The one detail 1News left out
- Grant McLachlan
- 1 hour ago
- 3 min read
An undeclared conflict of interest doesn't stay hidden. It just waits for someone else to expose it — and turns the story into something else entirely.
Act deputy leader Nicole McKee was quick to point it out. Others turned it into the story.
When Labour MP Rachel Brooking criticised Act's newly unveiled cancer centre policy on 1News, the same item featured her husband, oncologist Professor Chris Jackson, commenting on the policy's merits. Nobody told viewers they were married.
Act's “Starship for Cancer” proposal, a $2 billion plan for comprehensive cancer campuses in Auckland and Christchurch, was always going to attract scrutiny. It deserved to be tested on its substance, not undermined by a broadcaster's omission.
With the election now less than three months away, any criticism of a governing coalition party needs to avoid this kind of controversy. It becomes the story, rather than the point the expert was making.
1News knew who Professor Jackson was. Labour knew. Act knew. Few viewers would have. That is precisely the point. Jackson may be an expert, but the fact that he is married to a Labour MP publicly criticising a rival party's policy is relevant to know.
It may have been an oversight. Jackson has criticised other governments before, including a Labour-led one. But the oversight still leaves the wrong impression. Viewers have a right to know whether expert opinion is independent, appears to be independent, or, where a conflict exists, that it has been declared so the opinion can be weighed accordingly.
Viewers have a right to know whether expert opinion is independent — or, if a conflict exists, that it has been declared.
I have known Rachel and Chris since our university days. Rachel's father was my history professor. Integrity, both academic and professional, matters to them. 1News exposed both of them to unnecessary criticism, because the onus to declare the connection sits with the broadcaster under New Zealand's broadcasting standards.
Newspapers have published dozens of my columns on a wide range of subjects. I have declared everything from being a University of Otago alumnus, to a descendant of early settlers, a former staffer for National and Act (even when I criticise them), a town planner, a designer of an alternative national flag, and a trained lawyer, even though I have never practised. Declaring those connections openly has, on occasion, given critics a target. But there is nothing worse than the backlash that follows from not declaring them.
Whether 1News overlooked Professor Jackson's position or judged the connection not worth mentioning, the effect was identical. It exposed him to criticism he did not need, at a moment when his substantive point deserved to be scrutinised on its merits. He is based in Dunedin, and Act's cancer centre would concentrate specialist treatment in Auckland and Christchurch — a fact worth debating honestly, on its merits, rather than through a distraction of the broadcaster's own making.
The worse kind of commentary comes from people who position themselves to benefit in undeclared ways. Someone who calls themselves an “independent financial adviser” while holding strong ties to Act and the Taxpayers' Union, then spends an election year criticising rival parties, is being nefarious rather than independent. A senior lawyer commenting on proposed legislation should declare any connection to the Free Speech Union or to the owners of the newspaper publishing them. A lobbyist should say plainly whether their commentary reflects their own view or that of a client or donor.
The worst sin of all is making political statements before declaring an intention to stand as a candidate.
None of this means experts should be silenced, or that family connections disqualify them from speaking. Jackson is one of the country's most respected oncologists, and his clinical view on where cancer care should be delivered carries real weight. The problem was never that he spoke. It was that the audience was not given the one fact that would have let them judge his words in full context.
Declaring a conflict does not weaken an argument. If anything, it strengthens it, because the audience can test the substance on its own terms rather than stumbling on the connection later and wondering what else was left out. RNZ's article is case and point. Withholding it, even unintentionally, does the opposite, as in the case of 1News' article. It hands ammunition to anyone looking to dismiss the argument rather than engage with it — and in an election campaign, that ammunition gets used within hours.
Broadcasters, editors and commentators all make daily judgment calls about what context matters. Getting it wrong once is an oversight. Making a habit of leaving out inconvenient connections, particularly this close to an election, is something else entirely.
An undeclared conflict of interest doesn't stay hidden. It just waits for someone else to find it — and by then, it is their story, not yours.
