New Zealand radio journalist suspended over pro-Kremlin propaganda

Radio NZ has stood down a journalist after stories were found to have been rewritten to include pro-Russian propaganda.

A Russian flag waves next to one of the Kremlin towers in downtown Moscow. Picture: AFP.

New Zealand’s public broadcaster has stood down one of its journalists and launched an investigation after the digital sub-editor rewrote stories to include pro-Russian propaganda.

RNZ chief executive Paul Thompson has apologised for the “pro-Kremlin garbage” published on the broadcaster’s website and announced a review of processes for editing online stories.

“We’re feeling shocked and stunned,” Mr Thompson told NZ TV. “Personally, I’m so gutted by it. We’ve let our audience down. I need to make sure we have a robust process.”

The journalist in question admitted that he had been changing wire stories from the Reuters news agency for at least five years.

“I subbed several stories that way over the past number of years, in fact, since I started [at] Radio New Zealand,” they said in a statement. “And I have done that for five years and no one has tapped me on the shoulder and no body told me I was doing anything wrong,” he said.

In one example, a story about the Ukraine war was changed to describe Ukraine’s 2014 Maidan revolution that toppled a pro-Russian president as “violent” and to claim Russia’s annexation of Crimea came “after a referendum.”

“Russia annexed Crimea after a referendum, as the new pro-Western government suppressed ethnic Russians in eastern and southern Ukraine, sending in its armed forces to the Donbas,” the copy read.

Another on the destruction of the Nova Kakhovka dam described the Maidan revolution as a “coup”

RNZ has released a list of 15 stories that had been subject to pro-Kremlin editing and Mr Thompson said the broadcaster would continue to check thousands more.

“I think this is a time for us working together to fix the problem. There have been breaches of our editorial policy. It’s really disappointing,” he said.