\u201cOn a day that the Government announces 49,000 fewer victims of violent crime and a 22% decrease in serious repeat youth offending, 1News chose instead to engage in unbalanced journalism by running a story about gang membership,\u201d he wrote on Facebook.<\/p>\n
Mitchell revealed to Matt Heath and Tyler Adams on the Newstalk ZB Afternoons show on Friday afternoon that he had received a call from TVNZ after the story, and received an apology.<\/p>\n
ZB\u2019s Barry Soper later reported that Mitchell had received the apology from a senior leader \u2013 Media Insider understands this was TVNZ political editor Maiki Sherman.<\/p>\n
The TVNZ story, by senior political reporter Benedict Collins, has sparked at least four conversations between politicians and TVNZ \u2013 Goldsmith also raised it with Collins and Sherman that evening.<\/p>\n
Jusice Minister Paul Goldsmith, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Police Minister Mark Mitchell at last week’s law and order press conference. Photo \/ Jason Dorday<\/p>\n
Goldsmith revealed today that TVNZ chairman Andrew Barclay had also raised the matter with him, in passing, in a phone call at the weekend.<\/p>\n
\u201cI spoke to the chair on Sunday afternoon, at his instigation, about a wide range of matters,\u201d Goldsmith told the Herald.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe brought up the story in question, but I did not make any comment, as it would be inappropriate for us to discuss editorial matters.\u201d<\/p>\n
On Wednesday evening, 1News at Six broadcast a second story highlighting the drop in the Government crime figures \u2013 leading now to questions about whether that had arisen as a result of any political and\/or board-level interference.<\/p>\n
A TVNZ spokeswoman confirmed to the Herald that Sherman contacted Mitchell\u2019s office the morning after the 1News gang numbers story \u201cto advise that victim-of-crime data should have been included\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe story was then reviewed internally, and the editorial decision was made to run a follow-up story incorporating those figures to ensure balanced coverage and to aid audience understanding around the use of differing crime statistics. The resulting piece ran last night.\u201d<\/p>\n
She added that TVNZ\u2019s board chairman and the minister \u201ctalk regularly\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cTVNZ\u2019s board directors also take an interest in how editorial standards are maintained.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut editorial independence is of paramount importance to us, and operational decisions on how stories are covered are our own.\u201d<\/p>\n
Barclay has also been approached for comment.<\/p>\n
Labour leader Chris Hipkins told reporters at Parliament that if any TVNZ board member had been involved in any attempt to influence editorial decisions, they would need to resign.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf any member of the TVNZ board has been involved in TVNZ\u2019s decision to run an additional story last night, TVNZ needs to be very upfront with the New Zealand public about that, and that member of the board needs to resign immediately.\u201d<\/p>\n
TVNZ senior political reporter Benedict Collins. Photo \/ Mark Mitchell<\/p>\n
Goldsmith told reporters at Parliament that he did not pass any comment on the story to the TVNZ chairman.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not appropriate for me to be talking about political discussions and editorial matters with the board, and I haven\u2019t.<\/p>\n
\u201cI raised the issue with the journalists, as is perfectly appropriate, and, when the chair of the board rang me on a wide-ranging discussion around other issues, he raised it in passing.\u201d<\/p>\n
TVNZ\u2019s newsroom policies state the organisation\u2019s news and current affairs department \u201coperates without fear or favour\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is not influenced by any improper political, sectional, commercial or personal interests, whether from inside or outside the organisation.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis principle of editorial independence is fundamental to an objective and impartial newsroom, and critical to a free and democratic society.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis independence is also enshrined in the Television New Zealand Act 2003, which states government ministers cannot interfere with the editorial decisions of the company.\u201d<\/p>\n
Editor-at-large Shayne Currie is one of New Zealand\u2019s most experienced senior journalists and media leaders. He has held executive and senior editorial roles at NZME including managing editor, NZ Herald editor and Herald on Sunday editor and has a small shareholding in NZME.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cOn a day that the Government announces 49,000 fewer victims of violent crime and a 22% decrease in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":312087,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[81651,20251,22842,2372,34507,3795,3043,37432,37462,7794,19555,48338,40623,42,2936,1073,6722,43,17357,16792,18154,2081,4764,13672,427,28050,1865,40,38,41,39,6445,4767,102],"class_list":{"0":"post-312086","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-6pm","9":"tag-andrew","10":"tag-barclays","11":"tag-board","12":"tag-broadcasters","13":"tag-broadcasting","14":"tag-call","15":"tag-chair","16":"tag-chairman","17":"tag-contentious","18":"tag-evening","19":"tag-fallout","20":"tag-goldsmith","21":"tag-headlines","22":"tag-insider","23":"tag-media","24":"tag-minister","25":"tag-news","26":"tag-paul","27":"tag-phone","28":"tag-political","29":"tag-raised","30":"tag-revelations","31":"tag-state","32":"tag-story","33":"tag-thursday","34":"tag-today","35":"tag-top-news","36":"tag-top-stories","37":"tag-topnews","38":"tag-topstories","39":"tag-tvnz","40":"tag-weekend","41":"tag-with"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312086","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=312086"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312086\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/312087"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=312086"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=312086"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=312086"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}