Headline not a fair representation — Media Council

The Media Council has found a New Zealand Herald headline Muller: Now I'll deal to Labour was not a fair representation of the tone and content of a speech by new National Party leader Todd Muller.

The Council believes the average reader would expect that a headline written in the first person would be at least an approximation or summary of what the person named in the headline said.

The Council noted that the statements attributed to Mr Muller in the story, where he acknowledged Labour’s “impressive” handling of the Covid crisis and said he would talk about “what's right for families, not what was wrong about the Government,” had a different tone from the more confrontational words “deal to” used in the heading.

The article, published on May 23, reported that Mr Muller was “incredibly upbeat” about his chances and expected to be Prime Minister after the next election. The article covered other aspects of the leadership change, including National's relationship with NZ First, and National's front bench line-up.

Russell Armitage complained the headline was aggressive and designed to sow discord and division.

The headline was misleading and did not give a true summary or reflect the tone of what was said.

The headline, written in the first person after Mr Muller’s name, was clearly meant to state that this is what Mr Muller had said, but he had not used those words, Mr Armitage said.

The New Zealand Herald, responding to the complaint, noted that the headline did not suggest that these were the actual words of Todd Muller. It did not include quotation marks.

The context was that Mr Muller had just staged a coup to take leadership of the National Party and immediately said he expected to be Prime Minister after the next election.

While the impact of the words chosen for the headline would not have been particularly serious at a time of robust political debate, the Media Council believes the headline, written in the first person, should have fairly conveyed the tone and content of Mr Muller’s actual words and it did not.

The full Media Council ruling is at mediacouncil.org.nz