Alastair Thompson
COMMENTARY: Last week was a bad week for New Zealand media. And for much more than just the announced "review" of Campbell Live.
One of New Zealand's best newspaper editors, Tim Murphy, resigned as editor of The New Zealand Herald. According to sources he decided to go over differences in opinion on how the editorial side of NZME was being managed by its CEO Jane Hastings. Its an interesting story which I go into in detail in the second part of this article. [Herald editor Tim Murphy has responded to this article and his email is included in full here.]
For working journos, the other shocking public news in the week was the decision of Phil Kitchin to take up a job with Paula Bennett in the Beehive.
The reason this news is notable for media old-timers is that Phil is also a complete legend of investigative journalism - probably the longest serving investigative reporter in the Fairfax stable - he is responsible for a bunch of huge scoops, the biggest being exposure of the rape culture being perpetrated inside the police force and the case of Louise Nicholas.
But Phil is not the only leading Fairfax investigative journalist who has left the publisher recently.
Michael Field - who recently published an in-depth expose of fisheries abuse in the Pacific Ocean - has resigned.
Pacific Media Centre
