JIM CAPO AGAINST RNZ

Jim Capo complained about an article published by RNZ on April 20, 2021 headed Covid-19: Worker at Auckland Airport tests positive, plus one historical case.

He complained that RNZ had breached Media Council principles relating to accuracy, fairness and balance, comment and fact and conflicts of interest.   He said RNZ had not challenged the Prime Minister on her statements regarding the Pfizer vaccine being able to prevent deaths from Covid-19. He also said RNZ had a conflict of interest as it was controlled and funded by the Government and appeared to be directly invested in supporting and promoting the Government’s response to Covid-19.

Mr Capo provided references to studies of the vaccine which he said showed it had no ability to prevent deaths in people under 70 years of age or in people over that age who were even in moderately good health.

RNZ complaints coordinator George Bignell rejected Mr Capo’s complaint saying, that with respect to balance, it was a well accepted journalistic principle that not every aspect of every controversial topic needs to be covered in one particular story. RNZ was confident a range of views had been published over time with respect to Covid-19.

The Prime Minister’s comment - That’s what the vaccine is for – it’s to stop the pandemic becoming so dire that we see our hospitals full and people losing their lives -was her statement of opinion, an opinion she was entitled to express given the long running debate about the disease, and the best treatment for it.

The complaint to the Media Council has not suggested that RNZ’s reporting in this story was inaccurate or unfair.  The story included comments from the Prime Minister and readers could easily place those comments in the context of political statements. There is no evidence that any of the statements were false.

As for balance this is obviously a long-running story and as such there is no requirement for balancing comment to be included in every article.

 Mr Capo made reference to an Israeli study of the Pfizer vaccine and drew his own conclusions from it about death rates for people under and over 70. That is his opinion but the data is also open to other interpretations which have no doubt informed Government’s view on the vaccine’s efficacy.

Mr Bignell said there was no conflict of interest. That principle was aimed at situations where the publication or the person reporting has another interest which could have a bearing on the story and where that interest is not declared to readers. 

There is nothing to support a claim that RNZ had a conflict of interest which could be seen objectively as influencing the way it reported Government’s Covid-19 response in this story.  RNZ spends much of its time reporting on controversial government and local government matters, and it takes more than just its government funding to show that a reasonable objective bystander would perceive bias.

There are insufficient grounds to proceed.