A Christchurch city councillor has accused The Press of failing to disclose information in a Saturday article leaving readers without ‘important’ context during an election campaign.

The criticism comes just days after the Media Council upheld a complaint, from the Deputy Prime Minister’s office, on a separate story, ruling the paper breached principles on accuracy, fairness and balance, as well as conflicts of interest.

The Saturday story focused on documents Christchurch man Allan Taunt obtained under the Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act about a 2022 Environment Canterbury election.

Among them was a letter of support for candidate Lindon Boyce signed “Phil M” which Boyce later admitted he had written and signed himself.

The label “Phil Mauger Endorsed Independent” appeared on Boyce’s nomination for less than two hours before being removed at the request of Mauger’s campaign manager, who said Mauger had never endorsed Boyce.

Police declined to lay charges after Taunt complained, citing the short time the endorsement was visible and the minimal public impact.

Sam MacDonald criticised The Press on his public Facebook page, for not telling readers that the source of the story Allan Taunt, is a supporter of mayoral candidate Sara Templeton.

Templeton is a political opponent of MacDonald’s council faction, which includes Phil Mauger.

MacDonald said the omission, by The Press, denied readers the ability to fully assess the motivations behind the complaint.

“Allan Taunt is a key campaign supporter for Sara Templeton, an outspoken cycling advocate, and someone with a history of lodging complaints against political opponents.

“That context never made it into the article. Leaving out the political connection of the source gives readers an incomplete and skewed picture, especially in the middle of an election.

“It is an easy, verifiable fact to include, and the decision not to, raises serious questions about fairness,” he said.

MacDonald said his concern was not the original 2022 incident, but the decision to exclude information about the complainant’s political affiliations from the article.

Mauger’s campaign manager, Erin Jamieson, said the mayor was unavailable for comment, as he was putting up election signs today.

Sara Templeton said “there are no attacks on Phil in The Press article and I back Allan in calling out poor behaviour from Lindon Boyce.”

She sent Chris Lynch Media a screenshot of Lindon’s Facebook comments, which are abusive and derogatory towards her.

However, The Press focused its story on Mauger’s ‘connection’ to Lindon instead.

Sara said “I’ve had run-ins with him myself [Lindon] and transparency is important for our democracy.

“I note with interest that Cr MacDonald continues his attack style politics on Phil’s behalf and wish that they would concentrate on communicating policy  on our drinking water, climate and our environment instead, as they’re the issues that people are raising with me around the election.”

Allan Taunt said “Cr MacDonald’s attack on me is completely unwarranted.  There is no issue about Phil or Sara in my concerns, only concerns about Lindon Boyce’s suitability as a candidate, which are clear in The Press story.”

Press editor Kamala Hayman said  “The story makes it quite clear that the official information was released to Mr Taunt. He is not a candidate for Environment Canterbury, nor, as far as I am aware, supporting a candidate for Environment Canterbury. The story is about a letter written by Mr Boyce, which he does not deny,” Hayman said.

Former head of New Zealand Broadcasting school and Riccarton ward council candidate Tony Simons said on his public Facebook page “As a former journalist, I was intrigued by the fact this story, in The Press today, was informed by an Official Information Act request made by prominent cycling advocate Allan Taunt, even though it was nothing to do with cycling.

“There is nothing wrong with that, but perhaps Mr Taunt was less than open when he claimed there was no political motivation.  According to Environment Canterbury it supplied him with an answer to his request, used to inform this story, more than 4 months ago.

“It appears he sat on it, waiting for election time to release it to The Press, or maybe The Press sat on the story all this time, to release it now for maximum impact. Either way, not a good look for the Press or Mr Taunt in the middle of an election campaign. The Press should have ignored the story. Old news.”

This comes after the New Zealand Media Council upheld a separate complaint against The Press, ruling the paper breached its principles of Accuracy, Fairness and Balance, and Conflicts of Interest in a May 6 article about the Government’s school lunch programme.

The Council found the 1,100-word article contained direct criticism of Associate Education Minister David Seymour but did not seek comment from him or his office before publication.

His comments about school lunches were added online the next day, which the Council ruled was insufficient to restore balance to the original piece.

Responding to today’s criticism of the Saturday article, New Zealand Deputy Prime David Seymour told chrislynchmedia.com “The question for The Press is simple: are they prepared to meet the high bar of fairness and transparency they expect from everyone else? Their recent reporting suggests they’re not.

“I hope The Press and Stuff’s editorial team own this, front up, and show they’re willing to change. If they can’t give people a reason to trust them, they’re their own worst enemy.”

The Media Council also found a conflict of interest (in the May 6 article) because the reporter had, until two months earlier, served as Director of Communications for Health Coalition Aotearoa, an organisation quoted in the story and known for its opposition to aspects of the school lunch programme.

The connection was not disclosed to readers.

The majority decision said it was unwise for The Press to allow a journalist with such a recent leadership role in an advocacy organisation to contact and quote that organisation in a politically sensitive story. It said the combination of the lack of balance and the failure to declare the conflict warranted an uphold under both Principle (1) and Principle (10).

A minority of Council members did not find specific breaches of the principles but still concluded that professional standards were not met.

They said the situation should have been avoided from the outset and that balance could easily have been achieved in the original article.

The Council stressed that transparency, fairness, and high professional standards are essential to maintaining public trust, particularly in politically sensitive reporting.