\u201cTVNZ threatened to sue us,\u201d Hosking told listeners.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe got the big broad-based fat letter from the lawyers \u2013 it was one of those very wide-ranging letters you get from corporate lawyers basically encompassing everything. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt doesn\u2019t matter what you say, when you say, why you say it, how you say it, they\u2019re going to go you for something. It was one of those letters.\u201d<\/p>\n
He indicated that enthusiasm for the story appeared to wane upon receipt of the letter. \u201cWhat\u2019s the term they use in legal circles? It had a chilling effect.\u201d<\/p>\n
Newstalk ZB breakfast host Mike Hosking. Photo \/ Michael Craig<\/p>\n
Hosking said he was not \u201cenamoured\u201d with the story in the first place, but he was also \u201cdisappointed\u201d that it did not get across the line.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe political editor of the state broadcaster allegedly saying what she did is unacceptable, I think in most people\u2019s minds,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou can debate among yourselves whether you think that\u2019s a sackable offence or not.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hosking said another question was whether it was \u201cwise of the state broadcaster to use lawyers to threaten other broadcasting entities that have what, as it turns out, a perfectly legitimate story\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cShould we have gone a bit cold on it ourselves? Personally, no, but we did, and you can ask NZME [owner of Newstalk ZB] about that another time if you want to. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe good news is that in this modern day and age, it was always going to come out in some way, shape or form.\u201d<\/p>\n
NZME \u2013 which also owns the NZ Herald \u2013 has been approached for comment.<\/p>\n
TVNZ repeated to the NZ Herald today the original response it gave to ZB and also to the Herald yesterday: \u201cWe do not comment on employment matters.\u201d<\/p>\n
It refused to answer a range of questions from the Herald, including whether TVNZ had sent a legal letter to NZME regarding inquiries that Newstalk ZB was making in relation to the alleged incident. The Herald also asked about the rationale\/nature of the legal letter and why it was sent.<\/p>\n
The alleged Maiki Sherman incident was reported publicly on Tuesday by political commentator Ani O\u2019Brien on her Substack page.<\/p>\n
Willis then confirmed to the Herald that the alleged incident happened in her office last May.<\/p>\n
\u201cI can confirm I hosted a function for press gallery journalists in my office ahead of last year\u2019s Budget,\u201d Willis said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was out of the room for a few minutes and returned to hear offensive language being used. I ended the event at that point.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe following day, I checked in on the welfare of the reporter at whom the language was directed. He advised me he did not want to take the matter any further. I respected his decision.\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":"\u201cTVNZ threatened to sue us,\u201d Hosking told listeners. \u201cWe got the big broad-based fat letter from the lawyers…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":400831,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[1443,74,7818,806,9516,20491,32896,42,206847,196324,12022,671,2936,702,206845,1073,1456,43,51026,18154,28203,17146,2081,312,206846,9521,13672,427,69329,18937,61,40,38,41,39,6445,13797,5977,102,103112],"class_list":["post-402410","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-about","tag-after","tag-allegedly","tag-as","tag-broadcaster","tag-chased","tag-editor","tag-headlines","tag-homophobic","tag-hosking","tag-host","tag-incident","tag-insider","tag-it","tag-maiki","tag-media","tag-mike","tag-news","tag-newstalk","tag-political","tag-producer","tag-questions","tag-raised","tag-says","tag-sherman","tag-slur","tag-state","tag-story","tag-sue","tag-threatened","tag-to","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-tvnz","tag-used","tag-which","tag-with","tag-zb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/402410","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=402410"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/402410\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/400831"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=402410"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=402410"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=402410"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}