Nicky Hager’s sources might possibly be protected under the “journalists’ sources” provision of the Evidence Act (s68) depending on how the court defined “journalist”; but if that didn’t work they might also be protected under the “Overriding discretion as to confidential information” provision (s69) which is not confined to journalists. But this example does not affect the need to settle on a definition of news media for other purposes – eg the right to stay in court when others are excluded; exemption from the Privacy Act principles; exemption from s9 of the the Fair Trading Act (which is currently confined to newspapers and broadcasters).

We would be interested to know whether your experience led you to complain to any of the news media outlets whose coverage you thought was inaccurate/overly invasive - and if so what the outcome might have been ? Equally if you did not complain, can you tell us why not?