A masterclass in damage control, and Labour's PR flunkies didn't have to lift a finger

It has been fascinating to observe the media’s treatment of allegations against Labour leader Chris Hipkins by his ex-wife.

The first thing to note was the uniformity of the coverage. It was as if the political editors of the mainstream news outlets hurriedly got their heads together when the news broke yesterday and decided on a common approach.

The stories were all brief and couched in “nothing to see here, folks” language. They all made the same points: that the claims were “unsubstantiated” and that no one was accusing Hipkins of doing anything unlawful.

All the reports focused on Hipkins’ denials of his former wife’s damning claims. But crucially, not one explained what the allegations were. So the public were left in the dark.

Labour’s media team couldn’t have asked for a more obliging response. It has been a masterclass in damage control, and for all we know the Labour PR apparatchiks didn’t have to do a thing.

The stories also emphasised that the private Facebook post by Hipkins’ ex-wife, Jade Paul, had since been taken down – the clear implication being that at the very least she had had second thoughts, or that her claims were defamatory or untrue.

She has now said, however, that she stands by her post, which appears to have been triggered by a Labour Party election policy statement that she regarded as hypocritical.

“So many women are hurt by high profile men who just do what they want with no consequences,” Paul wrote in a subsequent post.

“We get told all of the time that if we speak out then our lives will be ruined, our kids will be impacted. We get labelled as ‘crazy’ or defamatory when we tell the truth.

“Today I have had enough.”

So what are Jade Paul’s claims? Essentially, that Hipkins treated her cruelly – for example, leaving her to drive herself home in a bloodied hospital gown after she miscarried because he was too busy to visit her and bring her clothes, and refusing to help after their brief marriage ended when she couldn’t afford groceries, saying their two children were her responsibility in the weeks she had them.

If true, the allegations are a damaging reflection on Hipkins’ character. In a brief statement, he rejected them “entirely” and said he didn’t intend to make any further comment. The stories also reported that Hipkins was taking legal advice (subtext: “I am the wronged party here”).

Will that be enough to settle public questions about the man who wants to be our next prime minister? I don’t think so.

The tone of the media coverage was summed up by a headline on the RNZ website: “Chris Hipkins’ ex-wife makes series of unsubstantiated claims about him”. It accompanied a relatively brief story by RNZ’s deputy political editor Craig McCulloch*.

It was a very peculiar headline in which the key word was “unsubstantiated”. It’s a word I don’t think I’ve seen before in hundreds of stories reporting accusations against politicians.

It neatly shifted the focus from the claims themselves to the fact that they were “unsubstantiated”. This could have been read as meaning they had no basis in fact (which is in itself unsubstantiated), or at the very least that they lacked credibility.

But “claims” are, by their very nature, unsubstantiated, and the media are not in the habit of inserting this loaded word in stories about allegations relating to politicians. Was this a case of RNZ acting on over-cautious legal advice, or did it decide the claims couldn’t possibly be truthful, that Hipkins’ reputation had been unfairly tarnished and it was the media’s duty to protect him by shutting the story down?

Here’s another thing to consider: would RNZ, and the media at large, have been so deferential if the accused politician had been, say, David Seymour? Hmm.

The claims against Hipkins presented the media with a crucial test. Public trust in journalists, as measured by opinion polls, has never been lower. That low level of trust is at least partially attributable to the public perception that journalists overwhelmingly lean left and that they give politicians of the left a free pass.

This perception was cemented during Jacinda Ardern’s prime ministership, when Beehive press conferences were an exercise in sycophancy and voices of dissent against the government were marginalised, ignored and shunned as pariahs. Bizarrely, National in opposition was subjected to harsher scrutiny – some of it merciless – than the party that was in power.

The government has since changed, and with it the tone of political reportage. Journalists and broadcasters who were obsequious toward the former government are notable for having magically rediscovered their killer instincts. Government politicians and policies are subjected to a level of aggressive scrutiny that was markedly absent during the Ardern years.

The disclosures by Hipkins’ ex-wife gave the media a chance to redeem themselves – to restore public faith in the willingness of political journalists to apply the blowtorch to the left as well as the right. And they blew it.

They could have reported the nature of the claims against Hipkins while making it clear they were unsubstantiated. That’s how the media in previous times would have dealt with the story.

There is a crucial matter of public interest here, and I don’t mean mere idle curiosity about the private lives of party leaders.

The accusations against Hipkins go to the heart of his character. New Zealanders are entitled to know what sort of man is putting himself forward to lead the country.

The claims against him may be false or unfair, but in other comparable countries – Australia, Britain and the US – you can be sure they would have been all over the front page. The public would have been told what he was accused of, Hipkins would have been given ample opportunity to defend himself and in due course the court of public opinion would have reached a verdict.

But no, not in New Zealand. Here the media try to extinguish the story as a non-event and expect the public to accept soothing assurances by a leading female Labour MP, Barbara Edmonds, that “marriage break ups are hard”, the implication being that Jade Paul has lashed out in anger because she’s hurting.

The tone of Edmonds’ statement struck me as patronising. It also raised an interesting question about Labour Party feminists and their solidarity, or lack of it, with a woman who claims to have been badly treated. Perhaps loyalty to the party takes priority over all other considerations.

I don’t know whether Jade Paul’s claims are true, although to me they have the ring of truth. They don’t strike me as the sort of stories someone would make up. But the bottom line is that the public are entitled to know what she has alleged, and it’s the media’s duty to tell them.

*The original version of this post wrongly described Craig McCulloch as RNZ's political editor.