ROSEMARY ABBOTT | National
RED ALERT
The brains trust at TVNZ management has introduced a new Traffic Light System designed to help HR staff determine which internal crisis is currently most urgent.
It comes after today’s allegations of senior Political journalist Maiki Sherman allegedly using a homophobic slur aimed at Stuff’s Lloyd Burr. While the traffic light system is meant to help executives determine what needs the most attention, it would appear everything is already red.
The move follows a series of recent challenges for TVNZ, including heightened political scrutiny after National Party MPs raised concerns over the conduct of TVNZ reporters in Parliament corridors, describing one interaction as “aggressive” and “door-adjacent.”
Separately, the Prime Minister’s office has confirmed Christopher Luxon will not be appearing on TVNZ’s Breakfast programme in the near future.
An unnamed TVNZ executive spoke to our reporters.
“This is a sophisticated prioritisation tool,” one senior executive said. “Not every crisis is equal. Some are red, others are… slightly more red. To be honest, everything just seems to be coming up red. Today’s one with Maiki should really be a blinking red with a siren!”
“Previously we had chaos,” they said. “Now we have colour-coded chaos. That’s a step forward at least. A small win for us, we sort of need a win.”
TVNZ management also explained that some of the journalists in the newsroom were being asked to help HR staff out due to the fact the HR department was becoming more busy than the actual newsroom.
“HR’s now our busiest department by a distance,” one insider said. “There was a moment this week where HR had more ‘live situations’ than the newsroom, which is impressive, in a concerning way.
In attempts to interview Maiki Sherman, our reporters were just shouted at from a distance and couldn’t publish the comments.
More to come.
