She's Gone
Abandoned broadcasting standards and the departure of Maiki Sherman.
She's gone, she's gone
Oh I, oh I
I better learn how to face it
She's gone, and she's gone
Oh I, oh I
I'd pay the devil to replace her
She's gone, and she's gone
Oh why, what went wrong?
Song: Hall and Oates.
The coalition has a massive funding advantage; they’ve given Dirty Politics the green light by abandoning broadcasting standards, and now they’ve removed a thorn in their side in the form of Maiki Sherman, who will probably be replaced by someone more palatable - if TVNZ knows what is good for them.
Broadcasting Standards and satisfying Sean Plunket.
National had two choices: either modernise the BSA to reflect the modern media landscape or ditch the regulations altogether and make it a free-for-all. As you’re aware, they went with plan B.
So RIP the BSA, which National will disestablish, and welcome to the brave new world of self-regulation, where people can say whatever they want. I was someone cynical as to how that would work and posted:
What possible motivation could National and ACT have for abolishing the Broadcasting Standards Authority in an election year?
Peter Thompson, of the Better Public Media organisation, said the move was “politically expedient” and “democratically indefensible.”
“In essence, we’re abandoning enforceable content standards for the media in a digital ecology where many media are struggling to maintain professional standards. I expected a far more fulsome discussion of the options that were under consideration before any decision was taken,” said Thompson.
Trevor commented, “No regulation over what misinformation and lies they may spread,” and Ian predicted, “Lies, bigotry, and disinformation,” ahead.
It’s unclear when this change will take effect, but if people like Sean Plunket and the Tax Avoiders Not-A-Union are pleased by the news, that is worrying enough for me. I can’t imagine the BSA doing anything too controversial while they still exist, such as applying standards to non-traditional platforms. I wrote:
The government is removing standards to make Sean Plunket happy. Think about that for a moment.
The BSA was looking into a complaint about Punket’s Platform, and that’s where this all began after someone took offence at his referring to Māori customs and beliefs as “mumbo jumbo”.
This is the same Sean Plunket who, at the height of the starvation and misery in Gaza, tweeted, “I’m really concerned about the mass outbreak of anorexia in Gaza.”
Certain politicians didn’t take kindly to standards applying to non-traditional sources like Sean’s. Winston Peters described the BSA as “bordering on fascist”, and ACT put forward a bill to abolish the organisation. The ACT party, of course, is now claiming credit for the authorities pending disestablishment.
Sandy wrote, “National’s Dirty Politics has just been legalised.”
Sherman under fire and the return of Dirty Politics.
Maiki Sherman had a falling out with the government after daring as political editor to run an article on the fact that we now have more gang members than police officers, which is not the image of Law and Order that National wants portrayed.
They were furious that their somewhat dubious crime statistics, which used different measures for the National Party and Labour, were not included in the story. This led to GrunterGate after Paul Goldsmith made noises to the chair of TVNZ about it, and Mark Mitchell received an apology.
Having Paul Goldsmith as the Minister of Broadcasting is like putting Andrew Hoggard in charge of animal welfare.
At the time, I thought Sherman was being weak, kowtowing to the government and apologising rather than standing her ground, but I didn’t know that the National Party had secret information about her. Your guess is as good as mine on whether these events were linked, but I can’t imagine any of the parties involved telling us.
From there, things got worse. National were outraged by Maiki’s persistence in chasing the facts about the possible coup against Luxon, who then refused to do his regular interview on the Breakfast programme as some weirdly misplaced revenge.
Of course, the battle between the government and our public broadcasters has been accentuated by Christopher Luxon’s incompetence at facing actual journalists rather than cheerleaders like Mike Hosking.
Chris Bishop wants an inquiry into the costs of the CRL, even though it began all the way back under the Key government and is decidedly in the “too late to do anything about it” category. If Bishop is really interested in saving taxpayer funds, why not hold an inquiry into the money spent on Luxon’s media coaching with Rachel Smalley to determine whether there has been value for money?
Silencing Maiki.
Maiki was suspended from the parliamentary press corps and lost her seat on Luxon’s recent trip to Singapore, but that was not enough. A right-wing blogger published what even Mike Hosking had been unable to report on, namely, a private, off-the-record drink in which slurs were used, which Maiki and others thought they had addressed at the time.
That blogger’s name is Ani O’Brien, and she used to work in Judith Collins’s office as Press Secretary and also for Sean Plunket’s Platform.
Judith might be enjoying a sanitised celebration of her career at the moment before her departure, but no politician in this country’s history has a richer reputation for Dirty Politics, and it is hard to believe that Ani O’Brien was not exposed to the dark arts of the take-down while working for Collins.
Maiki resigns
Then yesterday came the announcement from Maiki, via a statement on X, that she would be leaving TVNZ with immediate effect, following discussions with TVNZ throughout the week, with the brilliant Linda Clark at her side as legal representative.
I didn’t always like Maiki’s reporting, and I have written about that recently, but disagreeing with someone and wanting them to lose their job are two very different things.
Below is the tweet from Maiki yesterday afternoon. To her credit, Sherman has acknowledged her mistake, which is more than the other party involved has done. And who among us can say we have never said something inappropriate behind closed doors while under the influence of alcohol?
Ultimately, Maiki had to go for saying the ‘f’ word at a private social event a year ago, whereas Winston Peters used the word ‘retard’ in parliament in 2024, Brooke van Velden shouted the ‘c’ word in 2025, and Shane Jones constantly uses racial slurs, inside and outside the house, all without consequence.
Being the political editor on our state broadcaster must be a tough balancing act, and someone will complain no matter what you say.
The fact that Maiki has been taken out over an incident from a year ago must be pretty chilling for our state broadcasters in an election year. It also strikes me as a punishment far beyond the crime.
Pete wrote, “She certainly wasn’t my favourite reporter, but I’m admittedly a difficult customer to satisfy, and there are few that I rate highly! But whatever, there’s no way she deserved this. Even if I didn’t always agree with her takes, it was good to have a wahine Māori voice on political discussions.”
Jenny commented, “She was sometimes confrontational, but this latest digging up of old business (which had been resolved at the time!) was a deliberate hit job. The coalition wants right-leaning journos (like Jessica Too Much McKay) to pave the way for them to victory. Why do you think they’ve also canned the BSA? And Luxon won’t be interviewed by Jack Tame or Tova. I feel deeply sorry for Maiki. She didn’t deserve this.”
I feel sorry for her, too. Yes, she was in your face, but that was her job. This Dirty Politics takedown of a senior political reporter by a right-wing blogger who is not held responsible for things she herself says is something we should all be concerned about, even if we didn’t always like Maiki’s reporting.
Have a good Saturday, folks, and take care, all you lovely people.
Ngā mihi,
Nick.
To end today, here’s Daryl Hall and Rob Thomas with She’s Gone.
Every day in every way, the Labour/Green Fixit List gets longer and longer. So much work for them to repair the CoC 's damage to Aotearoa.
What’s laughable is how the right wing trogladytes think our media is “left wing” and biased in favour of Labour/Greens/TPM. That's why Seymour, Goldsmith, Winston et al are able to get away with playing to an audience who believe every bit of everything they (and Hosking, Plunket, Heather DA et al) say. I didn't like Maiki's commentary sometimes either, but a lot of her performance over the last year now makes sense with this hanging over her. Then you have our PM refusing to turn up to TVNZ Breakfast or Q & A - I mean refusing to turn up to our State owned TV network? What the actual? Or Seymour threatening our State owned radio RNZ with changing the Board and criticising John Campbell, which is well outside of his lane. This is dangerous stuff.