It was equally unsurprising that RNZ also carried the story, even though it was about strife in its on ranks, and even though there was nothing on rnz.co.nz about the initial news of the fated meeting between Hirschfeld and Clare Curran. They covered it – and actually broke the news about it - because it was a bloody good story and covering bloody good stories is what journalists do.
In fact, it was essential that RNZ covered it like it was any other news story, because it would just make things more awkward – and raise serious questions about the RNZ newsrooms' journalistic impartiality – if they did try to ignore it. It probably also helped that the organisation had the obvious scoop, since all the drama was playing out within the public broadcaster.
There were, of course, some people at RNZ who could have nothing to do with the story because they were directly involved in the case, because that would further taint that impartial image, but there were also plenty of journos there who had stayed at arms length, and could report on the situation with getting personally involved. (After all, by most accounts, the news of Hirschfeld's resignation caught 95 percent of the RNZ workforce by complete surprise.)
It can be fucking weird, writing and broadcasting stories about your own organisation, but any real journo will be able to foster a sense of detachment. There should always be some distance between the subject of a story and the people telling it, even if they share the same elevator in the morning.
It might be weird talking about RNZ in the third person when you're actually working there in the newsroom, but it can also be surprisingly easy. When it runs stories about the situation, reporters can even find it darkly amusing to say the chief executive or chairperson refused to comment, when you see them wandering around the office every day.
Plus, of course, if they're not going to talk to their own journos, those reporters can rest easy that they're almost certainly not going to gt scooped by another organisation. If Paul Thompson won't return Jane Patterson's phone calls, he's not about to turn around and give Barry Soper or Tracy Watkins the full story. Indeed, one of the few interviews he has given in the past week was for the Mediawatch programme on RNZ.
It can seem a little silly, and even have the faint hint of hypocrisy, when a newsroom covers shenanigans in its own office, but it's also absolutely vital that the reporters are free to cover these things, with no interference from the executive branch.
Otherwise, you end up with cases like Newsweek in the US, which recently fired several reporters who had the temerity to investigate the dodgy goings-on within its organisation. Now you can't trust anything coming out of that newsroom, because it's shown that the corporate sword is stronger than the editorial word.
This attitude among journos – of reporting on something within their own organisation without fear or favour - can drive media company executives with no real experience in an actual newsroom fucking crazy, because why the hell would you do something that could damage your own company. But journos understand they have to expose this shit in their own house if it comes out, otherwise all claims of credibility go right out the fucking window.
Fortunately, that's not a problem at RNZ, where everybody right up to the CEO has an editorial background, and is well aware of these issues. Hirschfeld's resignation – which was unavoidable after her lie went into the public record – was a big fucking story, and it was only right and proper that it was covered as if it was happening to anybody else.
The organisation has lost a strong, experienced and capable figure in its leadership team, and Hirschfeld's resignation puts a spanner in the works of the greater RNZ+ plan the new government is so keen on. But she had to go, and the reporters who once answered to her still have to have that detachment to investigate it all, or nobody will ever trust anything they ever say again.
- Margaret Tempest
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