John McLean: Sherman Tanks......

But still snares lamestream media’s Political Journalist of the Year award

Maiki Sherman has left Television New Zealand. And not before time. Her last day as TVNZ’s Chief Political Editor was 8 May. She claims she resigned, but it’s not clear that’s true. Almost certainly, she’s been paid a handsomely dollop of cash out of TVNZ’s trough in connection with her exit.

Matua Kahurangi: Maiki Sherman resigns - when did words become career-ending?

Now, let me start by saying this. I have never been the biggest fan of Maiki Sherman. Like much of the mainstream media in New Zealand, her reporting has always leaned heavily to the far-left, and there were plenty of nights watching TVNZ where it felt like centre-right politicians were being hunted down over the most trivial nonsense imaginable.

Perspective with Heather du Plessis-Allan: The media is under scrutiny and we've had it coming

If it’s not already obvious to you, the fact that Maiki Sherman has lost her job should now make it very clear: the media—especially the state broadcasters, both of them—are about to find out what it means not just to make and report the news but to be the news.

Just look at what’s happened this week alone. And this is only a sample—this has been building for some time.

Karl du Fresne: Why the Maiki Sherman-Lloyd Burr incident is a matter of public interest

A good and respected friend – like me, a former newspaper editor – takes the view that the furore over TVNZ political editor Maiki Sherman’s alleged verbal abuse of Stuff press gallery journalist Lloyd Burr is not news; that at best, it would warrant a mention in a gossip column.

Fair enough, but I differ. If the high-profile journalists who provide the public with political news and comment are bitchy, entitled, childish, over-stimulated and perhaps inclined to run off at the mouth after a few drinks at the end of a long day, I think we deserve to know. That knowledge is potentially very helpful in judging how much notice we should take of them, or indeed whether we should take any notice of them at all.

Perspective with Heather du Plessis-Allan: TVNZ crossed a line with their handling of Maiki Sherman

From the commentary I’m seeing online, it’s clear there is a perception that no one reported on the Maiki Sherman revelation because the media were protecting one of their own.

I can tell you that perception is true. It’s not imagined - it is true.

Peter Williams: Is this the age of Substack?

If mainstream media won’t report on their own then others will have to

The most significant aspect of the Maiki Sherman affair is that it became public because a Substack writer made it so.

David Seymour made his distaste for the year-long media silence on the matter very obvious by calling April 28th “Ani O’Brien Day.” This was in honour of the woman who wrote an online expose about how the TVNZ Political Editor had homophobically insulted another political reporter, her one time TV3 colleague Lloyd Burr, now at Stuff, at a function in the Finance Minister’s office in May last year.

Ani O'Brien: Unreported for nearly a year - media misconduct in Parliament

Inside the Press Gallery: power, silence, and the accountability gap in New Zealand media

On the evening of 13 May 2025, Finance Minister Nicola Willis hosted a pre-Budget drinks event in her parliamentary office. The event appears, in official records, as “EVENT: Press Gallery… Parliament… Invited Guests” at 6pm in her ministerial diary. It was intended to be a fairly standard engagement. These gatherings are a familiar ritual; relatively informal, off-camera, and populated by the country’s most senior political journalists alongside ministers and staff. They exist in the grey space between professional obligation and social familiarity and are a mechanism through which relationships are built and managed.

JC: Coughlan Spins a Web on Poll Numbers

The spurious 1News Verian Poll produced results of orgasmic heights of delight to journalists on the left. Maiki Sherman appeared briefly to swap her priceless Maori heritage for Irish as she jigged around our television screens while spouting as much blarney as she could think of. It was an infantile example of just how far the standard of journalism in this country has sunk. One News is the leader in this exercise of blatant bias and mischief, with Stuff and others of the mainstream media not far behind. Thomas Coughlan is another who no doubt found the results of the poll to his liking.

JC: The ‘Pull the Other’ One Poll

It is my understanding that at 6 o’clock each night Television One presents an hour of news. Anyone tuning in at 6pm on Monday to watch would have needed to check their timepieces. The lead story on their poll was more akin to a documentary than a news item. I didn’t watch the full 15-minute episode as the results of the poll were so out of kilter with reality to make it laughable. They might have been reflective of the channel’s nightly news narrative but in no way did they mirror the thinking of those who elected this Government.