CHRISTIAN JORDON AGAINST STUFF
Case Number: 3526
Council Meeting: 21 June 2024
Decision: Not Upheld
Publication: Stuff
Principle:
Accuracy, Fairness and Balance
Comment and Fact
Corrections
Ruling Categories:
Politicians
Politics
Data
Overview
- On 16 March 2024, Stuff posted the on-line article ‘It incites rage’ - Police verdict on Luxon interview’. The article includes two links: one to a video of Stuff‘s chief political correspondent Tova O’Brien interviewing the Prime Minister at the Central District Field Days and the other to a podcast based on that interview. In the interview, Ms O’Brien questions the Prime Minister about Police, with specific questions about Police retention and pay. The subject of this complaint is an exchange about the level of pay for Police trainees. The complaint is not upheld.
The Article
- In the interview, Ms O’Brien asked the Prime Minister what he thought the salary for a new trainee police officer was. With reluctance the Prime Minister answered $90 000 as total employment costs and Ms O’Brien replied it was $50,834 remarking that this is less than the Wellington accommodation allowance the Prime Minister claimed.
- The text of the article is labelled Analysis. It starts with quoting several police officers’ responses to the interview, their issues with low pay and includes details about the number of New Zealand officers who have re-located to Australia. It also includes a near verbatim account of the exchange about salaries:
“Asked if he wanted to take a stab at it, he took a punt: “$90,000”. A trainee police officer in New Zealand earns $50,834.”
- A further article was published by Stuff on March 22 Tova podcast: ‘Laughing stock of the whole police station’ - police officer slams Prime Minister. In this article Ms O’Brien reports further reaction to her interview and includes this paragraph:
“At his post-cabinet press conference on Monday the Prime Minister attempted to explain the muck-up: “Yes, I got my numbers wrong in my interview with Tova the other day because I had a briefing talking about the average constabulary cost remuneration at just about $99,000, a first year police officer is 75.”
The Complaint
- Christian Jordan complains that the articles state that the Prime Minister said the starting salary was $90 000 without referencing that Christopher Luxon clearly said that he thought this was the total employment cost. Mr Jordan argues that total employment costs include more than direct salary costs and could include uniform, professional development, Kiwisaver, office space and other costs.
- In misrepresenting the Prime Minister’s answer, Mr Jordan argues that the articles are “biased, inaccurate and should not be tolerated within a fair and balanced media organisation”. He goes further to state “clearly whatever agenda she has, it is not to deliver the unbiased or fair portrayal of the facts. It has led some of the public to believe something that simply was not said in the context portrayed.”
- While the interview is embedded in the article so any reader can listen to the full answer, Mr Jordan argues that few people would listen to the full interview but most would read the inaccurate accompanying text. People, he states, should not be required to listen to the interview to fact check the text.
- While there is also a subsequent article, Mr Jordan argues this does not detract from the initial article being factually incorrect. He concludes by stating that the purpose of the article was to make the Prime Minister look out of touch.
- The complaint is made under Media Council Principles (1) Accuracy, Fairness and Balance as the article included incorrect information; (4) Comment and Fact because the article read like an opinion piece; and (12) Corrections because Stuff had ample opportunity to correct but did not.
The Response
- Stuff responds that the analysis article is accurate because even if additional employment costs were added to the base salary, it would not change the material issue raised by the Police officers quoted in the story that their salaries are too low and moving to Australia is an attractive proposition.
- Further, Stuff argues that the base salary is $50,834.06. The additional benefits are NZ Superannuation ($5176.94) and insurance ($208) bringing the total to $56,219 which is still nowhere near the $90,000 figure the Prime Minister guessed.
- Stuff notes that the Prime Minister admitted the error at his weekly post-Cabinet press conference the following week, something that was included in a follow-up story. They also state that there was no attempt to conceal the Prime Minister’s full quote or the context which were included in the video within the story file and on the episode of the Tova podcast the written story was supporting.
- They also argue that there was no breach of Principle (4) Comment and Fact as the piece is clearly labelled an analysis piece and is based on correspondence from Police officers and comments from the Prime Minister.
- Finally, Stuff states that it did not issue a correction as the article accurately reflected the interview and presented the interview in its entirety in multiple forms.
The Discussion
- This complaint turns on whether the omission of ‘total employment costs’ from the text of the article accompanying the Prime Minister’s interview and Ms O’Brien’s podcast amounts to a breach of Principle (1). This principle states that “publications should be bound at all times by accuracy and should not deliberately mislead or misinform readers by commission or omission”.
- A common definition of total employment costs (widely used by employers) is the actual amount paid for all employee wages and benefits. This includes direct salary costs, retirement savings, medical insurance and any other benefits. For a first-year police officer, the Prime Minister corrected his initial guess of $90 000 to $75 000.
- Tova O’Brien presents his guess in direct comparison to the number she presents, $50,834. Her number is not the total employment cost. Stuff provided the total employment cost in their response with additional benefits from NZ Superannuation ($5176.94) and insurance ($208) bringing the total to $56,219. They argue that that this is not inaccurate because it is still nowhere near the $90,000 the Prime Minister guessed.
- Regardless of the magnitude of the difference, the article does contain inaccurate comparisons due to the omission of the Prime Minister’s qualifier of ‘total employment costs’. There is also residual confusion about what is being referred to: the Prime Minister’s correction is about the salary of first year police officers; Ms O’Brien’s question and data is about trainees.
- The omission of a reference to ‘total employment costs’ creates an inaccurate comparison between the figures in the article and can be considered poor journalism. Including these few words or a fuller quote would have been fairer to the Prime Minister. However, it is not of significance to warrant an uphold. The Prime Minister’s guessed figure is larger by such a magnitude than the figure provided by Ms O’Brien that readers would not have been misled by this omission.
- Principle (4) Comment and Fact provides that there should be a clear distinction between factual information and comment and any article that is essentially comment or opinion should be labelled as such. The article is labelled as Analysis and includes quotes from police officers and paraphrases the Prime Minister’s interview. While the style of writing reads like that of opinion writing, this article reports the Prime Minister’s and police officers’ opinions, not the journalist’s.
- Regarding Principle (12), as Stuff has argued there are no inaccuracies nor breach of Principle (4) so they have not issued a correction.
- The complaint is not upheld
Council members considering the complaint were Hon Raynor Asher (Chair), Alison Thom, Ben France-Hudson, Hank Schouten, Jo Cribb, Judi
Jones, Marie Shroff, Rosemary Barraclough and Tim Watkin.
Council member Clio Francis had a conflict of interest and left the meeting while the complaint was decided.