Past”, “Housing Stress”, and this week, “Politically Incorrect.”

“I am fascinated to think how can the show still come up with topics after 20+ years? Surely, we’ve run out of ideas by now,” she suggests.

“Often the ideas come out of one of our producers thinking about (a topic) and then if we sit around talking about it for half an hour, we’re like, ‘There’s probably something in this.’

“It still needs to be talked about”

“Someone once said to me many years ago at the ABC, if you’re still talking about something you’ve already done before, it still needs to be talked about. And I suppose there’s so many different ways to look at something.

“The first one on air this year asks ‘Has Political Correctness gone too far?’ I guess maybe three years ago, we could have done one on Politeness but now with ‘woke culture’ and people thinking, ‘We can’t say anything these days’… things have shifted and changed.”

 

One of the strengths of Insight is also in having everyday Australians, rather than famous faces or politicans making up the bulk of the discussion.

As host, Taguchi has also learned to stay strong in the middle of debate or sensitive stories.

“I often say to myself before I start recording, ‘Hold firm.’ I’m quite an emotional person and I can be quite moved by peoples’ stories. I do allow that to happen in a studio. But at the same time, I feel like my role is to be non-judgmental and solid, so that our guests are able to feel like they’re in a place where they can unravel,” she explains.

“I guess it’s sort of holding firm and being really empathetic and open at the same time, which is very different.”

When Dateline returns on March 7, Taguchi will also feature as a guest presenter as she goes inside the world of a controversial church, that some call a ‘cult’, under investigation for its role in Japanese politics, and its connection to the assassination of former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

“I speak to a really great investigative journalist who has been looking at these links between the family and the church. Abe’s grandfather basically brought to the church to Japan and there was an assassination attempt on him as well,” she continues.

“Every time I’ve gone back to Japan, it’s such a personal second home for me”

“Every time I’ve gone back to Japan, it’s such a personal second home for me, I do probably see the country with slightly rose-coloured glasses…. but it was such a privilege to go back there with that journalistic lens and look at something going on in a country that I hold so close.”

But first she looks forward to another year of Insight giving a platform to individuals with real stories that reflect the evolving human experience.

“I feel like I just caretake the space. It’s not about any egos. It’s just all about real people’s stories and trying to give our audience something that’s outside what they’re getting anywhere else.”

Insight returns 8:30pm Tuesday on SBS.