Current:Home > MyHead of Radio New Zealand public radio network apologizes for "pro-Kremlin garbage"-LoTradeCoin
Head of Radio New Zealand public radio network apologizes for "pro-Kremlin garbage"
View Date:2024-12-24 09:01:15
Wellington, New Zealand — The head of New Zealand's public radio station apologized Monday for publishing "pro-Kremlin garbage" on its website after more than a dozen wire stories on the Ukraine war were found to have been altered.
Most of the stories, which date back more than a year, were written by the Reuters news agency and were changed at Radio New Zealand to include Russian propaganda. A digital journalist from RNZ has been placed on leave pending the result of an employment investigation.
Paul Thompson, the chief executive of taxpayer-funded RNZ, said it had found issues in 16 stories and was republishing them on its website with corrections and editor's notes. He said he was commissioning an external review of the organization's editing processes.
"It is so disappointing. I'm gutted. It's painful. It's shocking," Thompson said on RNZ's Nine to Noon show. "We have to get to the bottom of how it happened."
Thompson said it had forensically reviewed about 250 stories since first being alerted to the issue Friday and would be reviewing thousands more.
Some of the changes were just a few words and would have been hard to spot by casual readers. Changes included the addition of pro-Kremlin narratives such as "Russia annexed Crimea after a referendum" and that "neo-Nazis had created a threat" to Russia's borders.
The referendum, which was held after Russia seized control of Crimea, was considered a sham and wasn't recognized internationally. Russia for years has also tried to link Ukraine to Nazism, particularly those who have led the government in Kyiv since a pro-Russian leadership was toppled in 2014. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who is Jewish, angrily dismisses those claims.
Former New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark tweeted that she expected better from the public broadcaster.
"Extraordinary that there is so little editorial oversight at Radio New Zealand that someone employed by/contracted to them was able to rewrite online content to reflect pro-Russia stance without senior staff noticing," she wrote. "Accountability?"
Thompson told the Nine to Noon program that typically only one person at RNZ had been required to edit wire service stories because those stories had already been subject to robust editing. But he said RNZ was now adding another layer of editing to such stories.
He said he wanted to apologize to listeners, readers, staff and the Ukrainian community.
"It's so disappointing that this pro-Kremlin garbage has ended up in our stories," Thompson told Nine to Noon. "It's inexcusable."
RNZ began as a radio broadcaster but these days is a multimedia organization and its website ranks among the nation's most viewed news sites.
Reuters did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
- In:
- War
- Misinformation
- Ukraine
- New Zealand
- Russia
- Propaganda
- Vladimir Putin
- Kremlin
veryGood! (6)
Related
- Guns smuggled from the US are blamed for a surge in killings on more Caribbean islands
- Climate talks end on a first-ever call for the world to move away from fossil fuels
- Indhu Rubasingham named as first woman to lead Britain’s National Theatre
- Biden's fundraisers bring protests, a few celebrities, and anxiety for 2024 election
- Man waives jury trial in killing of Georgia nursing student
- US Asians and Pacific Islanders view democracy with concern, AP-NORC/AAPI Data poll shows
- House set for key vote on Biden impeachment inquiry as Republicans unite behind investigation
- Plaintiffs in a Georgia redistricting case are asking a judge to reject new Republican-proposed maps
- Man Found Dead in Tanning Bed at Planet Fitness Gym After 3 Days
- Live Your Best Life With Kourtney Kardashian Barker’s 12 Days of Pooshmas Holiday Mailer
Ranking
- Texas’ 90,000 DACA recipients can sign up for Affordable Care Act coverage — for now
- Black man choked and shocked by police died because of drugs, officers’ lawyers argue at trial
- Are the products in your shopping cart real?
- Amy Robach and T.J. Holmes Are Avoiding Toxic Gossip Amid Their Exes' New Romance
- Jared Goff stats: Lions QB throws career-high 5 INTs in SNF win over Texans
- This 28-year-old from Nepal is telling COP28: Don't forget people with disabilities
- Why are there NFL games on Saturday? How to watch Saturday's slate of games.
- Pew survey: YouTube tops teens’ social-media diet, with roughly a sixth using it almost constantly
Recommendation
-
College Football Fix podcast addresses curious CFP rankings and previews Week 12
-
Judge vacates murder conviction of Chicago man wrongfully imprisoned for 35 years
-
Colorado cattle industry sues over wolf reintroduction on the cusp of the animals’ release
-
German government reaches solution on budget crisis triggered by court ruling
-
Mike Williams Instagram post: Steelers' WR shades Aaron Rodgers 'red line' comments
-
Southern California school janitor who spent years in jail acquitted of child sexual abuse
-
Girl dinner, the Roman Empire: A look at TikTok's top videos, creators and trends of 2023
-
Andre Braugher, Emmy-winning actor who starred in ‘Homicide’ and ‘Brooklyn Nine-Nine,’ dies at 61