Photo: RNZ / Diego Opatowski
The NZ Media Council has upheld a complaint by Rocket Lab Ltd against Radio New Zealand (RNZ), ruling that a May 2025 article inaccurately linked the aerospace company to Ukraine's war effort, breaching journalistic standards of accuracy, fairness, and balance.
The article, titled "Rocket Lab-launched satellites to help Ukraine in war against Russia," claimed that satellites launched by Rocket Lab for Japanese company iQPS would be used to support Ukraine's military intelligence. Rocket Lab strongly refuted this, stating the claim was false and damaging, and that neither they nor iQPS had any involvement in supplying military capabilities to Ukraine.
Rocket Lab's complaint highlighted that RNZ relied solely on a single source and failed to seek comment from Rocket Lab, iQPS, or the New Zealand Space Agency before publication. iQPS had publicly denied providing data to foreign entities weeks earlier, a statement RNZ overlooked. Rocket Lab said the article's implication of involvement in military operations could have serious reputational and commercial consequences.
RNZ retracted the article within five hours of receiving the complaint on 22 May and later issued an apology. However, Rocket Lab argued that the apology was only added after repeated requests and that RNZ's efforts to notify content-sharing partners were inadequate. The article remained live on NewstalkZB's website for eight days until Rocket Lab intervened directly.
The Media Council acknowledged RNZ's swift removal of the article, however, despite this, there was no immediate acknowledgement of error in the original take down notice or apology and the Council found the original reporting to be a serious breach of Principle (1) - Accuracy, Fairness and Balance. The Council noted that the article lacked basic verification and failed to meet the standards expected of responsible journalism.
While RNZ's take-down notice was a rare and significant step, the Council concluded that the seriousness of the error means that the article still warranted being found to be in breach.
The full Media Council ruling can be found here: Media Council - Rocket Lab against Radio New Zealand.
