{"id":415373,"date":"2026-05-07T00:33:15","date_gmt":"2026-05-07T00:33:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/415373\/"},"modified":"2026-05-07T00:33:15","modified_gmt":"2026-05-07T00:33:15","slug":"media-insider-tvnz-breached-accuracy-standards-in-coverage-of-donald-trump-comments-broadcasting-standards-authority","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/415373\/","title":{"rendered":"Media Insider: TVNZ breached accuracy standards in coverage of Donald Trump comments \u2013 Broadcasting Standards Authority"},"content":{"rendered":"

The authority said the report was accompanied by a large banner with a photo of Trump and the words, \u201cI couldn\u2019t care less\u201d.<\/p>\n

But three complainants said the report misrepresented the President\u2019s statement.<\/p>\n

The story later showed the fuller (although also edited) context of Trump\u2019s exchange during a Fox News TV panel:<\/p>\n

Fox presenter: \u201cHow do we fix this country? How do we come back together?\u201d<\/p>\n

President Trump: \u201cWell, I\u2019ll tell you something that\u2019s gonna get me in trouble, but I couldn\u2019t care less. The radicals on the right oftentimes are radical because they don\u2019t want to see crime. [brief cut] The radicals on the left are the problem, and they\u2019re vicious and they\u2019re horrible and they\u2019re politically savvy.”<\/p>\n

\"USUS President Donald Trump in the Oval Office at the White House. Photo \/ AFP<\/p>\n

The authority said it found \u201cthe obvious interpretation was that the phrase about not caring related to getting in trouble for comments he was about to make\u201d.<\/p>\n

TVNZ initially defended its report, but the authority said it \u201ccarried the potential to seriously mislead the public about what the President said. In the current divided social and political climate, we consider further care is required in reporting on comments of this nature\u201d.<\/p>\n

The authority also referred to the fuller excerpt of the interview later in the 1News broadcast, but said it did not consider this had resolved the earlier inaccuracy.<\/p>\n

TVNZ ordered to make statement<\/p>\n

TVNZ has been ordered by the authority to broadcast a statement on the 6pm news, summarising that the complaints had been upheld based on the accuracy standard.<\/p>\n

The authority said \u201cwe consider ordering a broadcast statement is the appropriate response to the harm arising in this case\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cA broadcast statement will publicly denounce the breach, censure the broadcaster and help rectify the harm caused in the same forum and for a similar audience, which would not necessarily be achieved by our decision and any resulting publicity alone.\u201d<\/p>\n

The authority \u2013 which faces abolition following a Government announcement yesterday that it plans to move to self-regulation of the media industry<\/a> \u2013 did not uphold the complaints based on fairness and balance standards.<\/p>\n

The authority said it \u201cacknowledged TVNZ had indicated the report reflected its genuine interpretation of Trump\u2019s comments\u201d.<\/p>\n

However, in a statement today, the authority said it found \u201cthe potential harm from inaccurate reporting outweighed the broadcaster\u2019s right to freedom of expression\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe broadcast carried the potential to seriously mislead the public about what the President said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the current divided social and political climate, further care is required in reporting on comments of this nature.<\/p>\n

\u201cAudiences expect news media to report carefully and accurately on statements made by political figures, particularly where that forms the basis for scrutiny or criticism of them.\u201d<\/p>\n

It said the broadcaster had not made \u201creasonable efforts\u201d to ensure the accuracy of its statement and \u201cthe statement\u2019s accuracy was clearly capable of being determined by the broadcaster, given they had the clip of Trump\u2019s full comments\u201d.<\/p>\n

TVNZ pointed to other media coverage to defend its position, however \u201cthe authority did not consider TVNZ\u2019s interpretation was reasonably available\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe note TVNZ was not simply re-reporting supplied content in this broadcast; it created the introduction and selected the text and images to be used, putting particular emphasis on Trump\u2019s edited quote,\u201d the authority said.<\/p>\n

It said TVNZ had \u201cnow accepted\u201d the Broadcasting Standards Authority\u2019s decision \u201cand advised that the 1News team will use it as an opportunity to review its scripting processes”.<\/p>\n

TVNZ has been approached for comment.<\/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":"The authority said the report was accompanied by a large banner with a photo of Trump and the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":415374,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[213649,1124,11421,3795,5782,59518,2178,156,78,2936,1073,111,139,69,1118,11422,2179,437,6445],"class_list":["post-415373","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-accuracy","tag-authority","tag-breached","tag-broadcasting","tag-comments","tag-coverage","tag-donald","tag-entertainment","tag-in","tag-insider","tag-media","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-of","tag-standards","tag-trump","tag-tv","tag-tvnz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/415373","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=415373"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/415373\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/415374"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=415373"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=415373"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=415373"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}