When news leaked last year that Matthew Hooton was being considered for a seat on the RNZ board, my first reaction was: of course he is. The fit wasn’t quite right but the impulse behind it was entirely him.
So the announcement earlier this week that Matthew would be the next Editor-in-Chief of The Post and the Sunday Star-Times didn’t surprise me. In fact, it was exactly the type of provocation that has been Matthew’s trademark ever since I've known him.
But this is more than just a simple provocation. Stuff’s proprietor, Sinead Boucher, has not just hired an editor. She has bought an event.
I was one of 10 or 12 school friends invited to Matthew’s 12th birthday - it would have been 1983 or 84, and rather than the usual 12th birthday, Matthew’s father took us to a very good Chinese restaurant in central Auckland for lunch. Up until then, my dining experiences had been Pizza Hut and Cobb & Co so this birthday had a genuine shock factor. As I read the menu, I saw shark fin soup which I couldn’t help but query … “yes, it’s excellent - you should order it!” snapped back the birthday boy.
Matthew’s father spent most of the lunch grinning broadly and occasionally chuckling to himself as his dozen young charges explored Chinese cuisine for the first time.
Fast forward to our early 20s and I was wandering around the Auckland University library when I saw Matthew at a desk.
“How’s it going?” I asked. “I’m dropping out ...” shot back the response.
All I could manage was a stunned, “What?”
“I’m going to write speeches for Lockwood Smith ... I’m going to Wellington …”
“What about your law degree?”
“Not going to finish it … I’m going to Parliament.”
Wow, I thought as I wandered back to my desk. I would have been less shocked if he had told me he was joining a monastery … dropping out of law school … holy sh*t.
Which brings us to his latest move - one that, in typical fashion, seems to have taken shape in a matter of weeks. When I had lunch with Matthew at the start of June, he’d been back from teaching in Mongolia for a fortnight. Sinead Boucher has since said Matthew was only approached a month ago with the help of a mutual friend.
Matthew, of course, didn’t give the slightest hint that anything was afoot during our lunch. Instead, he listened with great pleasure as another old school friend retold the story of Matthew winning the election to become Auckland Grammar’s student representative in 1989 by delivering a speech to a full school assembly in which he attacked the Deputy Headmaster to his face - in front of the legendary Head, D.J. Graham.
“Well it would have been pointless saying that everything was fine,” he said. “That’s not what the school wanted to hear.”
Matthew’s audience has grown significantly since his school days, but his instinct remains the same: locate the point of tension, say what others are not saying, exaggerate for effect, and force the room to respond.
Those are not conventional editorial qualifications. But they are not irrelevant either.
Indeed, it seems that these are the attributes that Sinead Boucher has valued over orthodox newsroom experience when she made her decision. A conventional appointment would have signalled continuity. Matthew’s appointment, by contrast, has grabbed attention and signalled an intention to raise the temperature in an attempt to make The Post unmissable.
I posted on X earlier this week that the hire was astute but not without its risks.
I also compared it with the appointments of former Conservative Ministers George Osborne as the editor of the Evening Standard between 2017-2020, and Michael Gove as the editor of the Spectator since 2024. Both were hired by unconventional proprietors, the Russian oligarch Alexander Lebedev and the British hedge fund manager Paul Marshall, respectively, to add intellectual heft, profile and political electricity to mastheads competing in crowded and challenging markets.
There is a more aggressive American version of the same story in the appointment of Bari Weiss, a former opinions editor at The New York Times, as the editor-in-chief at CBS News after the acquisition last year of Paramount by Larry and David Ellison’s Skydance. But that comparison only goes so far. The CBS appointment sits inside a much larger American culture-war and ownership story. Boucher’s move looks less ideological than commercial and editorial.
The risks however are obvious. Matthew has never been a conventional journalist. He is a political operator, commentator, lobbyist, strategist and provocateur. Those skills may make him a formidable editor. They may also make him a combustible one.
The appointment of Luke Malpass as associate editor may therefore be more important than it first appears. One way of reading the new structure is that Matthew supplies profile, judgment, aggression and strategic intelligence from Auckland, while Luke supplies newsroom continuity, editorial ballast and Wellington execution. If that is the model, it could work.
However, one cannot fail to note that Matthew will be the fifth editor of The Post since Boucher acquired Stuff in 2020. After inheriting Eric Janssen with the acquisition, Boucher has appointed Anna Fifield, Caitlin Cherry and, most recently, Tracy Watkins to the top job.
This is, therefore, a clear change in strategy. Boucher is no longer merely appointing experienced newsroom leaders. She appears to be trying to create a sharper identity.
It is unquestionably a counter-intuitive hire that has perplexed some journalists but which has drawn praise from other quarters including from Simplicity’s Sam Stubbs who recently collaborated closely with Boucher on Stuff’s Life Savings campaign. Stubbs wrote on LinkedIn yesterday:
“The 4th estate is called that for a reason. It is critical to our democracy and values. And all the more so when hundreds of billions of our KiwiSaver savings will be invested by others, who need to be held to account. So enquiring minds and fearless commentary should be applauded, whomever you vote for. Bravo.”
Bravo indeed. The interesting point is not simply that Stubbs approved. It is that the appointment has been welcomed by precisely the kind of business and policy audience The Post is courting.
But under Boucher, editors of The Post have had tenures similar in length to English Premier League football managers. Only time will tell whether Matthew’s tenure will last two months, two years or longer.
