So let’s talk about the rise and rise of the gotcha in political reportage.

"Gotcha journalism" is a term in the media that describes interviewing methods that are designed to entrap interviewees into saying something or doing something that could be seen as damaging to their cause, their character, their integrity, or their reputation.

But the problem with gotcha journalism is if you haven’t got it right then it can gotcha you right back. Then the gotcha moment turns into a moment of fake news and propaganda.

The latest gotcha was on Sunday when the Herald on Sunday reported that Jacinda Ardern and her team hired an advertising agency in New York to take pictures of her on her itinerary and used taxpayers money to do so.

The heavy implication was that this was another waste of taxpayer funds by the party being painted as a tax and spend one. 

In the Herald on Sunday piece the second paragraph said this. “In the past, New Zealand Prime Ministers have had a staffer from their offices take photos, but Ardern had a crew of three from agency Augusto's New York office.”

And that was repeated in media commentary. Just get a staffer to take some snaps with their iPhone.

However, in the same story but much lower in the piece Paul Bennett is quoted as saying this. “When John Key was PM he would occasionally have a photographer on international trips, but only if they travelled on the Airforce 757 where there weren't additional flying costs.”

And when John Key had that photographer he paid for it out of the same Leaders budget that Jacinda Ardern used. So John Key used to hire photographers and now Jacinda Ardern does. So where does that leave this story? Grasping for relevancy I’d say.

Now the ad agency the Ardern team used is actually a New Zealand ad agency that has an office in New York, so she supported a New Zealand business and avoided paying any flying costs and got some great pictures that were used by a number of New Zealand media. Where is the problem?

And here is something even more ironic. 

Back in 2013 Stuff reported Prime Minister John Key's office was advertising for a new taxpayer-funded photographer and videographer to shoot pictures and videos of National MPs. In the story John Key said it would paid for out of the leaders budget which is fine as long as it’s used for parliamentary purposes. This is exactly what Ardern said this morning

The story goes on to argue that American presidents have had official photographers for decades and Commonwealth countries were starting to catch up so why don’t we. And I think that’s a very good idea because these things need to be witnessed and documented for good and bad and for history.

Ardern's New York trip did have history in it and it deserved to be fully recorded and I’m glad that it wasn’t left to some amateur staffer taking random pics with their iPhone.