Jock Anderson
Who put the lie in NBR’s Dick Hubbard hatchet job?
NBR publisher Barry Colman did.
Former journalist Mr Colman came up with and authorised the headline: “Hubbard’s triple bottom lie,” which was subsequently considered the most contentious remark published in the business newspaper’s six-page coverage of cereal maker Dick Hubbard and his quest for the Auckland mayoralty in September 2004.
Mr Colman had earlier decided that his newspaper would do a major story about Dick Hubbard and his suitability to be mayor of Auckland.
Along with former mayor Christine Fletcher, who was never considered a serious contender, political green horn Mr Hubbard put himself up against Mayor John Banks.
Mr Banks was painted as the enemy of the people, especially in a persistent anti-Banks campaign run by the New Zealand Herald.
John Banks was a friend of NBR but Mr Colman said the story he wanted was not to be pro-Banks. Banks was to be kept out of it and Fletcher didn’t rate. This was about Hubbard.
According to Mr Colman, little was known about Mr Hubbard, other than what Hubbard himself said, and that was considered waffle.
Apparently some businessmen, according to Mr Colman, didn’t like inferences that if they weren’t in Mr Hubbard’s social responsibility “club” they were deemed evil.
It was his view that other media, mainly the New Zealand Herald, were giving Mr Hubbard an easy ride, a view partly supported after the election by Waikato University associate professor of screen and media studies Geoff Lealand, who got stuck into the media for being too polite and cautious in reporting local body election campaigns. He subsequently described NBR’s Hubbard stories as “a rare example of journalist muck-raking in the time-honoured American tradition but, given the Auckland result, you might have to wonder whether it was an elaborate ploy to get Dick elected.”
Mr Colman wanted Mr Hubbard “turned over,” with his personality, business expertise, political nouse, motivation and social habits probed.
“We want to know who this bugger Hubbard is,” was Mr Colman’s direction.
He had the bit between his teeth and wanted action.
I had seen him like this when he directed a lengthy award-winning investigation in 1998 into the weak governance and mismanagement of Tainui’s $170 million land and cash settlement and later when he focused the paper on the activities of lawyer Donna Hall and her Waitangi Tribunal chairman and High Court judge husband Eddie Durie.
On those occasions Tainui sued for defamation but eventually went away empty handed. Hall sued and lost badly.
If Mr Colman had any other motive for delving into Dick Hubbard’s life no-one asked.
Reporter Coran Lill and I were assigned the job.
As well as interviewing Mr Hubbard we tracked down and spoke to business associates, friends, competitors, former workers, ex-school mates and unionists.
Lill followed Mr and Mrs Hubbard to church, while I photographed them outside, an unpopular move which then news editor Nick Bryant justified on the grounds that the Hubbards had spoken publicly about their spiritual beliefs and of the importance of spirituality in people’s lives.
Diana Hubbard had spoken particularly about how she would play an active role in Auckland public life and that Auckland could be more beautiful if people embraced God.
We reported daily to Mr Colman what was an uninspiring trail of fairly dull material gathered about a “plodder.”
With polling looming NBR had to run its story on Friday, September 17. But up to Wednesday that week we had uncovered nothing “sexy” about Dick Hubbard.
At worst we figured a vote for Mr Hubbard would be a vote for inexperienced, fence-sitting, buffoon-ish leadership – which so far as the economic powerhouse of Auckland was concerned, would be tragic.
At the end of a two-week inquiry and anxious to find something concrete on which to nail Mr Hubbard and cast doubt on his mayoral suitability, Mr Colman, consulting with his non-journalist managing editor Brett Thompson, news editor Bryant, Lill and me, concluded that comments made on television by Mr Hubbard contradicted comments he made to NBR about the frequency of his triple bottom line reporting and so therefore, Mr Colman figured, Mr Hubbard lied.
[NBR editor in chief Nevil Gibson – deemed the great survivor – kept himself mostly at arms length on this job. Hubbard was another of Barry Colman’s “babies.”]
In a tape-recorded interview conducted in his office by me and Lill, Mr Hubbard was asked about his company’s triple bottom line corporate social responsibility report.
In the interview with us, Mr Hubbard clearly said that his first and only triple bottom line report was produced in 2001.
However, a couple of days later, when interviewed by Kim Hill on TV One’s Face to Face programme Mr Hubbard appeared to tell a different story.
As NBR reported at the time Mr Hubbard got flustered and when asked about the triple bottom line report said he did “one in 2001, 2002, and we’ll be doing another one shortly. We don’t do everyone every year.”
The following day, and armed with a transcript of the interview, NBR pounced on Mr Hubbard’s reference to “2001, 2002” as meaning he claimed to have done not one but two triple bottom line reports, one in 2001 and one in 2002 – thereby enhancing his socially responsible good guy image.
In one of nine stories in NBR’s September 17, 2004 coverage of Mr Hubbard the paper stated that Mr Hubbard faced a “credibility crisis.”
Headlined:” Hubbard’s triple bottom lie,” the story which aggravated the mayoral contender most said Mr Hubbard “deceived the nation by falsely claiming on national television that he had produced his company’s much-vaunted triple bottom line corporate social responsibility report twice.”
The story went on to say this claim was “in direct contradiction to statements he made to the National Business Review this week.”
The story went on: “A transcript excerpt from the Auckland mayoral debate on TV One’s Face to Face with Kim Hill on Wednesday exposes Dick Hubbard’s attempted deception.”
Mr Hubbard promptly issued botched defamation proceedings against NBR, in which he breached the Defamation Act by specifying he wanted $1.5 million and made things worse for himself with a song and dance in other media – mainly the New Zealand Herald – about how his lawyers reckoned he had a watertight and simple case.
By now, and despite our protestations to the contrary, the New Zealand in particular had deemed NBR’s Hubbard coverage a “hatchet job” – an expression it used tirelessly about 50 times.
NBR lawyers put out a story that they were considering legal sanctions and a complaint of contempt of court against Mr Hubbard for mouthing off about his defamation claim.
Editor in chief Gibson said NBR stood by its reporting and would vigorously defend it in any legal proceedings.
In February 2005, when NBR tried unsuccessfully to have the Hubbard action thrown out, the High Court’s Justice Geoffery Venning said Mr Hubbard’s widely reported statements on the strength of his case were “entirely inappropriate.”
By that time some observers thought Mr Hubbard’s defamation claim was a dead duck.
He had romped in as mayor of Auckland with a more than 17,000 majority, believed by some people to have been aided by sympathy against NBR’s so-called “hatchet job,” and it seemed stupid to drag everything up again in court.
In any event sabres were rattled and on September 23, 2005, NBR reported that it had withdrawn its allegations against Mr Hubbard.
In a four paragraph story the paper said it now accepted that Mr Hubbard’s statement about triple bottom lines was “misconstrued” and that he did not intend to represent that his company prepared two triple bottom line reports. The paper withdraw any implication that Mr Hubbard deliberately attempted to deceive the viewers of the television interview and said it had made a donation to a charity of Mr Hubbard’s choice.
So, where did “Hubbard’s triple bottom lie” come from?
NBR’s withdrawal and settlement put an end to speculation about what answer might have been given had this question been asked in front of a jury.
Thirteen Hubbard stories had been written – four of them not published - and Mr Colman was prepared to put extra pages into the paper if necessary. Deadline was looming and the ball, as always, was in Barry Colman’s court.
“Lie” fitted Barry’s headline. No-one disagreed.
Feedback on this story to jockanderson@ihug.co.nz
