NZ Rescue Charitable Trust against the Waikato Times

Case Number: 3898

Council Meeting: 12 October 2026

Decision: Upheld

Publication: Waikato Times

Principle: Accuracy, Fairness and Balance
Privacy
Comment and Fact
Headlines and Captions
Photographs and Graphics
Corrections

Ruling Categories: Accuracy
Apology and Correction Sought
Privacy

Overview

1. The Waikato Times published three articles:

on 18 July, 2026, titled Charity behind cancelled Matamata Mustang draw proves elusive
on 25 July, 2026, titled Mustang probe widens to include rescue chopper fundraising campaigns (online) and Rescue chopper fundraisers under investigation (print)
on 10 August, 2026, titled MP meets with people behind failed car promotion.

2. NZ Rescue Charitable Trust complains that the articles breach Principles (1) Accuracy, Fairness and Balance, (2) Privacy, (4) Comment and Fact, (6) Headlines and Captions, (11) Photographs and Graphics, and (12) Corrections. The complaint is upheld on Principle (1) Accuracy, Fairness and Balance, and Principle (12) Corrections only.

The Article

3. The articles relate to NZ Rescue Charitable Trust (“NZ Rescue”), an entity that has offered fundraising promotions. The primary focus of the first article is on a particular campaign, the Key to Communities Shelby promotion, which was promoted as a fundraiser for Matamata’s Pohlen Hospital and cancelled on June 5. The promotion is subject to several complaints from participants and is under investigation from the Department of Internal Affairs.

4. The second article then establishes connections (and clarifies lack of connection) to several rescue helicopter entities. The article states that several earlier fundraisers conducted by NZ Rescue for the Coromandel Rescue Helicopter Trust were also being investigated by the Department of Internal Affairs. The third article reports on a meeting between Coromandel MP Scott Simpson and two Trustees of NZ Rescue, largely repeating the context given in the two previous articles.

The Complaint

5. The complaint to the Media Council can be summarised as being about two key issues. The first is that NZ Rescue alleges that the Waikato Times named two Trustees of NZ Rescue as having been previously employed by Northern Rescue Helicopter Limited, when they were in fact previously employed by the Auckland Rescue Helicopter Trust. NZ Rescue also claimed that the role descriptions published were incorrect, with Shaan Hulena described as “general manager of fundraising” instead of “General Manager” and Sandra Ratcliffe described as “finance administrator” instead of “Financial Controller”. This is an issue of factual accuracy.

6. The second issue relates to photographs of properties allegedly related to the Trustees published by the Waikato Times. The journalist travelled to Auckland to take photographs of properties based on addresses publicly available from the Companies Office and Charities Register.

7. There are four photographs presented together as a montage; the complaint relates to photograph one (a former residential address no longer occupied by a trustee that is shown to be under construction) and photograph two (a neighbouring property occupied by unrelated private individuals). This is an issue of factual accuracy due to the photographed properties not actually being related to the Trustees. The complainant also considers the photographing and publication of identifiable private homes to be a breach of privacy.

The Response

8. The Editor of the Waikato Times rejected the complaint, claiming that NZ Rescue is “nit picking about issues of little consequence for average readers”. The respondent claims that multiple attempts were made to contact the Trustees of NZ Rescue, including phone calls, e-mails, and door knocking, without a substantive response, and thus they were unable to present NZ Rescue’s side of the story.

9. On the first key issue, the confirmation of employment and job titles were provided by a senior staff member at Northern Rescue. This is a separate legal entity to the Auckland Rescue Helicopter Trust (ARHT), although they are closely related through contracts and shareholder relationships. The journalist honestly reported the information provided to him by Northern Rescue. The Waikato Times did then correct the job titles “as a gesture of goodwill”, with a small clarification notice added at the bottom of the article upon the request of NZ Rescue.

10. On the second key issue, the journalist used addresses related to the Trustees that were publicly available. The respondent claims that they faced considerable difficulty in engaging with NZ Rescue, and that investigative reporting requires journalists “to use every available public source of information to build a picture for the readership”. The respondent claims the photographs of the properties are appropriate given the public interest in the story. The Waikato Times did subsequently remove the two photographs that were in contention (photograph one of a former location of residence and photograph two of a neighbouring property) “as a gesture of goodwill”. The respondent notes that the removal of the photographs is “in no way an admission that they should have been removed”.

