To
Board
From
Glen Scanlon, Chief Performance Officer
Meeting Date Rāapa 3 Pīpiri| Wednesday 5 June 2024
Strategic
Foster a strong national identity through trusted content
objective
Implementation of Independent Review Panel (IRP) 22
Title
recommendations
Item for
Information, discussion, and decision
Purpose
To provide the board with a close out report on the implementation of the recommendations
made by the independent review into the editing issue.
Recommendation
It is recommended that the Board
note the update provided and ask any questions/provide
feedback
Summary
Early on June 9, 2023 a Twitter post raised concerns about how a Reuters story about the
Ukraine war had been edited on RNZ.co.nz. It led us to conduct an internal audit and the
board to engage an external review panel.
The result of
our internal audit can be read here and the board has the independent panel’s
findings.
The review made 22 recommendations which have been implemented.
Highlights include:
• The appointment of Jane Patterson to the Director, editorial quality and training role.
• The development of more focused editorial training, including addressing referring up
and mis and disinformation.
• The revamp of our complaints process and publicly available information.
• Updates to editorial policy including around balance.
• Digital news editing team further integrated into business and resourcing added.
• Updated work from home policy.
• Editorial publishing systems reviewed and to be replaced.
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However, while this work has been done it is our view that it doesn’t end there. We have
gone beyond the recommendations in creating the new board sub-committee focused on
editorial policy and quality – it effectively becomes our way to ensure the deeper focus on our
editorial standards continues. In addition, we are considering further changes to improve
transparency in our storytelling, joining an international coalition of media focused on battling
mis and disinformation, work continues developing our training and we are likely to appoint
an Ombudsman role in the next financial year when there are personnel changes.
In the last quarter of 24/25, we wil ask Jane Patterson to again review our progress against
the 22 recommendations to ensure the changes have been embedded. This wil be reported
back to the editorial sub-committee.
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