PETER WILLIAMS: Hooton of The Post

Has New Zealand just appointed its first “celebrity” editor?

The quite remarkable announcement today of columnist, speech writer, PR agent and strategist Matthew Hooton to be the editor of Wellington’s Post newspaper has some overtures of former British cabinet minister Michael Gove becoming editor of The Spectator and one time Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne leading London’s Evening Standard.

Osborne actually tried and failed to join The Times as an Oxford graduate but later became a columnist before entering politics. Gove was a working journalist in his native Scotland, held various portfolios under David Cameron, Boris Johnson and Teresa May before going back to the laptop and the microphone to run the British edition of conservative magazine and website The Spectator two years ago.

Both of those had real life experience in the front line of politics and some in the media, but their editorial appointments, like that of Hooton, undoubtedly had quite a bit to do with their previous public high profile positions.

Matthew Hooton cheerfully admits to never having been a journalist but he has run his own small public relations company. Therefore he has some experience managing people, one of whom was Brooke van Velden. Translating that to management of a large newsroom full of disparate personalities – albeit with shrinking numbers – might present some challenges.

He’s been a serial student too with a B.Com, a BA (Hons), an MA and more recently a PhD. Impressive.

Hooton’s new role at The Post was announced at the same time as political editor Luke Malpass was promoted to Associate Editor. That’s a clue Hooten might not be doing too many of the nuts and bolts jobs an editor is usually involved with like performance reviews and pay negotiations with journalists, the hiring and firing of reporters and opinion writers, and attending weekly meetings of the company’s senior management team.

His appointment signals The Post wants to develop an editorial stance in Hooton’s shadow, using his high profile within the political and business community and a stance that, based on his writings and recent public statements, will be in tune with the paper’s very urban liberal readership.

Matthew Hooton may have worked for the National Party and for ACT but his statements in recent times would represent what so many of the Wellington professional/public servant class believe as well. He submitted on the Treaty Principles Bill saying that the Bill, which promoted principles based on the Articles of the Treaty like one government, property rights and equality for all, “misinterpreted history.”

In 2024 he called Don Brash a “fundamentally bad person” and Brash’s famous 2005 Orewa speech “despicably racist” despite working for Brash at the time and being part of the backroom coup that installed the former Reserve Bank governor as National Party leader.

That led to Brash taking a defamation case against Hooton, which is still progressing – slowly – through the courts. Hooton’s views on Treaty politics appear to have evolved considerably over the last twenty years.

If you needed more evidence of that then look no further than his maneuvering to get the always uninspiring Todd Muller installed as the National Party for a disastrous 53 days in 2020.

The Brash defamation case is the second time his words about a high profile National Party man have landed him in trouble. Back in 2018 he claimed, among other things in an article in the National Business Review, that one-time Finance Minister Steven Joyce had “blackmailed” his way to the top of politics and unfairly favoured network provider Chorus during ministerial negotiations.

Joyce took him to court, Hooton settled with an apology and legal costs but Joyce took on the NBR in the High Court where he won a retraction and $270,000 in costs.

The Court of Appeal subsequently overturned that decision with the quite extraordinary explanation that “blackmail” did not mean “blackmail” and did not contain a defamatory context because it was in a robust political column!

Let’s just say that Hooton and NBR dodged one there.

So if Hooton is to be prominent in The Post as a regular opinion writer, setting the editorial direction of the paper, then it’s best he tempers his language and runs his more florid words past the company legal team first.

This appointment suggests the traditional editor’s role of newsroom manager will change at The Post. Presumably Hooton knows little about the technical aspects of the publishing world like layout philosophy or the front page teases for inside content.

Maybe that won’t be his role.

I sort of know what kind of method The Post will possibly use Hooton for, because years ago I was the editor of a golf magazine. In reality the owner and publisher called the shots, decided who would write and who wouldn’t and what would be on the cover. But because I was a TV face at the time the publisher thought my profile and connections with golf could help boost sales of the magazine. It didn’t.

Hooton joins the paper as it faces a real practical challenge too. It will soon be printed in Christchurch and transported by road to its circulation area in Wellington and the lower North Island. That means ludicrously early deadlines for the next morning’s paper, possibly as early as 2pm. A lot of afternoon and evening news in Wellington won’t be in the next morning’s paper.

Instead I expect the paper to pivot to more of an analysis and opinion heavy publication, without the time and deadline sensitivities of times past.

Hooton’s new job will be keenly watched by the struggling media industry. If it works, as measured by increased circulation and readership, then expect the model to be replicated elsewhere.

Might the days of a career journalist aspiring to be an editor be over?

Writer and broadcaster for half a century. Now watching from the sidelines. Subscribe to Peter William's Substack here