The Hamilton weather story that left an investigative journalist hot under the collar - and two media watchdogs delivering different outcomes.
An RNZ story about Hamilton’s weather - and a run of hot days - ended up before both the Broadcasting Standards Authority and the Media Council, with contrasting outcomes.
Investigative journalist and author Ian Wishart took issue with the way RNZ framed the story - both how it was reported on Morning Report and on the RNZ website - and took the cases to the respective watchdogs.
The BSA deals with any complaints regarding radio and TV broadcasts; the Media Council looks after text-based journalism in digital and print.
Wishart was exasperated that the reports stated the run of hot weather was probably unprecedented when records from the 1930s had indicated a heatwave of greater duration and intensity.
The Media Council upheld Wishart’s complaint about the website story, based on the original headline, “Hamilton’s run of hot days shattered previous record”.
The council found the article itself had not breached its accuracy principle but called that headline an “exaggeration” and “not backed up by evidence”.
It said a subsequent amended headline - “Hamilton’s run of hot days breaks previous record” - still did not do enough to reflect that the story was based on a climate scientist’s opinion, or the degree of uncertainty of the assertion.
The BSA, on the other hand, rejected Wishart’s complaint about the radio broadcast, saying it had not breached its accuracy standard.
“[Wishart] argued the broadcast was inaccurate and, when notified of the previous heatwave, RNZ had taken insufficient actions to correct any misleading impressions,” said the BSA in its decision.
“The authority found the statements complained about were analysis, comment or opinion to which the [accuracy] standard does not apply and, in any event, did not result in the broadcast being misleading.”
The original RNZ story was broadcast and reported on February 13.
On RNZ National’s Morning Report, the story was introduced: “From sunny Nelson to sunny Hamilton, a climate scientist says Hamilton’s recent run of hot days likely beats anything the city has experienced since temperature records began. Now Hamilton has reached highs of at least 27 degrees for the last 13 days, and that is set to continue today, yes, with a forecast high of 28.”
The reporter spoke to local residents, a MetService forecaster and climate scientist Luke Harrington, who stated: “The last 10 days, well actually now 11, have been the hottest, continuous 10 or 11-day stretch, certainly of the records that I have available, they go back to sort of the early 1990s, but I think if you went further back in time as well, they’d still remain the worst on record.”
Wishart told the BSA that the broadcast was inaccurate, and RNZ had not done anything to correct it.
“Unfortunately for both [the reporter] and [the climate scientist], historic newspaper records revealed Hamilton endured an almost unbroken streak of 62 days [above] 27C in the summer of 1934-35,” the BSA reported Wishart as saying.
He said that the 1934-35 heatwave was evidence that the “broader messaging” of the story, regarding the impacts of climate change, was flawed, “as nature was and is clearly capable of throwing heat bombs at us that exceed by magnitudes anything we’ve seen under climate change”.
This broader messaging was “dangerously flawed” because it implied “that by adoption of stringent emissions controls we can somehow save ourselves from natural heat bombs at the 1935 scale when we actually can’t”.
This messaging left Hamilton authorities “blissfully unaware of the real heatwave threat” and what they might need to do to plan for it.
Wishart argued that the use of the word “probably” was “a red flag” that the climate scientist had no actual evidence upon which to base his “hottest ever” claim.
“Instead of ‘spending more time answering’ the question, RNZ chose to make an unanswered question the lead angle, and ‘failed to research’ the issue,” he told the BSA.
Meanwhile, according to the Media Council, the digital version of the story quoted the climate scientist as saying the run of hot days “likely beats anything the city has experienced since temperature records began”.
The scientist said such weather events would become more common with greenhouse gases heating the planet.
RNZ defended the broadcast and story.
It told the BSA that the reporter and the climate scientist had engaged with Wishart following his complaint. This led to the headline being changed on the website story and the “annotation of the story with the additional data” that Wishart had provided.
“We note that in response to [the complainant’s] previous complaints about weather data, the Media Council has found such corrective action to be timely and sufficient, given the relatively minor nature of the error,” RNZ told the BSA.
RNZ told the BSA that the climate scientist was credible as an authoritative expert.
In addition, “the reporter and [the climate scientist] were careful to emphasise that his comments were based on his knowledge at that time. There was nothing in his commentary to suggest that he needed to be challenged by the interviewer”.
“RNZ did initiate its own investigation,” it told the BSA.
“Consequently, the most that RNZ could establish as a legitimate historical temperature record was a spell of hot days and peat fires in the 1930s. This was added to the online story, and the active verb in the headline was also adjusted at [the climate scientist’s] request, from ‘shattered’ to ‘breaks’.
“Given these minor changes, RNZ does not believe the original broadcast, with its notes of caution from [the climate scientist] based on his knowledge at the time of the interview, materially misled our audience.”
The BSA found that the article had not breached its accuracy standard.
“Noting the language used (ie ‘likely’, ‘might have’, ‘probably’, ‘I think’), the source of the information (the climate scientist) and the lack of evidence provided to support the statements, reasonable listeners are likely to recognise the suggestions regarding an unprecedented heatwave to be the climate scientist’s opinion – to which the [accuracy] standard does not apply."
Wishart told the Media Council, meanwhile, that his complaint was “not about climate change denial but the integrity of journalism”.
The council considered whether the story had breached four of its principles: accuracy, fairness and balance; comment and fact; headlines and captions; and corrections.
The council said both RNZ and Harrington disputed the reliability of the figures from the 1930s, saying they were not directly comparable to the present day.
“The council is not expert in assessing the reliability of historical weather records and whether they can be usefully compared but finds that RNZ was within its rights to publish the claim about the 2025 Hamilton heatwave as the opinion of a climate scientist.”
On balance, the website report was not upheld by the council based on the accuracy principle.
However, the council said the original headline with the word “shattered” was an exaggeration and not backed up by the evidence.
“RNZ responded quickly, checking with Dr Harrington, and the reporter requested the headline change the day after the story was published.
“However, even after that change was made, the council believes the headline did not indicate the degree of uncertainty expressed by the climate scientist or that the claim was his opinion.
“The [updated] heading ‘Hamilton’s run of hot days breaks previous record’ was stated as fact. The caption below the headline, which read ‘Hamilton has had almost two weeks of the hottest weather on record’, was also stated as fact without any degree of uncertainty or attribution.”
It upheld the complaint based on a breach of principle 6 (headlines and captions).
RNZ later sent out advisories to content-sharing partners - including the NZ Herald and Stuff - updating the article, and ultimately landed on the headline, “Hamilton hot days a risk to public health”. It made changes to the body of the article, as well, adding details about the 1930s weather.
The BSA decision was released 11 days ago and last week Wishart wrote on Twitter: “Not a BSA judgement that either RNZ or the BSA can be proud of, as it essentially says RNZ only escaped censure because its climate BS was dressed up as opinion, and they’re allowed to publish BS opinions as fact. Will be appealed to clarify the law.”
The heat doesn’t appear to have dissipated from this one just yet.
Editor-at-Large Shayne Currie is one of New Zealand’s 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.
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