The NZ Media Council has ruled that it was unfair and inaccurate of the NZ Herald to characterise two pōwhiri to welcome the NZ Film Commission’s new CEO as parties.
The Film Commission complained about a NZ Herald story published online on 30 July 2024, headed NZ FilmCommission spends $16,431 on CEO parties amid budget cutsand in the print edition the next day. The article detailed the cost of four events to farewell the outgoing CEO and welcome the new one.
The Film Commission said it was offensive and culturally inappropriate to use the term “parties” to describe the pōwhiri. The outgoing CEO had given 33 years of service, and the spending was modest and within budget. The description of the events as parties was adopted by other media and “gained a currency of its own”, the Film Commission said.
The NZ Herald initially stood by the description of the events as parties, and said the article made it clear the welcoming parties were pōwhiri in the second paragraph. However, on 5 November 2024 the NZ Herald amended the headline to NZ Film Commission spends $16,431 on CEO events amid budget cutsand in the introductory paragraph, the word “parties” was replaced by “events”. The publisher said that “events” more accurately described what the money was spent on – two pōwhiri and two parties.
The Media Council believed it was reasonable to describe the farewell events as parties, but it was not fair or accurate to describe the two welcome pōwhiri as parties, and the NZ Herald had accepted that. Framing the thrust of the article around “parties” when two of the events were pōwhiri made the expenditure on the pōwhiri more vulnerable to criticism.
The Council noted that it expects corrections to be made promptly. The NZ Herald’s amendment (some three months after the story) was late and did not sufficiently correct the issue.
