Why publishing the Tom Phillips audio was the right call

Wednesday, 5 November 2025

Keith Lynch is the Editor-in-Chief of Stuff Digital.

Police announced this morning they will not be prosecuting Stuff following an article and audio we published outlining what happened before Tom Phillips was shot dead.

In an op-ed this morning, Commissioner Richard Chambers said that the police legal opinion was that there was a clear breach of the Radiocommunications Act. He wrote that police would not seek to prosecute Stuff but, if they had decided to, those actions would meet the evidential and public interest threshold.

In fact no evidence was sought or tested with Stuff and, as with any such reporting of this nature, Stuff also carefully considered its legal position prior to publication. We remain confident we did not breach any laws and we pro-actively communicated as much to Police.

He cites distress caused to police and their families, to the Phillips family, and that publication could impact investigations underway.

He says the public interest would have been better served by not publishing.

We strongly disagree.

Circumstances surrounding the hunt for Tom Phillips and his subsequent death remain wholly in the public interest.

As journalists, our job is to uncover information in a careful and responsible manner, seeking answers to uncomfortable questions and - sometimes - surfacing material that is challenging.

In the time leading up to publication of the police audio, our most senior editors carefully selected what would be included. We were extremely careful to ensure there was no identifying information on the officers involved and we were of the view that there was nothing that could or would harm Phillips’ children.

There was no sensationalising of the audio. We spent time investigating and carefully verifying the information we had, and we were prudent in what was included, and what was omitted.

This was in stark contrast to what was occurring on social media platforms at the time, where unverified rumours and speculation about the shooting were running rampant.

Some of it was pure fabrication, including comment and discussion designed to lionise Phillips and the four years he had spent on the run with his highly vulnerable children. At the time we published, Deputy Police Commissioner Jill Rogers described the article and audio as “grossly irresponsible” and said it “put at risk inquiries underway into the events that unfolded in Western Waikato”. Chambers repeats those claims in today’s oped.

There was then, and still appears to be, no obvious basis to that statement. Any inquiry would include the communications, yes, but careful and responsible publication of parts of them could not hinder that process. We fully appreciate that police are human beings, but the argument that Stuff’s reporting could alter recollections of those involved that morning is a hard one to make.

The audio is the audio. It cannot be changed or altered despite what others recollect. Eyewitness accounts, video evidence, our own investigations to events, all of these will feed into what is almost inevitably a larger and more complex story.

Scrutiny of authorities is often challenging for media organisations. Scrutiny of how journalists undertake that role is also to be expected on occasion. As we said at the time we published the audio, this scrutiny is not an act of hostility. It is a safeguard for accuracy which ultimately benefits everyone.