Putting right what went wrong with RNZ's online news

A review of RNZ's online news has called for greater oversight and enforcement of standards after a crisis sparked by a single staffer making 'inappropriate' edits to international news online. Mediawatch asks RNZ's chief executive if this was the result of a digital shift done on the cheap - and how he'll put right what he himself called 'pro-Kremlin garbage.A review of RNZ's online news has called for greater oversight and enforcement of standards after a crisis sparked by a single staffer making 'inappropriate' edits to international news online.Mediawatch asks RNZ's chief executive if this was the result of a digital shift done on the cheap - and how he'll put right what he himself called 'pro-Kremlin garbage.'"An RNZ digital journalist has been stood down after it emerged they'd been editing news stories on the broadcaster's website to give them a pro-Russian slant," host Jeremy Corbett told 7 Days viewers back in June when the story first hit the headlines. "You'd never get infiltration like that on 7 Days. Our security is too strong. Strong like a bear. Strong like the glorious Russian state and its leader Putin," he said. It's never good for a serious news outlet when comedians are taking aim. It was just a joke of course, but at the time some wondered whether Kremlin campaigns could have been behind the unapproved editing of RNZ's online world news. Pro-Russian perspectives and some loaded language inserted into news agency stories relating to the war in Ukraine were first spotted overseas. RNZ chief executive Paul Thompson called it 'pro-Kremlin garbage' and some politicians asked if RNZ might be carrying foreign propaganda.RNZ tightened editorial checks and stood down one online journalist, who later resigned. He told Checkpoint that he had edited news reports "in that way for years" and no one had ever queried it or told him to stop. An RNZ audit of stories he edited eventually discovered 49 - mostly supplied by Reuters - which RNZ deemed to be inappropriately edited. External experts were then appointed to look at the problem and how RNZ should respond. Former RNZ political editor Brent Edwards, currently political editor at NBR, drew on his experience as RNZ's newsgathering chief to pinpoint a key problem. "I technically had no responsibility whatsoever for what went on the web. I always thought that that news should have run 'Digital,'" Edwards said. …Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details