Friday 06 May 2016 11:38 AM
Reserve Bank bans MediaWorks from media conferences after lockup leak
By Jonathan Underhill
May 6 (BusinessDesk) - The Reserve Bank has banned MediaWorks from its media conferences until further notice as
punishment for its journalists leaking sensitive market information from the Official Cash Rate cut decision in March.
The bank hired Deloitte’s forensic unit to investigate the leak after details were posted by a blogger. That
investigation found that a Newshub Mediaworks reporter secretly sent details of the decision to workers in the Newshub
office from the RBNZ lockup, where journalists had long been allowed to view the monetary policy statement under embargo
provided they surrendered their phones and honoured the arrangement. Staffers in the Auckland newsroom openly discussed
the embargoed decision and informed a blogger and former Reserve Bank official, Michael Reddell, that a cut was soon to
be announced.
There is no evidence of money market trading as a result of the leak, but with an average of more than $100 billion in
foreign exchange transactions involving New Zealand dollars daily, the central bank reacted by stopping embargoed
lockups for media and analysts for both the MPS and financial stability reports, falling into line with most other
central banks around the world.
The central bank is scheduled to publish its six-monthly financial stability report on May 11 and will post the document
on its website, with a link from its Twitter feed, at 9am. A media conference with governor Graeme Wheeler and deputy
governor Grant Spencer will then be held at 11am, live-streamed on www.rbnz.govt.nz.
An advisory from the bank says representatives "from Mediaworks news outlets are excluded from Reserve Bank media
conferences until further notice" as a result of the March 10 leak.
MediaWorks' former chief executive Mark Weldon said at the time that the company "unreservedly apologises" to the bank
for the incident. He quit the company on Tuesday, citing the pressure of the role, which included downsizing the
company's content production and using the same resource across various platforms.
(BusinessDesk)
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