We can say goodbye to any credible future awards coming from EY after some of NZ’s best journos pulled out of the company’s Business Journalism Awards amid startling conflict-of-interest claims.
The standoff hit headlines last week when EY refused to proceed with an entry by the NBR’s Karyn Scherer that was critical of EY client Fuji Xerox NZ.
In an unprecedented show of solidarity, every substantial news organisation in the country – including the NZ Herald, Radio NZ, Fairfax, NZME, MediaWorks, APN Group, and Sky – threw their weight behind NBR and withdrew all their entries.
When the organisers ignored a suggestion from NZ Listener journalist (and judge) Rebecca Macfie that the two EY judges simply remove themselves from the judging panel, she immediately resigned as a judge.
“In an unprecedented show of solidarity, every news network – including the Herald, Radio NZ, Fairfax, NZME, MediaWorks, APN Group, and Sky – threw their weight behind NBR and withdrew all their entries.”
“If I’m invited to be a judge and assess the work of journalists on the quality of their journalism and their investigation and their writing and find that a story can’t be included or judged on its merits because of internal commercial conflicts it was pretty straightforward for me – I couldn’t be a part of that,” she told NBR.
The other judges were EY chairman Alan Judge, former EY Australasia managing partner Rob McLeod and New Zealand Initiative chairman Roger Partridge. They have apparently not followed in Macfie’s footsteps.
The NBR withdrawal was supported by Herald investigations reporter Matt Nippert, a former EY winner (and a nominee this year).
EY takes axe to awards site
The EY awards yet to be officially cancelled and there’s been no word from the company since the controversy broke.
EY has, however, EY completely removed the section of its site relating to these awards (which were to have been held in Auckland on Should there be any entries left, the awards will be held on Tursday 31 August.
- ey.com/nz/en/about-us/our-people-and-culture/our-awards/about-ey_our-awards (now goes direct to an Error message)
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