Govt gets its wish from 1News – a headline on fewer crime victims

2026-03-03 - 17:28

Comment: Five days after strong political pushback over its lack of coverage of a victims of crime announcement, 1News has taken the highly unusual decision to run a belated story outlining the Government’s successes. The new item covered the fall in the number of victims of violent crime over the past two years, quoting from a report announced with much pride by Government ministers last Thursday. But on Thursday night, 1News’ senior political correspondent Benedict Collins, had a separate news story instead focusing on a rise in the number of members in gangs to total more than the nation’s police. While Collins’ story quoted Prime Minister Christopher Luxon noting violent crime was down, the prominence given to the gang membership rise – and not the Government’s sought after headline – led to concerted criticism of the publicly-owned news channel from politicians and friendly media. One commentator claimed a “senior, high-profile TVNZ manager” had spoken to Police Minister Mark Mitchell and apologised over the angle of the bulletin’s coverage. In Parliament on Tuesday the coalition’s irritation was still on display, as Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith answered a question from a colleague on the victims of crime report amid interjections from his own side criticising 1News. Goldsmith said there now 49,000 fewer victims of violent crime a year than there had been two years ago. Tuesday night’s 1News bulletin ran the second story by Collins, this time outlining details of the victims of crime report and its falls, albeit showing the Government used different statistics when comparing its record with Labour’s. In newsrooms, the story would have been seen as a classic ‘make-good.’ Newsroom understands there is concern within the wider TVNZ operation about who in the company was involved in discussions about broadcasting a second story which would include the Government-favourable statistics. How high up the editorial, corporate or board chain any involvement in Collins’ second story goes may in itself become an issue for TVNZ over political independence in election year. If there is evidence of the directors being across the decision, or involved in encouraging a second report to assuage Government criticisms, the company can be sure of another round of political attention – from opposition parties. The blowback against 1News over the gang numbers story seems to be part of a concerted policy in election year by the coalition parties to hit out at media coverage they feel might not have sufficiently represented the Government’s position or achievements. Mitchell was vocally annoyed about the gang numbers story, going on social media to outline numerous other law and other gains in his eyes and decrying the 1News angle. Separately his colleague Chris Penk, the building minister, railed on X about a Newsroom/RNZ The Detail podcast on granny flat rules. In a series of posts over two days Penk hit out at the episode, even after the single error in a quote from an interviewee had been corrected. NZ First leader Winston Peters said last month his party would no longer be passive if it felt it was unfairly criticised, and would instead be actively hitting back on its own media channels. Act has for some time been filming the press gallery as it films and interviews leader David Seymour, using the footage to supposedly expose poor media practice or bias. A TVNZ spokesperson confirmed last night that political editor Maiki Sherman had spoken to Mitchell’s office the morning after the gang numbers story was broadcast and she offered that the victims of crime statistics ought to have been included. “The story was then reviewed internally, and the editorial decision was made to run a follow up story incorporating those figures to ensure balanced coverage and to aid audience understanding around the use of differing crime statistics. The resulting piece ran tonight.” The statement did not address any other corporate or board involvement with the story, or with ministers. The action of someone, either in Mitchell’s team or TVNZ management’s, of alerting Newstalk ZB political correspondent Barry Soper that there had been a call between the two to discuss Collins’ initial story threatens to open another front. It is relatively common for press gallery political editors such as Sherman to discuss aspects of coverage with dissatisfied ministers directly, but rare for any details of such a call to emerge, from what are normally private discussions. If any discussions with Mitchell or other ministers were at a higher level, from corporate leaders in Auckland, sensitivities over political interference in 1News’ operations would heighten. While politically uncomfortable, the first Collins piece on the gang numbers was a justifiable news story because Mitchell and his National Party colleagues had made a big deal when in opposition about the rise in gang numbers, and the risk that they could outnumber the police under Labour. If the issue was a real concern for National to criticise Labour over, it remained fair game for when the exact problem occured again when National was into Government. 1News could have avoided some of the political criticism by also including the victim reduction statistics in its initial gangs report or in another story altogether last Thursday – the drop was, after all, sizeable – but it’s not for politicians to decide what should or should not be reported by an independent news platform. Until, perhaps, Tuesday evening when the headlines that National had craved last week finally went out to 1News’ 500,000-plus 6pm news audience.