Who is the new editor of Wellington’s newspaper? He is many, many, many things.
The seismographs of Wellington bounced off the walls this morning, triggered by all the jaws hitting the floor. The new editor of the city’s daily newspaper, replacing Tracy Watkins, had been announced: Matthew Hooton.
With a back catalogue spanning political speechwriting, corporate PR, commentary, scheming, philosophy scholarship and Mongolia, Hooton can boast a captivating CV. But, as the title he is about to take charge of pointedly noted this morning, “there’s one thing missing from his list of credentials: journalism. Hooton has never trained as or been a journalist, yet he’s now the new editor-in-chief of The Post”.
Controversial, combative and never dull, Hooton has a chunky list of greatest hits. These are some of them.
November 1991 – a teen in the Beehive
Having completed schooling at Auckland Grammar, Hooton had gone on to Auckland University, but by the second year found himself “drifting”, he told the Spinoff last year in an interview for the Juggernaut series . He heard of a job going in the office of the education minister, Lockwood Smith.
Said Hooton: “I just announced myself as the best speech writer in the world and said, you know, he had to hire me. He didn’t immediately agree with that proposition. So I rang his senior private secretary, Beryl Bright, every Wednesday, just after question time, to say, has he made a decision yet? And after six months, I think she got sick of me and gave me what was meant to be a summer job, but turned into a seven-year job.”
He was 19 at the time. “It was illegal to drink in the 3.2 [bar] in the Beehive when I started. So I was an illegal drinker at the very heart of government for a month or two.”
Hooton served as press secretary and speechwriter. He became friends with Todd Muller, at the time a staffer in Jim Bolger’s office. “It was a dream come true.”
November 1996 – wanderlust
Hooton left parliament to travel. “I got very bored with the coalition negotiations in 1996, they just went on and on,” he said. “We were forbidden from doing any work for constitutional reasons. I got sick of that, so I bought a one-way air ticket to India.“
2000 – the private sector
Having returned to New Zealand and after a short second spell in Smith’s office, Hooton took up the role as head of communications for Fonterra for a couple of years.
2003 – boosting Brash
In a freelance capacity, Hooton worked with Don Brash and helped him in his efforts to become leader of the National Party. Hooton later appeared in Nicky Hager’s 2006 book The Hollow Men , based on correspondence that details National campaign strategy in the lead up to the 2005 election.
January 2005 – the grinfuck industry
Hooton founded Exceltium, a PR and lobbying firm, with a range of corporate and iwi clients. “We designed strategy-led communications programmes that shifted opinion and policies to support the business plans of our clients,” he says on Linkedin. Staff members will include Ben Thomas and Brooke Van Velden.
The most important client in the early days was the Kyoto Forestry Association. “They ended up delivering about $1.6 billion to the client in carbon credits,” said Hooton in a 2019 interview with the Spinoff . “That was in the dying days of the Helen Clark government. They did a U-turn and allowed the clients to participate in the emissions trading scheme.”
Part of the job as a lobbyist was to sort meetings for clients with senior MPs. “Usually the person gets ‘grin fucked’ by the politician and nothing happens,” he said.
Asked in 2019 to describe his function within the New Zealand political landscape, he said: “I think that I’ve been involved in politics and business and the media for nearly 30 years, and I think that – and this is a boring old man answer, as well – we all have different functions. When we’re 20 we can be the young radical Milton Friedman. I think that one of my roles now is to see events and give them greater meaning by putting them in the context in which they occur, from a well-known perspective. And that’s increasingly rare in the New Zealand landscape.”
2014 – confronting alcoholism
Hooton quit drinking. “It’s one of the most joyous and exciting things that I’ve ever done,” he said in 2019. “It was out of control and it was damaging my life and it was putting everything I valued at risk. And there was an intervention by two very good drinking buddies. At the Wine Loft on Shortland Street,” he said. He has been an active member of support groups since.
August 2014 – Dirty Politics
Another Nicky Hager book had Hooton in a supporting role. Dirty Politics, based on correspondence hacked and shared by “Rawshark” explored the relationships between John Key’s prime ministerial office, rightwing bloggers and the media.
2017 – working with David Seymour
Hooton and Exceltium worked as strategic advisers on the Act campaign. At the election, Act won 0.5% of the…
Read the full article at The Spinoff →
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