Timeline

11. Firstly, it is helpful to reconstruct the sequence of events into a timeline to help gain clarity on the initial miscommunication and confusion:

18 July 2026: The first article is published.
25 July 2026: The second article is published.
31 July 2026: NZ Rescue Charitable Trust issues a written formal complaint to the Waikato Times.
3 August 2026: The Editor prepares a response to the complaint, but accidentally only sends this to the journalist and not the Trustees of NZ Rescue.
4 August 2026: NZ Rescue sends an addendum to their original complaint about the conduct of the journalist (which is not part of the complaint to the Media Council).
10 August 2026: The third article is published.
14 August 2026: NZ Rescue adds a further detailed complaint to the Waikato Times, noting they have “received no substantive response to [the previous] complaints” and that the third article includes some of the content that is in the first complaint.
17 August 2026: The Waikato Times provides a response to the complaint of 14 August focusing on the third article.
17 August 2026: NZ Rescue lodges a complaint with the Media Council. The Complaints Director of the Media Council requests additional information.
17 August 2026: The Waikato Times issues a response to the NZ Rescue complaint to the Media Council.
18 August 2026: NZ Rescue provides further documentary evidence and detail to the Media Council.
19 August 2026: The Waikato Times response to the initial complaint is now correctly sent to NZ Rescue, 13 business days after the initial complaint was made.
20 August 2026: The Waikato Times acknowledges to NZ Rescue their error in dealing with the initial complaint, and states that the article has been changed to reflect the updated job titles and to remove the two photographs. It is not clear which article this is referring to, or if it is in relation to all three articles. The e-mail also references a response from the Waikato Times News Director on August 14, which has not been made available to the Media Council.
25 August 2026: NZ Rescue provides a copy of the 25 July article and a final set of arguments, incorporating the responses from the Waikato Times.

The Discussion

12. The Media Council always encourages investigative journalism where news outlets put a lot of effort into exposing matters of significant public interest. However, the complaints did draw attention to inaccuracies.

13. The Waikato Times’ case is not helped by the fact that the initial response to the complainant was inadvertently only sent to the journalist who wrote the article, and not to the complainant. While the respondent says that “it is disingenuous to state that they did not get a response from me” and “to suggest that we haven’t responded at all is untrue”, from NZ Rescue’s perspective if they were not sent the response due to the editor’s error then it is hard to accept the respondent’s view. A complaint to the Media Council could have potentially been avoided if the Waikato Times’ initial response had been correctly sent to NZ Rescue with further engagement directly between the parties.

14. The Media Council also notes that the third article repeated some of the information under dispute, at a time when the Waikato Times knew there were concerns about that information. The Waikato Times should have considered the merits of the complaint more thoroughly before publishing the third article, particularly when issues (such as the second photograph being of a neighbouring property) had been pointed out.

Historical Employment Information

15. This part of the complaint relied on a breach of Principle (1) and Principle (4). We see nothing to justify a complaint under Principle (4) which relates to comment and fact.

16. On the accuracy of the historical employment information, the Media Council accepts that the journalist honestly reported the information they had received from Northern Rescue. It is unfortunate that some of the detail appears to be incorrect, specifically the entity employing the two individuals and their specific job titles. However, the only other party that could have corrected this information would have been the two individuals themselves. The Waikato Times tried to contact NZ Rescue and give them an opportunity to respond to the various claims, and no response was given. The Media Council considers the job misdescription errors to be so minor it would not uphold this aspect of the complaint.

17. Moreover, after complaints were made that provided the correct detail, the Waikato Times has subsequently corrected the job titles in the online versions of the articles and added a correction statement. While the Editor of the Waikato Times says that this amendment was done as “a gesture of goodwill”, this still constitutes a correction regardless of the materiality of the information. The Media Council considers this to be a sufficient remedy for the error. Therefore, the relevant complaints about job misdescriptions under Principles (1) Accuracy, Fairness and Balance and (4) Comment and Fact are not upheld.

