Abuse and neglect that went on for decades under the radar was front-and-centre in the headlines this week after the Royal Commission's report on abuse in state care came out. Mediawatch asks one reporter if the media did enough to lift the lid? And what about those claims that well-known names involved in abuse have yet to be aired?
The Post's front page the day after the report was made public. Photo: RNZ Mediawatch
"It should be compulsory reading for anyone that wants to work with children, anyone that wants to work with vulnerable people, and anyone that wants to run for a position of power in this country," ThreeNews senior political reporter Jenna Lynch told viewers at 6pm on Wednesday.
The final report of the Inquiry into Abuse in State care had been made public just a couple of hours earlier.
The report is a hard read - and also a long one at over 3000 pages culled from evidence that weighed over 14kg.
From 4pm on Wednesday the findings dominated the news bulletins, websites and the next day's papers.
Reporters eager to hear from survivors lined up to speak to them.
But it hasn't always been that way - either during the six years of the royal commission inquiry, or the decades that preceded it in which so many people suffered abuse and neglect.
- Hear Mediawatch's report on the issue here.
The headline figure of 200,000 people was stark - but not new. Four years ago the inquiry's interim report said the estimate that a quarter of a million young people were abused may be conservative.
The minister now in charge of the government response, Erica Stanford, told TVNZ many of those abused in state care understandably had "zero faith in the state now".
But what about the Fourth Estate?
"Thank you for all you guys have done to cover it. That's what helps us get to the places we're at now," abuse survivor and advocate Ken Clearwater told Checkpoint host Susana Lei'ataua soon after the reception at Parliament.
Clearwater subsequently also told me the media had been crucial in lifting the lid in specific cases.
One of several reports commissioned by the Inquiry - Stolen Lives, Marked Souls [PDF] - shows Christchurch daily The Press reported allegations and evidence of abuse and cover-ups by the Order of St John of God more than 30 years ago - and named names.
The paper also reported on subsequent deals made to silence victims - which complicated their own reporting a lot.
After the Boston Globe's Spotlight revelations in the US 10 years later, The Press further investigated the Catholic Church's handling of abuse by its clergy and revealed further cases by the St John of God brothers.
It was journalism that divided opinion in the city.
"Is the secular media guilty of sensationalising a relatively small problem?" Press journalist Cate Brett asked in 2002.
She said the Vatican itself had by then acknowledged it was no mere media frenzy. Those under suspicion had been dealt with behind closed doors - if at all - and often returned to ministry in another place.
"There is - as yet - no real indication of a willingness to even begin to discuss the systemic and cultural issues which may underlie abuse by Catholic clergy," wrote Brett, who went on to edit the Sunday Star-Times and is now director of the Office of the Chief Justice.
Taking on the state
Kohitere Boy's Training Centre in Levin was one of the main welfare institutions that has been the subject of complaints. Photo: Aaron Smale/RNZ
The report out this week said bluntly the state "attempted to cover up the abuse at boarding schools, borstals, boot camps, psychiatric institutions, and foster homes".
"Political and public service leaders spent time, energy and taxpayer resources to hide, cover up and then legally fight survivors to protect the potential perceived costs to the Crown, and their own reputations," it said.
It pointed to officials and individuals responsible down the years - but not always by name
The Spinoff's Joel McManus listed as many people as he could identify from references in the report - including former prime ministers, ministers of health and social welfare, senior civil and religious leaders the way up to archbishops, cardinals and the pope.
What next?
This week the New Zealand Herald's Audrey Young pointed out that apologising is always awkward for a government - but it is also the easy part.
The Herald's Derek Cheng said fulfilling some of inquiry's recommendations may require "some sort of Houdini act" given the government's toughening up on gangs, Oranga Tamariki and the definition and role of te Tiriti o Waitangi.
"How would he justify a new system of state care focused on keeping children at risk with their wider whānau, while repealing a legal provision - section 7AA- aiming to do just that?" he asked.
The media will analyse the government's actions against what the inquiry has laid bare - and the 138 recommendations in its report.
But some media personalities who've endorsed tougher justice and social welfare policies and a 'one size fits all' approach probably won't be called to account in the same way.
Another journalist who has lifted the lid on abuse in care in recent years is Aaron Smale, who is Ngāti Porou and was adopted and raised outside of his natural whānau.
In 2016 RNZ published his investigative report Justice Delayed, Justice Denied which revealed parts of a critical report calling for an inquiry were held back from public release.
He's done a PhD on Māori children in state custody since then - and in 2019 he told the inquiry itself the media is still yet to grasp the significance of the impact of state abuse, particularly on Māori.
