Australian TV journalist Charles Wooley says he has "just experienced distant intimations of Orwell from across the Tasman" after his 60 Minutes interview with Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern.
In his interview for 60 Minutes Australia, Wooley asked Ms Ardern about the conception date of her expected baby and said he has never met a PM "so attractive".
The line of questioning sparked a backlash on social media, with users describing it as patronising and sexist.
Today Wooley has written a comment piece for the 9 News website, headed, ' Vile meanness' of social media feeds Jacinda Ardern interview backlash '.
Wooley writes that his 60 minutes story was "a colour piece in which I had the temerity to describe her as 'attractive' for which my thesaurus lists fifty meanings from 'adorable' through to 'winning'."
"My wife Donna thought my interview was a bit gushing so let's go with winning," he continues.
"New Zealand has a small journalistic culture so even more than in Australia; the spleen and bile of social media feed reportage," he writes.
"My use of words like "clever attractive and charming" to describe the PM generated torrents of abuse on Twitter which I wouldn't even have known about unless it filtered into mainstream media," he says.
"Unfortunately, the vile meanness of semi-literate social media infects the mainstream both sides of the Tasman.
"Certainly, it did here with the Barnaby affair, but despite the noise of the baying mob, still I don't believe most people are so angry and heartless," Wooley goes on.
"I am sure a large number of people felt sorry for Barnaby but in the present social and political climate they are afraid to say so."
Wooley wrote that it is alarming that so much George Orwell predicted in his 1948 novel "1984" has come horribly true.
"Thought Crime and the Thought Police and the weasel words of Newspeak; George got the date wrong but everything else right."
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