Inside the Veitch media circus

Tony Veitch fronts up to the press after his guilty plea. Photo / Glenn Jeffrey

There was an unguarded moment from Tony Veitch, shortly after his conviction for assaulting his former partner. Leaving the courtroom where he pleaded guilty, nine months after his public trial began, he gave a court security guard a weak smile and said: "Hopefully I'll never see you again".

There was relief and exhaustion in his voice. Veitch looked wrung out, yet transformed as he descended the Auckland District Court escalator to speak to the waiting media outside.

There he was strident and aggressive, rather than the expected humbled and contrite. Observers agree this was the point that Veitch lost a lot of the public sympathy that he had painstakingly won.

Wife Zoe had slipped into the background. Hovering at Veitch's shoulder were Stuart
Grieve QC, the defence barrister, and Glenda Hughes, the "media minder". Veitch later told one journalist, during the round of newspaper, radio and television interviews, that Hughes had been hired to "control the media".

There was no controlling this event on the courthouse steps. Veitch read from a statement he said he had written, spoke of the "hideous" time he and his family had endured, and his "misguided belief that Kristin and I actually parted on good terms".

"Because of severe legal constraints and the agreement I signed, I've been unable to say anything to anybody."

The victim, Kristin
Dunne-Powell, also spoke to media, selecting newspapers and Campbell Live. In one interview she said she had "managed to go nine months without making a comment".

Both blamed media pressure. Dunne-Powell singled out the three Sunday papers, while Veitch complained "much has been written and said over the past nine months that defies belief".

Where did it come from? If no one spoke, how then was so much written about the Tony Veitch Story?

* * *

It was a media story from the beginning. The story was broken by Wellington's Dominion Post in a front-page scoop that became one of the enduring mysteries of the saga. The newspaper quoted "a source who asked not to be named", leading to speculation about who revealed the $150,000 confi dentiality deal Veitch and Dunne-Powell had signed seven months earlier.

Three days after it broke, according to an interview Veitch gave, he hired Hughes, a former police sergeant who has become a public relations expert, often representing those facing the harsh end of public opinion.

Dunne-Powell, likewise, found representation quickly. Her employer at wireless internet provider Woosh already used Star PR, and extended its duties to handling calls on the assault claims.

The Dominion Post story broke on a Monday morning, Veitch gave a press conference a few days later admitting he had "lashed out", and a week after that he was unemployed. Much of the early coverage focused pressure on his employers, and once TVNZ and the Radio Network responded to the public outcry, there was little oxygen in which the story could breathe.

And yet the stories persisted. Russell Brown, who produces Media7, says his interpretation of the stories he has seen was that "the Veitch side was trying to place stories".

Brown and others say that the story naturally fitted the Sunday newspaper market. It had celebrity and scandal – Veitch and the assault claim and payout.

The story was legitimate, says Brown, although he questions whether the coverage was. He says there were signs of co-ordination in the stories that began to emerge.

The story that Brown singles out appeared in the Herald on Sunday, Sunday Star-Times and Sunday News in August, and offered details of some of the charges that had now been laid against Veitch.

The common thread in the three papers' stories was that one of the charges Veitch faced involved a glass of water being thrown in Dunne-Powell's face.

Brown says, "It seemed to me the intent of that [the water allegation] was to trivialise the original allegations." He says the story seemed to come from what became known as "Team Veitch".

A curious figure in the Tony Veitch Story has been freelance journalist Stephen D'Antal, who had the entire story before anyone but couldn't tell it because he had signed a confidentiality agreement with
Dunne-Powell.

He says the coverage unfolded after the story broke "led by Glenda Hughes feeding some very obedient hacks". The Sunday editors dispute the claim and, in one case, question D'Antal's role regard ing the agreement he signed.

D'Antal cites Hughes' longstanding relationship with senior media figures and that she was "on the phone, day in and day out, relentlessly pushing her barrow".

"People were listening and people were buying papers and there was only one hand that was feeding them."

Martin Hirst, associate professor at Auckland University of Technology's journalism department, reached the same conclusion. Hirst, who once taught Veitch journalism at an Australian university, singles out the glass of water story as a low point in the coverage.

