Source: Radio New Zealand
RNZ / Mark Papalii
The media and broadcasting minister Paul Goldsmith has confirmed the board chair of TVNZ contacted him after the police minister expressed dissatisfaction with a 1News story about gang numbers.
Goldsmith said the chair of the public broadcaster, Andrew Barclay, had raised the story during the call, but Goldsmith did not respond to the matter.
1News aired a story last Thursday, showing gang members now narrowly outnumbered police officers.
The report aired the same day the latest Crime and Victims survey reported 49,000 fewer victims of violent crime in the year to October 2025 than two years previously.
Following the airing of the report, Police Minister Mark Mitchell took to Facebook to express his frustration with the story.
Mitchell said it was “absolutely unbelievable” that on a day the government had announced fewer victims of violent crime and a reduction in serious repeat youth offending, 1News “chose instead to engage in unbalanced journalism by running a story about gang membership with none of the context around the outstanding work our Police are doing in cracking down on gangs in New Zealand”.
Five days later, on Tuesday night, 1News ran a second story which reported on the crime statistics that the government had announced the previous week.
Media and communications minister Paul Goldsmith, who is also the justice minister and was present at the government’s announcement, confirmed he had spoken to the 1News journalist after the first story aired.
“Just like I often do when I’m not happy with a story, I ring the journalist and give them the benefit of my opinions.”
Goldsmith then said he had a “very short” call from the chair of TVNZ’s board, Andrew Barclay, “on a range of matters”, and the story came up in passing, “but I hadn’t raised the issue”.
He said he “absolutely” did not bring the story up himself, and he did not discuss editorial matters with the board member.
“It’s not appropriate for me to be talking about political discussions and editorial matters with the board, and I haven’t,” he said.
“We certainly do remonstrate and argue with journalists over stories, and we do that on a regular basis.”
Goldsmith would not go into the details of the call, saying that the reporting came up “in passing,” and then they moved on to other matters.
“I just said, well, that’s not for me to discuss. And then we moved on to other issues.”
He confirmed the phone call took place before the second story aired.
Mark Mitchell expressed dissatisfaction with a 1News story about gang numbers. Mark Papalii
During Question Time on Wednesday, Mitchell again raised what he said was an “unbalanced” report.
Labour’s police spokesperson Ginny Andersen then asked Mitchell whether he, any member of his office, or any person acting on his behalf made contact with the TVNZ board regarding the report.
Mitchell said after he put up his Facebook post, he had received a call from a “senior” TVNZ person to apologise, but he had not contacted anyone at TVNZ, and confirmed the person he spoke to was not a member of the public broadcaster’s board.
Earlier on Wednesday, Mitchell explained he had said publicly on Newstalk ZB that he had received a call and an apology from TVNZ.
“I have private conversations with all of you guys, and that is quite normal, and that is quite okay.”
He said he did not name who that was, but he was very clear he had received an apology.
“You’re accountable as well for what you report and what you say,” he said.
“You don’t have carte blanche, and if you decide to take carte blanche, then don’t be surprised when the public actually judge you for and that’s exactly what happened.”
He said it was the “Kiwi way” to address it directly.
“I don’t rush off straight away to report people and try to get people in trouble. No, I’d rather just talk to them, highlight the issues, which is what they did.”
It was put to Mitchell he had posted on Facebook about it, which he acknowledged.
“We did that because, because we felt the story was very unfair. I think Paul Goldsmith spoke to them directly.”
Labour leader Chris Hipkins weighed in ahead of Question Time too, saying if any member of the TVNZ board had been involved in a decision to run the additional story on Tuesday night, TVNZ needed to be “very upfront with the New Zealand public about that”.
He also called for the member of the board to resign “immediately” if that had occurred.
Hipkins confirmed he didn’t have any evidence to suggest it had occurred, he wasn’t alleging it had occurred, but if it had, “then that member of the board has got themselves into some great difficulty.”
RNZ has contacted TVNZ for comment.
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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand
