Matthew Hooton, a former National Party strategist and ACT adviser with no prior journalism experience, has been appointed editor-in-chief of The Post and Sunday Star-Times, replacing Tracy Watkins at the helm of Stuff's flagship Wellington daily and its Sunday title.

The appointment was reported by the NZ Herald's Media Insider on 15 June 2026. Hooton has been a familiar figure in New Zealand's political and media commentary landscape for years — a consultant and strategist who has advised parties on the right and appeared regularly across broadcast and print platforms — but he has not held a newsroom role.

The Post is the main daily newspaper serving Wellington, where the Press Gallery, Parliament and the bulk of the public service are based. Giving its editorship to someone whose career has been built inside the political machine rather than covering it is unusual in the New Zealand context, where editors of papers of record have typically come through editorial ranks.

Hooton's political associations are well-documented. He worked as a strategist for the National Party and as an adviser to ACT, according to RNZ. Those connections will be scrutinised given that The Post covers the same government those parties have historically been part of, and given that Wellington's readership skews heavily towards the public sector and political classes who watch editorial independence closely.

The editorial independence question is not abstract here. The Post's opinion and news pages carry weight in the capital's political culture in a way that Auckland-focused titles do not always match. Questions about how Hooton will manage the paper's coverage of a government that includes parties he has previously advised — and whether he will impose a direction on opinion and news — are ones Stuff will need to address plainly and early.

There is also the craft question. Editing a newspaper is a distinct skill set from political consultancy or media commentary. It involves managing journalists, making daily news judgements under deadline pressure, navigating legal risk and maintaining source relationships on behalf of reporters rather than clients. Whether Hooton has been prepared for that by Stuff, or what support structure surrounds the appointment, has not been detailed publicly.

Watkins, who Hooton replaces, is a veteran political journalist whose own career was built in the Press Gallery. Her departure from the role leaves a gap in institutional knowledge that the new appointment does not obviously fill in the same way.

Stuff has not been immune to the structural pressures reshaping New Zealand print media. The company acquired its titles from Fairfax in 2020 and has since navigated significant revenue challenges common across the sector. Appointments at editor-in-chief level reflect ownership priorities, and this one will be read — fairly or not — through that lens by newsroom staff and readers alike.

What Hooton does with the role will matter more than the appointment itself. The Post's journalism, its news agenda and how it handles conflicts that touch his prior career are what will define whether the hire holds up. Those answers will come from the paper's coverage, not from any announcement.