RNZ reporter had been editing stories for several years without being queried

The RNZ digital reporter who added pro-Russian views to Reuter stories says he edited “that way” for several years, without ever being queried.

“I subbed several stories that way over the past number of years,” the journalist told Checkpoint.

“In fact since I started RNZ and … I have done that for five years and nobody has tapped me on the shoulder and told me that I was doing anything wrong.”

Speaking to Checkpoint on Monday evening, RNZ chief executive Paul Thompson said the reporter in question had not yet been fired, but has been placed on leave while an investigation was taking place.

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“What’s happened is a serious breach of our editorial standards … we’ve let our audience down, our Ukrainian community down, but I do need to make sure there is a robust process,” he told Checkpoint host Lisa Owen.

“We’ve got enough challenges on our plate at the moment, I don’t want to compound that by getting ahead of a fair process.”

No one from RNZ upper management had offered up their resignations as a result of the incident, Thompson confirmed.

Thompson said senior staff from RNZ’s web team, as well as the news team were conducting the audit of stories.

“But the web team is the team that didn’t pick up on the problems with this man’s copy in the first place … so to use your language Paul, they are marking their own homework and being in charge of the audit,” Owen told him.

Thompson said the findings of an independent review into the matter would be made public.

He earlier slammed the state-owned broadcaster’s pro-Russian edits of Reuters and BBC stories – branding them “pro-Kremlin garbage”.

And after fronting one of his own journalists live on air, Thompson has also revealed how big of a task is ahead of the public broadcaster, saying “what will probably end up being thousands of stories” will have to be combed.

The scandal broke when RNZ published a story on Thursday, containing a pro-Russian view of the lead-up to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

The story was supplied by international news agency Reuters and later appeared on RNZ – but with edits to include a pro-Russian view.

Further investigation has revealed 16 stories, including an article produced by the BBC, have been edited on RNZ’s website to slant coverage in favour of Russia.

Speaking to Nine to Noon, days after the edits were first discovered, Thompson accepted there’s been a serious breach of standards and issued a string of apologies.

He said thousands of articles will likely now be searched “with a fine-tooth comb”, with 250 already having been looked at.

“This also raises issues around our editing process for online news,” Thompson said. “Clearly our editing systems are not as robust as they need to be.

“It is so disappointing, I’m gutted, it’s painful … We have to get to the bottom of how it happened.”

Thompson said there’s no evidence to show the incident involved anyone other than the one staffer.

The edits were a blow to RNZ’s reputation, he said.

Nine to Noon host, Kathryn Ryan, pressed Thompson for answers. After reading an example of what had been reported, Ryan put to her chief executive: “That is outright propaganda, that is demonstrably, factually incorrect and how could it be published on the public media organisation’s website without anyone seeing it?”

In response, Thompson said Ryan had “summarised it really well”.

“I do want to take the opportunity to apologise, to our audiences and to the public of New Zealand who absolutely rely on us to be a trusted source of news and information. We’ve let them down.

“Also, to the people who work at RNZ, 99.999% of us come to work every day to do trusted work and I just really, really feel, and feel a big responsibility and apologise to them.

“And equally… I apologise to the Ukrainian community.”

An external review of the incident would be reported directly to the board, as Thompson doesn’t “want to be marking my own homework”.

The details of the review, including who will be leading it, should be released on Wednesday.

Christchurch resident Michael Lidski said he was surprised when he learned about RNZ’s investigation this week because he had raised concerns about an article eight months ago.

In an email sent to Broadcast Minister Willie Jackson and RNZ on October 24, Lidski and members of the Ukrainian community complained about an RNZ article titled “NZ entering Ukraine conflict at whim of govt”, originally published in May that year.

In his complaint, Lidski said the RNZ story was a “definite copy of the enemy propaganda”.

“I thought it was absolutely outrageous back then, and to me, it just didn’t look like it came from New Zealand,” Lidski said on Sunday.

Jackson responded to the complaint on November 16, acknowledging the illegal war in Ukraine and the group’s concerns on accurate and unbiased reporting.

He said he could not involve himself in operational decisions of media organisations, adding he expected media to adhere to high standards.

Jackson noted going to RNZ with the complaint was the appropriate course of action, “as it is useful for these organisations to hear the views of their audiences”.

Lidski said RNZ did not respond to his complaint.

The story has since been amended, acknowledging an earlier version “lacked balance”, and that the article was taken down on June 10 for a day, while a review took place.