Photographs of Private Residences

18. On the photographs of the properties, the Media Council understands the concerns raised by NZ Rescue.

19. On the first photograph relating to a property formerly occupied by a Trustee, the journalist was using address details from publicly available registers. NZ Rescue states that the publicly available information for NZ Rescue was updated 11 November 2025, however the Media Council is unable to verify whether the information relied upon by the journalist was up-to-date or not. The journalist made reasonable efforts to contact NZ Rescue who would have been able to tell him that the property was no longer related to any of the Trustees, but no response was given. Original publication of the photograph is therefore appropriate and not a breach of any of the Media Council’s principles.

20. The second photograph, which primarily showed a neighbouring property rather than the property of interest, is more concerning. While the photograph is taken from the street and therefore not a direct intrusion of privacy, it appears inappropriate for the Waikato Times to have published an image of a property that is not connected to any of the Trustees of NZ Rescue with a caption describing it as one of the publicly available addresses for NZ Rescue. This could have been an innocent mistake, but there was a material inaccuracy and a breach of Principle (1) Accuracy, Fairness and Balance. It was not the most serious of errors given the lack of any evidence of resulting harm, but continuing to publish the photograph after this had been raised by NZ Rescue on the 31^st of July is problematic. The photograph should not have been republished in the third article, and to do so was to perpetuate the error. The relevant principle is Principle (1).

21. After the complaints were made and with further reflection by the Waikato Times, the two photographs have been removed in the online versions of the articles with the captions amended. While the Editor of the Waikato Times says that removing these photographs was done as “a gesture of goodwill”, this still constitutes a correction in terms of the image of the wrong house. The Media Council considers this, if it had been done promptly, to be a sufficient remedy for the complaint. In any event, the relevant complaints under Principles (4) Comment and Fact, (6) Headlines and Captions, and (11) Photographs and Graphics are not upheld.

22. Separately, there is a concern raised about photograph four, a Trustee’s current private residence, and this being a breach of privacy. The complainant argues that the property itself is not alleged to have been used for wrongdoing. The Media Council considers that it is reasonable for a journalist to use publicly available information about a subject to capture a photograph from the street (i.e. a public space). The complainant identifies “foreseeable risks of unwanted attention, harassment, intrusion, attendance at private homes, reputational harm and distress to occupants and family members” but does not provide any evidence to substantiate any harm accrued from the publication of the photograph.

23. There is a privacy concern in showing photographs of homes simply because the subject of an article lives there. Publication of the address can lead to harassment of the occupants. It is different from photographing a house that is connected to the story. However, in the article the addresses were not shown, and because the complainants have been very elusive, we can see why they were shown.

24. Therefore, the relevant complaint under Principle (2) Privacy is not upheld.

Corrections

25. Principle (12) Corrections acknowledges that a willingness to correct errors is positive. However, errors should be corrected promptly. In this case, the identified errors were only corrected approximately 20 calendar days after the original complaint. The corrections were not made in a timely manner, which increased the risk of readers receiving incorrect information. It is acknowledged that the Editor of the Waikato Times has given his apologies for sending his initial response to the wrong person leading to a delayed response.

26. Errors should also be corrected with due prominence. A correction statement for the job titles was only added after further requests from NZ Rescue. It is not clear if correction statements have been added for the photographs being removed. It is also not clear if the correction statements were only online, or if appropriately prominent corrections have been published in the print version of the Waikato Times as well. This should be reviewed by the Waikato Times to check that appropriate correction statements have been made. Without appropriate correction statements, the risk of readers receiving incorrect information or continuing to hold incorrect information in their minds is also increased.

27. While the errors were not on the serious end of the spectrum, the failure to fully acknowledge them and act promptly, in particular the re-publication of the erroneously labelled photograph, leads the Media Council to uphold the complaint on Principle (1) Accuracy, Fairness and Balance, and Principle (12) Corrections.

Decision: The complaint under Principles (2) Privacy, (4) Comment and Fact, (6) Headlines and Captions, and (11) Photographs and Graphics are not upheld. The complaint under Principle (1) Accuracy, Fairness and Balance in relation to the photograph of the neighbouring house, and Principle (12) Corrections, is upheld.

Council members considering the complaint were Hon Raynor Asher (Chair), Hank Schouten, Tim Watkin, Guy MacGibbon, Scott Inglis, Deborah Morris, Jo Cribb, Judi Jones, Marie Shroff, Alison Thom, Andrew Chen, Susan Freeman-Greene.