A complaint against Waatea News by Rob Paterson has been upheld. Waatea News published an article on August 9, 2019 headlined Hobson’s Pledge tries to roll Tauranga land return. It reported Tauranga historian Buddy Mikaere saying that the local council needed to stand up to a campaign by Don Brash’s Hobson’s Pledge group trying to overturn a Tauranga City Council decision to return a block of land next to a historic mission station to Maori.
Paterson’s complaint was that this story published by Waatea News on its website waateanews.com was inaccurate and that the publication had failed in its obligation to publish a correction.
Waatea News also reported that the Hobson’s Pledge call for opposition had led to hundreds of negative and racist submissions, many of which were anonymous.
Seven days after the article was published, Rob Paterson, chairman of Citizens Advocacy Tauranga Society Incorporated (CAT), wrote a letter complaining that the article was inaccurate and that Mr Mikaere’s statements were untrue and scurrilous. Mr Paterson said it was his group that was one of the main contributors to the numerous submissions made against the Tauranga City Council proposal. At no time, to his knowledge, had Dr Brash or Hobson’s Pledge supported the opposition groups and there had been no contact with Dr Brash or Hobson’s Pledge.
Mr Paterson also said Mr Mikaere was wrong to claim there were many anonymous submissions. He had checked and was not aware that any submissions were anonymous.
He asked Waatea News to have Mr Mikaere apologise for his untrue allegations and for the website to apologise for printing the untruths. It had failed to check the validity of Mr Mikaere’s claims and he demanded a retraction be posted on the site to “address the aspersions made on CAT and other submitters in opposition”.
Waatea News general manager Bernie O’Donnell responded saying that Waatea News had also been contacted by Dr Brash and accepted his denial that Hobson’s Pledge was behind any organised campaign regarding the Elms. It agreed to post an amended story.
He acknowledged submissions facilitated by CAT required a name and the reference to anonymity was incorrect. However, he did not believe it was appropriate to demand an apology from Mr Mikaere. “We suggest you put this proposal to Mr Mikaere yourself.”
Mr O’Donnell said Waatea News would be happy to run a correction on its website that it was CAT rather than Hobson’s Pledge that organised opposition to the land proposal.
In subsequent correspondence with the Media Council, Mr O’Donnell said that he was willing to publish a correction on the website along the lines of:
On August 8 Radio Waatea broadcast a story reporting Hobson’s Pledge had encouraged people to make submissions against a proposal to return land in Tauranga to a trust representing its original hapu owners. RadioWaatea accepts the assurance of Hobson’s Pledge spokesperson Don Brash his organisation was not involved. A separate organisation, Citizens Advocacy Tauranga, produced a form which was used by many submitters. We accept Citizens Advocacy Tauranga should have been credited for promoting submissions against the proposed transfer. A decision on the transfer was put off and must be considered by the newly elected council.
The Media Council expressed concern with the way Waatea News dealt with both the story and the subsequent complaint.
The story was based solely on a comment by Mr Mikaere and there was no indication that any checking was done before the item was published. At the very least a call could have been made to Hobson’s Pledge, and the submission process checked.
It also was revealed that Dr Brash was the first to point out that Hobson’s Pledge was not involved and while Mr O’Donnell said they agreed to post an amended article no evidence was supplied to the Media Council to show that an amended article was published.
Additionally, Waatea News took more than two weeks to respond substantively to Mr Paterson’s complaint. Then, while acknowledging the errors in its story, it attempted to deflect its responsibility by suggesting the complainant should seek an apology from Mr Mikaere.
The Media Council has stated that Editors are responsible for the content of their publications and significant errors should be corrected promptly.
According to the Media Council, Waatea News fell way short of its journalistic obligations in this case. It failed to check basic facts before publication, was slow to respond to complaints and failed to publish a correction promptly when it knew mistakes had been made. The story has still not been corrected.
Waatea News was found to be in breach of Media Council Principle 1 (accuracy, fairness and balance) and Principle 12 (corrections). The Media Council have told Waatea News that they expect the article to be corrected immediately.