Make a Complaint Make a Complaint

*Z against the New Zealand Herald

Case Number: 3870

Council Meeting: 8 June 2026

Decision: Not Upheld

Publication: New Zealand Herald

Principle: Privacy
Subterfuge

Ruling Categories: Deception
Privacy

Overview

1. This complaint concerns an article published in the New Zealand Herald titled “Porirua woman searches for man who allegedly threatened her in road rage incident”. The complaint from the victim of the incident contained a number of assertions that Media Council Principles had been infringed in the course of writing the article and quoting her story. The complaint is not upheld.

The Article

2. The article is dated 30 March 2026. Under the heading, the article tells of how a Porirua woman, who was initially named, was left shaken and concerned after an alleged road rage incident.

3. She had observed a car “hoofing” through a busy intersection.  She drove behind the car and was then subjected to aggressive behaviour on the part of the driver, culminating in the driver driving into the middle of the road and forcing her to slam on her brakes and stop. The man jumped out of his car, started yelling and screaming at her, and said something through the car window about fighting. The Complainant put her car in reverse and drove away as quickly as she could. She called the police to make a report and described the person.

4. She is quoted as saying to the reporter that she felt someone had to be held accountable for what happened. A person who had been aggressive to her should be getting help and support because of their abnormal response.

5. She shared news of the incident on Facebook to look for more information, resulting in a person who had been behind her in a vehicle contacting her and trying to help her identify the car type. The other commenters called the incident “terrifying”. The Police were aware of a traffic-related incident.

The Complaint

6. The Complainant said she did not consent to being quoted in any article and that the journalist who spoke to her did not disclose her intentions and misled her about her role. She stated that the journalist said the story was not going anywhere. The reporter said that reporters would often work with the Police to help identify attackers. In breach of that understanding, the reporter had used her quote in the article. In talking to the Complainant, the reporter also had used the “pretense” of working alongside the Police to help them with smaller cases. The Complainant further stated that the details published had put her children at risk. Her name and occupation had been revealed in the initial articles (although when she contacted the NZ Herald to complain, they removed all reference to her name).

7. In subsequent communications in support of the complaint, she identified that she was complaining on the basis of a breach of the Media Council’s privacy Principle. She appreciated that a right to privacy should not interfere with the publication of significant matters of public record or public interest, but that while the incident might have been of public interest regarding public safety, her own privacy had not been protected.

8. She acknowledged that she had herself made the incident public on Facebook and posted it with her name. She said that, however, there was a significant difference between such a post on a local community Facebook page and a nationwide publication.

9. She also complained that the breach of privacy extended to her being identified by her profession and area of residence, both of which were detrimental to her safety and that of her children. She did not consent to being quoted and claimed there had been subterfuge in getting the information, which involved misrepresentation or dishonest means.

10. She complained that no mention of an article was ever discussed with her and that the audio recording would confirm this. If she had been fully informed that her details would be published, she would never have consented to the interview. She repeated a number of times that the information had been gathered under false pretenses and by misrepresentation of the journalist’s intentions. In addition to putting her children and herself at significant risk, she had had a previous bad experience with a person, and she did not want that person to learn of her address, but because of the article, now this person might know of it.

The Response

11. The NZ Herald explained that it contacted the Complainant on 30 March 2026 after a reporter saw that the Complainant had posted on two Facebook groups, detailing a road rage incident in Porirua. The Complainant asked for the public’s assistance with identifying the person involved. This was a post where the Complainant chose to identify herself, and her identity was visible via the posts to a combined number of 25,000 members.

12. The reporter, on contacting the Complainant on Facebook, identified herself as a journalist and asked to speak to the Complainant about what happened. The Complainant asked no clarifying questions and said she was available to speak on the phone that afternoon. There was a transcript of the interview, which the NZ Herald states show that;

  • The reporter explained that it is common for journalists to see accounts of incidents on Facebook that the newsroom thinks need to be brought to the public’s attention, and that publicity can help find witnesses or more information about those incidents.
  • In a similar vein, the reporter referred to times when the Police put out a call for people to come forward with information and how journalists often publish those pleas for assistance.
  • The Complainant asked no clarifying questions and said that “sounds good”.
  • The reporter also checked with the Complainant that her name was the same as listed on Facebook, and the Complainant confirmed that it was.
  • The Complainant provided information about her occupation when asked.
  • At no time prior to the publication did the Complainant say she did not wish to be named or identified.