"That was the point where I realised there was a concerted effort from Veitch. It seemed to me the media was being used and the competitive nature of Sunday papers meant that the editors felt they had to go with the story. Having Veitch on the front page would drive checkpoint sales."

The Sunday coverage began the first weekend following the story breaking, with the Herald on Sunday printing an interview with Veitch conducted by his friend and former colleague, broadcaster Paul Holmes. Hirst says there are "conflict of interest" issues around the interview, perceived as being favourable to Veitch.

The other Sundays also covered the issue, but were not able to claim the interview everybody wanted. In the 40 weekends to come, the balance tipped back and forth as the three papers tussled for dominance.

Hirst says, "Once the Herald on Sunday gets into a story like that, the Sunday Star-Times has no option other than to try to match that coverage."

He says there was little that followed that showed Dunne-Powell in a favourable light. The information that went into the newspaper stories "seemed to be a deliberate campaign to salvage Tony Veitch's reputation".

Did the spin work? To an extent, Hirst believes. He won TV Guide's most popular personality award, as chosen by readers. Radio Live talkback – particularly the John Tamihere and Willie Jackson show – reflected the polarising nature of the issue, with many calls supporting the fallen star.

And then Veitch was convicted and came out swinging. He spoke of doing his own sleuthing for evidence for the court case – a "gold mine", he called it. Whatever remorse he felt did not transmit in a round of interviews.

* * *

The imposing figure of Glenda Hughes was seen in a number of newsrooms over the story's nine-month gestation period. Her reach was felt everywhere – journalists who have worked on the story have told of almost constant communication with Hughes in weeks when the story was running hot.

Hughes won't talk in detail about the Veitch case. Told there is criticism about how it was handled, she says this: "I do not take it upon myself to ever comment on anybody else's work. The people who comment on other people's work have no idea what is being dealt with or being handled."

There is little doubt she was active. The week before a story that showed the police in a poor light, Hughes was seen discussing that same story at the offices of TVNZ's Close Up, according to someone who worked in the office. The story recorded a police officer's sarcastic comment left on Veitch's answerphone, after hearing a cheery welcome message.

"Most [stories], the team decided, we couldn't run because they were one-sided stories and the show, along with TVNZ, couldn't look to be supporting Veitch," said the staff member.

The story never ran on television. "I remember hearing about this very story bouncing around several media outlets before it found its eventual home – a ping-pong action that regularly got repeated."

That "home" was in the Sunday Star-Times and the Herald on Sunday that weekend. Both stories carried the identical quote from the officer: "I bet he hasn't got a smile on his face like that any more". The Star- Times carried an interview with Zoe Veitch, while the Herald on Sunday reported the answerphone story by saying "it is understood".

Hughes says that on this occasion she did visit the Close Up office. "That was one we did discuss with Close Up and we didn't run it." Pitching a story was the exception, she says, and not the rule.

She says the Herald on Sunday contacted her over that same story. Likewise, the Sunday Star-Times had asked for interviews with Zoe Veitch, and that happened to be the week that she agreed to speak. In the interview, she happened to mention the message on the answerphone – something she was particularly upset about that week.

Hughes has been criticised for what is seen to be "her" handling of the issue. Brown and Hirst say Team Veitch would have been better to have stayed quiet.

That suggestion appears to be the one followed by Dunne-Powell. There was nothing from her – or nothing obvious – until the guilty plea and sentence.

Practised public relations practitioners spoken to by the Herald on Sunday also say Hughes should have bunkered down and allowed nothing out.

Hughes has endorsed this strategy in the past, saying high-profile figures facing court action should stay out of the spotlight. In the Media7 debate in which she appeared, Hughes said it was a bad idea for a celebrity facing a rape charge to put himself in front of the media. "The bottom line is that these people, when they are under this sort of pressure, don't make rational decisions."

But it is more complicated than that. Hughes was not the only member of Team Veitch meeting journalists. Brian Sloan, a private investigator working for Veitch's lawyer, Stuart Grieve, was also seen with journalists covering the story. Sloan was involved in collecting information that Veitch later said would leave Dunne-Powell "incredibly adversely affected".

