BRIAN WARBURTON AGAINST RNZ
Case Number: 3533
Council Meeting: 29 July 2024
Decision: No Grounds to Proceed
Publication: Radio NZ
Principle: Accuracy, Fairness and Balance
Ruling Categories:
- RNZ published an article on May 22, 2024, headlined Native skinks cause cost blowout for Porirua sewage tank.
- The article reported that moving a native population of skinks had contributed to a doubling in the cost of building a new sewage tank. It said the rehoming of 60 skinks had pushed the project completion date back by six months and that the delay contributed to the cost blowout.
- Mr Warburton complained the article was in breach of Media Council Principle (1) Accuracy, Fairness and Balance, as “neither the skinks nor the presence of skink habitat caused the delays and subsequent cost overruns”. He said it was grammatically inaccurate to say the skinks ‘caused’ the delay. Using a verb suggests the skinks were able to make a decision and take action to cause the delay.
- He also complained any delay and additional cost was due to poor project management. The presence of skink habitat should have been identified and addressed before consent was given and the work began.
- The Media Council does not believe readers would take the wrong meaning from the article. It accurately identified the problem (the presence of skinks), that had resulted in the delay. In that sense it is wrong to argue it implied that skinks made a decision to cause the delay. There is nothing to suggest readers might have been left with that impression. No sensible reader would assume such a meaning, anymore that they might assume that a headline “Sharks close beach” implies that the sharks had done the closing. The plain meaning is that the presence of creatures has led to a decision by those persons in control of the area.
- Was it grammatically inaccurate? Grammar is the system and structure of language and the Council is unable to see any misuse of language or ambiguity in the sentence given the context. There is no Media Council principle requiring perfect syntax, particularly in a headline, which everyone expects to feature abbreviated words and sentences.
- It is also observed that the story merely reported problems with the project. It did not attribute blame. Whether planners might have failed to check the site for the presence of protected creatures was not the subject of the article.
- Decision: There are no grounds to proceed.