Media minister says TVNZ chair raised news story - but he moved ‘inappropriate’ conversation along
Wednesday, 4 March 2026
Media minister Paul Goldsmith says the TVNZ board chairperson Andrew Barclay raised a 1News story with him he had previously complained about, but that was far as the discussion got.
Goldsmith said he rapidly moved the conversation on as he recognised it would be inappropriate for him as a minister responsible for TVNZ to discuss editorial matters with the board.
He freely admitted to complaining about the news story with the journalist in question, which he described as standard practice.
The 1News story in question aired on Thursday night following the Government’s release of a crime survey suggesting a strong drop in violent crime in the year to October 2025.
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The story focused instead on a rise in numbers on police’s “gang list” which suggested there were now more gang members than police officers.
The “gang list” is not recognised as a particularly useful statistic by police as it naturally always grows as members get added to it, while taking people “off” the list does not really happen. National vociferously criticised the Government over the gang list numbers going up while in Opposition.
The story became very controversial online, with Police Minister Mark Mitchell complaining about it on Facebook.
“Absolutely unbelievable that on a day that the Government announces 49,000 fewer victims of violent crime and a 22% decrease in serious repeat youth offending, 1News chose instead to engage in unbalanced journalism by running a story about gang membership with none of the context around the outstanding work our Police are doing in cracking down on gangs in New Zealand,” Mitchell said.
1 News aired a follow up story on Tuesday night which featured the figures the Government had wanted to promote.
Goldsmith said he raised the story with the journalist directly as justice minister.
“I rang the journalist and gave them the benefit of my opinions,” Goldsmith said.
He said the story came up in passing during another phone call with board chairperson Andrew Barclay over the weekend, with Barclay raising the story but Goldsmith not saying anything about it.
“It is not appropriate for me to be talking to the board about those issues,” Goldsmith said.
A spokesperson for TVNZ said in a statement that the board chair and Goldsmith talk regularly, but this did not imperil editorial independence.
“TVNZ’s Board Directors also take an interest in how editorial standards are maintained. But editorial independence is of paramount important to us and operational decisions on how stories are covered are our own,” the statement read.
Newstalk ZB host Barry Soper said a “high profile TVNZ manager” had contacted Mitchell to apologise about the story.
But the statement from TVNZ suggested this was an editorial manager - 1News political editor Maiki Sherman - not an executive.
“TVNZ’s Political Editor contacted Minister Mitchell’s office the morning after the 1News gang numbers story to advise that victim-of-crime data should have been included,” the statement read.
Mitchell said he had shared the news of this apology with Soper and said he stood by his criticism of the story.
“What people get really tired and sick of is that they feel that the journalists are biased and that it's not balanced, and they're not telling the whole story,” Mitchell said.
He said he had not considered going to the Broadcasting Standards Authority over the story.
“The Kiwi way is to address it and say, hey, there was an issue with this. I respect the fact that they came back and they've apologised for it.”