And Veitch – as a media man in the media world – also couldn't leave it alone. He is known to have contacted journalists covering the case.

Martin Hirst: "I think he engaged Glenda Hughes because he felt he needed to control and manage what was being said about him in the media. Would he do the same thing again? Probably, because reputation management is very important to someone like Tony Veitch."

* * *

There has been criticism of many print and broadcast media and of how they covered the story. TV3's John Campbell was already waiting outside Veitch's home when police arrived to search it. Across on Radio Live, talkback host Willie Jackson attacked Veitch in strongly worded terms. Veitch has said he will sue over the comments.

But it was the Sunday papers that were most visible. Their editors agree the
Tony Veitch Story sold newspapers. Shayne Currie, Herald on Sunday editor, says the extra sales happened when the newspaper highlighted on the front page a story that had a "legitimate" news angle. "Readers were quick to know the difference between a legitimate news story, and one that wasn't."

Mitchell Murphy, editor of the Sunday Star-Times and Sunday News, is even more bullish. "There is no doubt whatsoever that the Tony Veitch case – or saga – sells newspapers. The proof is in the numbers."

The Herald on Sunday, over the 41 weeks covering the Tony Veitch Story, put the troubled star on its front page 15 times. The Sunday Star- Times was close behind, with Veitch on the front at least a dozen times. Sunday News, its sister newspaper, came a close third in front-page coverage. Currie says there were three occasions when, on reflection, Veitch-related stories might not have deserved the front-page prominence they received.

However, the public responded. At the Herald on Sunday, the Holmes interview with Veitch lifted supermarket sales by 10 per cent on the previous week.

Currie denies that the stories carried an "anti-Dunne-Powell" sentiment, as suggested by commentators. The muchcriticised glass of water story was more a criticism of police, because of what it said about the "aggressive" nature of the official investigation.

Currie said he found it "bizarre" that such an assault charge could be laid. He concedes there might have been more to the allegation and that the newspaper was operating on limited information. "We reported the information we had at hand at the time, and at all times we tried to ensure we were fair, balanced and accurate."

Currie says suggestions of Hughes constantly advocating Veitch stories are unfair.

"Glenda Hughes certainly worked hard behind the scenes for her client, but this was generally after we approached her with tips and angles that we had received from elsewhere."

Asked about the high count of stories apparently sympathetic to Veitch, Currie says: "It was impossible to present the victim's side of the story at the time – she was not speaking publicly. But many of the stories were not helpful to Veitch.

"I think sympathy for Veitch increased as the months went on – but not at Dunne-Powell's expense. I think a lot of people had sympathy for him over the legal delays, suicide attempts and his lack of employment prospects as the case went on."

Murphy says he is satisfied with the balance that the newspapers struck in covering the issue. When there was a story on the case, "We sought comment from both sides. It's up to them to decide if they make comment.

"The other point I want to make is we have not created the news about the Tony Veitch story," he says. Both parties, he says, created the case through their own actions.

Sure, there was activity from Team Veitch, he says. But he suggests that there was also some effort from supporters of Dunne-Powell.

"I found it odd that in the afternoon of the court decision that Dunne-Powell was pleading for privacy but 30 seconds before that was prepared to give lengthy newspaper and television interviews. You can't do both. She certainly wanted both."

He expressed surprise that the two had not decided to move on with their lives after the sentencing. "The media did not make Tony Veitch stand in front of the court," he says. "My opinion is that both parties should have walked away from the courtroom last Thursday. But they couldn't help themselves."

Currie agrees. He says Veitch lost much of the sympathy he had in the days following his conviction. "I fear the whole thing has become a horror show."

Bill Francis, who was Veitch's boss at the Radio Network, has a similar view. He hopes to talk to Veitch about having the broadcaster working for him again, but says he it is more important that he takes the time to "get well".

He says the extensive coverage impacted on Veitch enormously. "There has to be a message out of this. We in the media need to pull back from personal degradation. It will end one day in someone's death."

Last Saturday, just as everyone thought The Veitch Story was fi nally reaching its end, he again went missing amid concerns for his life. Police were called, as they had been in his previous disappearances.

And how did the Sunday newspapers learn of it? It was because he contacted them.