Mediawatch: Fugitive father, family and the public interest

"The Marokopa story is attracting a massive audience to our website. It's the biggest story of the year so far," Simon Dallow said on1News on Wednesday.

That was a big call two days after the death of Tom Phillips in the shootout that also seriously wounded a police officer.

Gaza, Israel, Ukraine and the US have all thrown up big stories this year too.

But in terms of traffic and eyeballs for national news outlets, the violent end of the hunt and the recovery of his children was bigger, even though the story drifted in and out of the headlines over four years.

"The outcome nobody wanted," The New Zealand Herald's front page said the next day, echoing police.

ThreeNews opened with the same words, while The Post had "End of the Road" over a full-page aerial photo of the country road where Phillips died.

But while roadspikes and bullets brought the manhunt to an end on Monday, it did not end there for the media.

There will be much more to come in the news about how the family lived on the run for so long, who knew and who helped them.

There will be inquests, inquiries and stories about the recoveries of the injured police officer and the Phillips children in the months and years to come.

There will be TV shows and maybe even movies made about this as well, for audiences foreign and domestic.

'Intrusive'

Stuff's Tony Wall, who had followed the story and the Phillips family more closely than any reporter, said the relatives had become wary of the media - and were wearied by it.

"They've found it very intrusive. They feel that they've been hard done by the police, and the media intrusion as well," he told The Detail.

But he can also understand the public interest in it.

"I've been a journalist for 35 years and this is one of the most memorable, unique stories that I've ever covered," he told The Detail.

"The wilderness, children out in the wild with their father, crimes being committed, bank robberies, shots being fired, money blowing down the street - it's got it all, hasn't it? I mean, you can see the movie or the documentary."

Based on a true story

But the revelation that a documentary approved by Police is already underway sparked strong criticism this week.

Other reporters were reportedly irritated by the sight of producer Dame Julie Christie on the ground behind the cordon that was keeping other media at bay.

Christie and her crew had secured the exclusive permission of the police a long time ago, though evidently not the support of the unhappy Phillips family members.

"Our family is disturbed that anyone would want to profit from our tragedy. At this worst of times, the children's privacy must be protected ... and their ordeal and recovery should not be used for entertainment," Tom Phillips' sister Rozzi Phillips told RNZ.

The mother of the Phillips children also told RNZ's podcast Mata that she does not support or consent to a documentary.

Voices in the media came out against it too.

"It's far too soon. The police still have work to do, the public still need straight answers. And the children? Well, they deserve peace," Newstalk ZB Wellington host told his listeners.

Newstalk ZB Drive host Heather Du Plessis-Allan also called on Police to pull the pin on that documentary deal for the sake of the children.

She argued photos of them should not be published by the media anymore - though the websites of her own station and its stablemate the New Zealand Herald were not holding back on those images.

Dame Julie defended the documentary in a text to Herald Now host Ryan Bridge. She said the production has followed the search for the family, but it would not feature the children - and has abided by strict police rules.

On Thursday TVNZ decided not to use images of the children any longer.

"Now they've been found, we've chosen to respect the children's privacy and their delicate and complicated situation," presenter Simon Dallow told 1 News viewers.

But even those squeamish about the saga being filmed for the screen acknowledged it would probably be popular.

Former journalist Martin van Beynen pushed back in a column for The Press.

"The question should be: is there a particularly good reason why this documentary should not be made?" he wrote.

"A documentary could responsibly look at the police manhunt and investigation, the handling of the final confrontation and the societal factors that may have contributed to the tragedy."

"The process of producing the documentary will require ethical decisions all the way through, with the interests of the children as a significant factor. Good journalists and good documentary makers will get most of those decisions right."

Gagged?

All media were forced to hold back on some details after broadcaster-turned-lawyer Linda Clark, acting on behalf of Tom Phillips' mother, secured an injunction on Monday night.

That prevented the media, police and Oranga Tamariki revealing certain information until Thursday afternoon, when the order was extended again in the High Court until next week.

By that time on Thursday, Stuff had angered the Police by publishing leaked audio of the police radio calls during Monday's final pursuit of Tom Phillips - and running front-page stories under the headline: "Shots fired, shots fired."

Putting that audio online was "grossly irresponsible," the acting Deputy Police Commissioner Jill Rogers told media.

It put at risk inquiries underway and caused "significant distress to the staff involved that night and to their families," she said.

TVNZ's 1 News led with the details of the radio calls - but without playing any of the audio, or naming Stuff as the source.

TVNZ's Simon Mercep, live in Marokopa, said Police Commissioner Richard Chambers was investigating legal action for a potential breach of the Radiocommunications Act 1989

Editor-in-chief Keith Lynch declined to be interviewed but said in a statement: "We resolutely stand by the reporting and the handling of that story."

He said the death of Tom Phillips was "not only of great public interest, but it is of public importance, particularly as speculation about exactly what happened that morning has been circulating on social media."

It's not likely the police would consider social media rumours published elsewhere to be a justification, but in a rebuttal article published on Saturday, Keith Lynch said "there is a larger issue at play ... that is almost always a conflict as official narratives meet journalists doing their jobs" to supplement official accounts.

"Highly crafted statements, whether from police, politicians, or corporations, are necessarily limited. They may be incomplete; they may be shaped to emphasise certain aspects over others. That is precisely why journalism must, and does, probe further," wrote Lynch.

"It is the media's job to ask these questions and to seek answers beyond Police statements.

When this right is publicly undermined ... and threatened with legal consequences, it could be perceived as being designed to have a chilling effect across all media."

But Lynch did not state why Stuff published the actual audio recording featuring the voices of police officers, rather than just reporting what was said and what it showed about the sequence of events.

On Thursday TVNZ's Simon Mercep said police changed their minds about speaking to TVNZ about how information from the investigations leaked out in the first place.

This will not be the only clash over what is considered to be in the public interest and what is in the best interests of the children or indeed the police investigation or for the media - who also have to weigh up what interests the public.

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