I wish him the best. If it works, The Post will become much harder to ignore. If it doesn’t, it will at least be informative, educational and entertaining in equal measure.
Lawyer and writer Philip Crump explores political, legal and cultural issues facing New Zealand. Sometimes known as Thomas Cranmer. This article was published HERE
I was one of 10 or 12 school friends invited to Matthew’s 12th birthday - it would have been 1983 or 84, and rather than the usual 12th birthday, Matthew’s father took us to a very good Chinese restaurant in central Auckland for lunch. Up until then, my dining experiences had been Pizza Hut and Cobb & Co so this birthday had a genuine shock factor. As I read the menu, I saw shark fin soup which I couldn’t help but query … “yes, it’s excellent - you should order it!” snapped back the birthday boy.
Matthew’s father spent most of the lunch grinning broadly and occasionally chuckling to himself as his dozen young charges explored Chinese cuisine for the first time.
Fast forward to our early 20s and I was wandering around the Auckland University library when I saw Matthew at a desk.
“How’s it going?” I asked. “I’m dropping out ...” shot back the response.
All I could manage was a stunned, “What?”
“I’m going to write speeches for Lockwood Smith ... I’m going to Wellington …”
“What about your law degree?”
“Not going to finish it … I’m going to Parliament.”
Wow, I thought as I wandered back to my desk. I would have been less shocked if he had told me he was joining a monastery … dropping out of law school … holy sh*t.
Which brings us to his latest move - one that, in typical fashion, seems to have taken shape in a matter of weeks. When I had lunch with Matthew at the start of June, he’d been back from teaching in Mongolia for a fortnight. Sinead Boucher has since said Matthew was only approached a month ago with the help of a mutual friend.
Matthew, of course, didn’t give the slightest hint that anything was afoot during our lunch. Instead, he listened with great pleasure as another old school friend retold the story of Matthew winning the election to become Auckland Grammar’s student representative in 1989 by delivering a speech to a full school assembly in which he attacked the Deputy Headmaster to his face - in front of the legendary Head, D.J. Graham.
“Well it would have been pointless saying that everything was fine,” he said. “That’s not what the school wanted to hear.”
Matthew’s audience has grown significantly since his school days, but his instinct remains the same: locate the point of tension, say what others are not saying, exaggerate for effect, and force the room to respond.
Those are not conventional editorial qualifications. But they are not irrelevant either.
Indeed, it seems that these are the attributes that Sinead Boucher has valued over orthodox newsroom experience when she made her decision. A conventional appointment would have signalled continuity. Matthew’s appointment, by contrast, has grabbed attention and signalled an intention to raise the temperature in an attempt to make The Post unmissable.
I posted on X earlier this week that the hire was astute but not without its risks.
I also compared it with the appointments of former Conservative Ministers George Osborne as the editor of the Evening Standard between 2017-2020, and Michael Gove as the editor of the Spectator since 2024. Both were hired by unconventional proprietors, the Russian oligarch Alexander Lebedev and the British hedge fund manager Paul Marshall, respectively, to add intellectual heft, profile and political electricity to mastheads competing in crowded and challenging markets.
There is a more aggressive American version of the same story in the appointment of Bari Weiss, a former opinions editor at The New York Times, as the editor-in-chief at CBS News after the acquisition last year of Paramount by Larry and David Ellison’s Skydance. But that comparison only goes so far. The CBS appointment sits inside a much larger American culture-war and ownership story. Boucher’s move looks less ideological than commercial and editorial.
The risks however are obvious. Matthew has never been a conventional journalist. He is a political operator, commentator, lobbyist, strategist and provocateur. Those skills may make him a formidable editor. They may also make him a combustible one.
The appointment of Luke Malpass as associate editor may therefore be more important than it first appears. One way of reading the new structure is that Matthew supplies profile, judgment, aggression and strategic intelligence from Auckland, while Luke supplies newsroom continuity, editorial ballast and Wellington execution. If that is the model, it could work.
However, one cannot fail to note that Matthew will be the fifth editor of The Post since Boucher acquired Stuff in 2020. After inheriting Eric Janssen with the acquisition, Boucher has appointed Anna Fifield, Caitlin Cherry and, most recently, Tracy Watkins to the top job.
This is, therefore, a clear change in strategy. Boucher is no longer merely appointing experienced newsroom leaders. She appears to be trying to create a sharper identity.
It is unquestionably a counter-intuitive hire that has perplexed some journalists but which has drawn praise from other quarters including from Simplicity’s Sam Stubbs who recently collaborated closely with Boucher on Stuff’s Life Savings campaign. Stubbs wrote on LinkedIn yesterday:
“The 4th estate is called that for a reason. It is critical to our democracy and values. And all the more so when hundreds of billions of our KiwiSaver savings will be invested by others, who need to be held to account. So enquiring minds and fearless commentary should be applauded, whomever you vote for. Bravo.”
Bravo indeed. The interesting point is not simply that Stubbs approved. It is that the appointment has been welcomed by precisely the kind of business and policy audience The Post is courting.
But under Boucher, editors of The Post have had tenures similar in length to English Premier League football managers. Only time will tell whether Matthew’s tenure will last two months, two years or longer.
I wish him the best. If it works, The Post will become much harder to ignore. If it doesn’t, it will at least be informative, educational and entertaining in equal measure.
Lawyer and writer Philip Crump explores political, legal and cultural issues facing New Zealand. Sometimes known as Thomas Cranmer. This article was published HERE
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