The home of Story presenter Heather du Plessis-Allan and her husband, broadcaster Barry Soper, has been searched by police this morning.
Police were attempting to prove charges of forgery and deception against du Plessis-Allan for obtaining a gun without a licence.
The show featured a story where a gun was ordered online to prove how easy it was to obtain a weapon, but police were quick to close the loophole.
It's understood Detective Senior Sergeant Andrew Saunders arrived at Mr Soper's Wellington apartment this morning to present him with a search warrant.
MediaWorks group chief executive Mark Weldon says the police are doing their job in the course of their investigations and that is "perfectly normal".
"[We stand] by the Story team and their focus on the flaw in the mail order gun system that allowed people to buy guns without valid firearms licences," he says.
"It was an important piece of journalism and it has resulted in immediate changes to the rules around the mail order system which have now addressed that serious flaw."
The public interest has "clearly been serviced" by the spotlight being put on the issue, Mr Weldon says.
MPs from across the political spectrum have questioned the purpose of the raid, with Labour's police spokesman Stuart Nash saying du Plessis-Allan had done what she did in the public's interest.
Police "haven't exercised good judgement" and should have better things to do, including solving sexual assault and burglary cases.
Two senior officers were flown down from Auckland to conduct the search.
"Her actions caused the police to change the law on this issue so she's actually done a public good. Why police are going so hard against her I'm not sure and I think all journalists should be concerned about this.
"They should be thanking her as opposed to going after her in a raid like this. It just doesn't make sense to me," Mr Nash says.
"It almost seems as if there is a bit of a vendetta or they want to make a point here."
ACT Party leader David Seymour had seen photos of the search and thought police had "been watching too many movies again".
"Heather has pulled a bit of a stunt and technically broken the law so they should be pursuing it for everybody equally. The question is did they need to raid her house to get a handwriting sample."
While United Future leader Peter Dunne said he couldn't see any logical reason for police to search the apartment.
"I think that in the same week they had to back down over Dr Jarrod Gilbert, this just shows a very tunnel-vision approach by the police and I think they should be sorting things out that matter."
Dr Gilbert had been blacklisted from accessing police information because he had been considered unfit to conduct research due to his links to gangs – a subject he wrote a groundbreaking book about.
Police have since apologised and say they are reconsidering the policy.
Meanwhile, Police Minister Michael Woodhouse wouldn't comment on the case, saying it was an operational matter.
"We give them the resources to prevent and prosecute crime and how they deploy them is up to the New Zealand police," he said.
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