When Trivia Becomes "News"

The Use of Emojis in Official Communications

The incident at the Northern Club on 22 November 2024 involving Judge Ema Aitken and her partner has been well publicised. The incident attracted the attention of the Judicial Conduct Commissioner who commenced his own inquiry into the incident and a complaint was made to the Commissioner by the Attorney-General, Judith Collins.

The Commissioner recommended that a panel be convened to consider what if anything should happen further to the Judge. Judge Aitken challenged that decision by way of Judicial Review proceedings. That application has been heard. A decision is pending from Justice Isac who heard the matter.

The next expectation of any news surrounding this incident and its aftermath would be surrounding the decision of the Court on the judicial review proceedings.

But no.

In a rush of blood to the head certain elements of the news media made Official Information Act requests to the Ministry of Justice for information surrounding the incident.

Two stories have appeared – one on the morning of Tuesday 8 April in the Post under the headline “Justice head responds to news of fracas with ‘uh-oh’ emoji” under the by-line of Andrea Vance. The other appeared in the Herald at 10:50 am under the headline “‘Deputy Prime Minister very upset’: Top law officials’ texts revealed after judge, NZ First party ‘fracas’” . No author is attributed to the Herald piece but included in the article is a document pack which clearly was the response to an OIA enquiry.

So what have we learned from these stories. Not a lot that we didn’t know before apart from the rather banal exchanges between a group of Wellington bureaucrats including the Solicitor-General.

The story by Ms Vance reports on the exchange as follows:

“Text messages released to The Post on Monday reveal that solicitor-general Una Jagose messaged justice ministry chief executive Andrew Kibblewhite on December 11, almost three weeks after the events.

Jagose messaged to say: “Also have you heard about the fracas at the northern club between DCJs [district court judges] and NZ First Christmas parties?”

Within eight minutes, he responded with: “Oh dear. No.” The message was accompanied with the “uh-oh” emoji.

He followed up with: “Did comity not prevail?”

….“I’ll catch you up,” Jagose responded. “Perhaps tomorrow or Friday? CJ [chief justice Dame Helen Winkelmann] and CDCJ [chief district court judge Heemi Taumaunu] trying to manage it. But DPM [deputy prime minister Winston Peters] very upset.”

Kibblewhite shot back a grimacing face emoji and the message: “As soon as you can please.”

The story then goes on to repeat the history of the incident of 22 November 2024 and its aftermath.

A similar story appears in the Herald.

The only thing that appears to add to what we already know is the assertion by the Solicitor-General that the DPM was very upset. But not upset enough, it would appear, to make a complaint.

The question that must be asked is whether or not this is news or is it merely trivia. Clearly the OIA request has revealed little that we did not already know and discloses tittle-tattle between the SG and Mr. Kibblewhite.

What is surprising is firstly the use of text messages to convey information about the incident and secondly the non-verbal communications involving the use of visual symbols such as emojis.

If this incident has any message – apart from the one that it is trivia and not news – it is this. Government officials should be careful not to engage in informal communications and certainly should refrain from the use of visual symbols such as emojis in place of words. One can never tell when an OIA request will reveal those communications to the wider public.

But is this really news? Of course not. That it has been published by the Post and rapidly followed by the Herald indicates that an Auckland paper doesn’t want to be seen to be scooped by a Wellington one.

Once again, as if we needed it, this is further evidence to illustrate why there is declining trust and confidence in mainstream media when trivia becomes “news”.