The New Zealand Media Council has upheld a complaint against Radio New Zealand, finding the broadcaster breached standards with a misleading headline and caption in a February 2025 article about a Hamilton heatwave.

The complaint, brought by investigative journalist Ian Wishart and Catriona Atkinson, was upheld under Principle (6) Headlines and Captions, though the Council did not uphold their concerns under principles relating to accuracy, comment and fact, or corrections.

The original RNZ story was headlined Hamilton’s run of hot days shattered previous record, and quoted climate scientist Dr Luke Harrington as saying the city’s hot spell “likely beats anything the city has experienced since temperature records began.”

The article was later updated to include historical data Wishart provided, and the headline was changed to Hamilton’s run of hot days breaks previous record.

However, the Council ruled, “The headline using the word ‘shattered’ was an exaggeration and not backed up by the evidence.”

While RNZ acted quickly, the Council said, “Even after that change was made the Council believes the headline did not indicate the degree of uncertainty expressed by the climate scientist or that the claim was his opinion.”

“The heading Hamilton’s run of hot days breaks previous record was stated as fact. The caption below the headline, which read ‘Hamilton has had almost two weeks of the hottest weather on record,’ was also stated as fact without any degree of uncertainty or attribution.”

Wishart submitted records from the Waikato Times from the 1930s, which included a ten-day stretch with an average maximum temperature of 32.66C. He said RNZ had failed to provide “meaningful clarification,” and that its handling of the historical context gave a “misleading impression that recent temperatures are unprecedented.”

The Council acknowledged, “It would have been better if the information included in the second correction had been added earlier. By May the story had well and truly dropped from public view, as Mr Wishart pointed out.”

Atkinson raised similar concerns, saying, “Failure to tell readers about ‘63-day, 32.66C average at its highest 10-day mark’ heatwave because RNZ knew it would undermine the story’s messaging around the increasing intensity and duration of weather events under climate change was a dereliction of journalistic duty.”

She also called the headline “misinformation as it lacked context,” adding, “Everything could be pitched as having broken a record if your record is a selective sample.”

While RNZ argued that the 1930s temperature readings were not directly comparable to modern data, the Council concluded that the way the story was presented still breached standards. “The article did not breach Principles (1), (4), or (12),” it said, “but the complaint under Principle (6) is upheld.”

Wishart told Sean Plunket on The Platform, “Paul Thompson, CEO of RNZ, needs to resign or be held to account for this. There’s a pattern of failures where RNZ hasn’t done its job. He’s the CEO, he says, ‘I’m Editor-in-Chief, I wear the responsibility.”