Media Council upholds cultural report complaint

The NZ Media Council says an article about the use of a cultural report in a court case was unfair and inaccurate.

The report headed Mum’s the Word – Violent Offender’s Mother Pens Court Cultural Report was published by the Waikato Times on December 16 2023.

The story reported that the defendant’s mother, Stephanie Palmer, who was not named in the story but complained about it and has consented to be named in the Media Council ruling, wrote a cultural report for her son, who was facing sentencing for assault charges.

ACT leader David Seymour was reported as “slamming” the use of the cultural report to try to “shave time” off a jail sentence.

He said he hoped the mother had not been paid for the report.

The article said the cultural report “did not seem to make a positive impression on the judge”.

The Media Council found that this statement was unfair and inaccurate.

It was clear from the sentencing notes that while the cultural report contained some irrelevant and inappropriate material, it did make a positive impression on the judge and contributed to a reduction in the sentence.

Positive remarks the judge made about the report were largely ignored in the article. This unfairness was compounded by the fact that the story recounted the worst aspects of the defendant’s behaviour without sufficient reference to more positive factors, and the Media Council ruled this was also unbalanced and unfair.

The complainant also raised a number of other matters which were not upheld, including breach of privacy and the effect on the defendant’s children and whānau.

The Media Council said media were entitled to report what happened in court, and it was inevitable that innocent family members would sometimes be embarrassed and disadvantaged.

The complainant objected to what she said was the story’s attempt to escalate public outrage about taxpayer funding of cultural reports, by focusing on Mr Seymour’s views.

However, the Council found that because the issue of cultural reports has been reported on widely, there was no need for full balance when reporting his comments.

There was a short reference to a judge finding the reports useful.

The complaint about the story’s balance was not upheld on a fine margin.

Ms Palmer complained that the reporter should have given the family a chance to respond and found out whether she had been paid for the report (in fact she had not). The reporter could have made more effort to contact Ms Palmer, but the Council decided this did not amount to a breach of its principles.

Ms Palmer also questioned the reporter’s cultural competence to write the story and suggested it did not endorse the spirit of Te Tiriti.

The Council’s view is that it cannot assess the cultural competence of a reporter, but rather looks at what is written through the lens of the Media Council Principles.

This part of the complaint was also not upheld.