After ongoing abuse at Dilworth School in Auckland was revealed by the New Zealand Herald in 2020, Smale told Mediawatch what the state was up to was the big picture .
"I'm not for a moment diminishing the importance of covering what's happened at Dilworth. Go for it. But it just seems to me that we've had this issue of state abuse out in the open… and It just raises some uncomfortable questions about what it is that they are giving priority to."
In a newsroom.co.nz piece this week Smale said information about what was going on goes right back to the 1970s when advocates exposed abuse in places like Owairaka and Lake Alice.
"There were also legal challenges from the victims from the 1990s onwards which led to media exposure intermittently for years," he noted, but coverage was not sustained.
"I didn't "break" the story," Smale wrote this week in a 1News piece on links between state care and gangs.
"It had been hiding in plain sight for decades, periodically rearing its head in public and media discourse, only to be quietened down again. The tactics in silencing the victims had been so successful that they led to the victims effectively silencing themselves. Until now," he said.
Aaron Smale, speaking as a witness at the Royal Commission of Inquiry Photo: screenshot / Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care
Did the wall-to-wall coverage from Wednesday, and the overdue acknowledgement of survivors in the media, feel like a vindication?
"Personally, it was a moment of vindication, but it was more like vindication for the victims because they've been telling the truth," Smale told Mediawatch.
"As media we get information a little bit ahead of everyone else under embargo, but there was a press release from from [Prime Minister Christopher] Luxon and that was the moment it really hit me," he said.
"I was very impressed. And you know, I'm not easily impressed in this area."
"It seemed to have come with a lot of thought and heart."
"A personal hero of mine is Oliver Sutherland, a scientist by trade who somehow found the time to be an for kids that were in the system back then in the 1970s. He was very, very good at putting that information out and through the media.
Photo: RNZ / Samuel Rillstone
"You could say what Oliver was exposing back in the 1970s should have stopped there. Instead, it rolled on for another 50 years. There's a whole lot of people in the media… kind of missing in action."
"Moana Jackson was fighting this for his whole life, really. His focus was on the criminal justice system but he was showing those connections. So it's those people that really need to be recognised in terms of the media coverage."
"There's been intermittent media coverage and individual journalists taking an interest but in the grind of daily news most editors can't tolerate a journalist being on one story for too long."
"Before I even had anything published, I went back and looked at some of the coverage. There was some very good coverage but then it would fade off.
"If you find a victim and they tell you their story, what is probably just as important is to show what happened to them back when they were children. What's happening to them now that they're adults, what's the response of this institution now to what's coming to the surface."
"There needs to be some serious self-reflection In media companies. If a journalist breaks open some kind of story like this, do we just leave that journalist to try and carry that load alone? We need a team on this, not just one person."
"There's been an inclination to have special investigative reporters. Great journalists, many of them, but it puts it in this little category that only those journalists can do this work."
"An that's our job. We're just in this quick turnaround kind of culture… and these kinds of stories can just sort of fly under the radar for decades, pop up every now and then - and then disappear."
"It's all very well to treat this as if it's some kind of past issue. But there's people in Wellington right now who have been complicit, directly involved in what can only be called a cover-up. They are in these reports. It's all through the footnotes."
Well-known names under suspicion?
Two days after the report, major news outlets were headlining a small section of the inquiry's report about claims "central government" figures were involved in the abuse of children.
"While the evidence that the inquiry received is deeply suspicious, the inquiry is unable to make a finding that organised abuse of children and young people in state care occurred by groups of people in public positions of influence."
The PM told reporters people with information about this should come forward to police.
Aaron Smale told Mediawatch he was surprised to see that in the report - but not surprised by the claims.
"It could be debated whether it was wise to publish that, thereby creating speculation. But it obviously thought it significant enough to put basic details of that investigation on the public record," he wrote in newsroom.co.nz.
"I'm aware of the same allegations and the same names from a number of sources. Like the royal commission, I have not currently got enough evidence to prove to the high legal standard required to publish.
"My inquiries are ongoing. There is a bit of a problem here, because… the police would be tasked with investigating Many of these victims simply don't trust anyone, least of all the police.
"From a media point of view, I've tried to create the space where victims can be heard. And the royal commission has done the same. But there is still deep suspicion amongst many victims of anything to do with any kind of Crown institution."
Can the media help with that?
"Possibly. I did the Ochberg Fellowship at the Dart Center at Columbia University, all about reporting on trauma. Dealing with traumatised people is something the media has not really well versed in or well trained in. There are individual journalists I know who are very good at it, but as an industry, we aren't - yet."