13. The NZ Herald points out that it is difficult to understand for what purpose the Complainant believed she was providing the information if it was not for publication. There was no evidence of subterfuge as the Complainant alleges. The transcript shows the reporter clearly identifying herself in both conversations with the Complainant.

14. The NZ Herald was sympathetic to the Complainant’s safety concerns, which is why it removed her identifying details promptly. She had not raised privacy concerns during the interview, and the reporter could not have reasonably been aware of them, particularly given the Facebook posting.

The Discussion

15. The Council understands the Complainant’s wish to avoid publicity and protect her family from a person who had behaved in an outrageous and aggressive manner. It can also understand a wider wish on her part not to have her and her family identified through a media article. It understands that at the time she was interviewed she would have been upset and concerned to stop her attacker repeating his terrifying road rage, rather than worrying about what a journalist might do.

16. However, the position outlined by the NZ Herald does not show a reporter breaching any Media Council Principles. The Complainant had effectively invited comment from the public through her Facebook posting, which had already gone out with her name attached to 25,000 people. It had begun “Hey everyone” and set out details of the incident and her name. The potential audience from her posting was considerable. This had led to the reporter becoming aware of the story and contacting the Complainant.

17. The Media Council has two different accounts as to what was said in the phone call between the Complainant and the reporter.  The Complainant plainly feels that she was misled and that the reporter said that the story was not going anywhere and pretended that her goal was to help the Police.  The NZ Herald disagrees and says that it was made clear that the interviewer was a journalist and was plainly going to publish a report.  The NZ Herald says that it has a transcript of the discussion which supports the reporter’s account.  However, the NZ Herald refused to disclose it to the Media Council, so we place no weight on that assertion.

18. We have sympathy for the Complainant given that she was speaking to a reporter after a recent frightening attack, and she was trying to stop it happening again.  We also understand why the reporter might have thought that having identified herself as a reporter she had made it clear that she would publish a report of what she had been told. It is important context that the Complainant did message about the incident on Facebook and gave her name.  The Complainant accepts that this happened. Given the Complainant’s wish to have her attacker identified and her Facebook posting, the NZ Herald could reasonably assume that there was no problem in publishing an article identifying the Complainant.

19. When an incident is publicised in detail on Facebook much of the legitimate expectation of privacy must be lost.  We are not in any way critical of the Complainant who was acting from the best of motives but given the differences as to what was said it may well be that she gained an incorrect impression was of what was going to happen as a result of the interview.  Equally the reporter might have gained the incorrect impression of what the Complainant wanted. We can see how given the Facebook publication; the NZ Herald reporter might have believed that it was in order to publish a story which might lead to the identification of the attacker.  We do not think that it is established when the reporter said that her interest was in working alongside the Police to assist them, she said that in the sense that the reporter had no interest in publishing a story.

20. As to the objection of the Complainant about being named, we note that the name was removed promptly after she contacted the NZ Herald.

21. On an overview it has not been shown that there was subterfuge by the reporter, or that there was a breach of the privacy Principle, (although the apparent misunderstanding shows the importance of reporters making it clear if an interview is to be published).  Here there was a legitimate public interest in the story given that it was about a public attack resulting from road rage and given that the Complainant herself had made the event a public event by her reporting it in a public forum with her name disclosed.

22. In all these circumstances, the complaint is not upheld. There was no breach of privacy (or if there was an arguable breach in relation to her name it was promptly corrected), and it has not been shown that there was subterfuge.

 

Decision: The complaint is not upheld

 

*Name withheld to protect the privacy of the Complainant.

 

Council members considering the complaint were Hon Raynor Asher (Chair), Hank Schouten, Bernadette Courtney, Tim Watkin, Guy MacGibbon, Scott Inglis, Ben France-Hudson, Judi Jones, Alison Thom, Jo Cribb

Scott Inglis declared a conflict of interest and did not vote