The newly anointed charity Better Public Media Trust says the decision is a major endorsement of the importance of public media
The Court of Appeal has ruled that Better Public Media Trust meets the threshold of a charity, more than eight years after it first applied.
The decision, released late last week, overturned an earlier High Court judgment in support of the Charities Registration Board’s decision to turn down the Trust’s 2015 application to be registered as a charity.
It also ordered the trust be registered as a charity with effect from the date of its original application.
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Better Public Media director Myles Thomas said the trust was thrilled.
“It certainly does seem to be an endorsement of public media as a public good. The judgment is amazingly complimentary of the work we do in the way we do it, which is really gratifying,” he said.
He also credited its lawyers Daniel Nilsson and Sam Humphrey, who took the case on a pro-bono basis.
The trust, which advocates for more funding and support for public media organisations such as RNZ, TVNZ and Whakaata Māori, is made up of more than 2000 members who pay an annual membership fee of $20 to $40.
It believes well-funded public media – be it news, drama or documentary – not reliant on ratings or clicks, would lead to greater social cohesion.
“For example, people often think the wider world beyond their suburb is unsafe because of exaggerated crime coverage in the news,” Thomas said.
“If the only news media we have is shallow and ignores policies to focus on 'the horse race', then politicians who want to be elected will tailor their messages accordingly.
“There are examples of this from the election such as National’s bootcamp policy and Labour’s GST on food policy. Both policies are proven to be ineffective but in a 30-second soundbite they resonate. I really think that is a terrible way for decisions to be made.”
After applying in 2015, Better Public Media was denied from registering as a charity in 2016, and after 30 months of working with the Department of Internal Affairs, the final decision to bar its registrations was made in April 2019.
That decision was made on the grounds it promoted its views on the importance and benefits of public media, but because it didn’t provide its own public media, its advocacy was not directed towards a charitable end.
After the trust took its declined application to court, High Court Judge Helen Cull found that, among other things, its aim to support improved access to funding, operating conditions, and platforms of distribution for public media “changed the tenor of the Trust’s purpose from agnostically protecting the public role of the media to championing that role at the expense of other interests”.
Speaking to Newsroom, Thomas said the idea that a stronger public media would come at the expense of a weakened private media was misguided.
“It actually helps private media, in that public media doesn’t compete for advertising with private media, so I can’t really see the argument, and I think that’s what the Court of Appeal suggests as well.”
The Court of Appeal decision, made by Justices Patricia Courtney, David Collins and Sarah Katz, found the fact its purposes might conflict with other opinions and interests did not disqualify it from being registered as a charity.
“The advancement of public media may come at the cost of competing interests, although there is no evidence that demonstrates this concern is factually valid,” the judgment read.
“Even if other interests are disadvantaged through the advancement of public media, this consequence should not necessarily preclude an advocacy trust from qualifying under the fourth head of charitable purposes.”
The fourth head of charitable purposes is essentially being beneficial to the community.
Now that Better Public Media Trust has achieved charitable status, Thomas said it was able to get on with its original plan involving fundraising.
“That's something we really haven't been able to do up until now because philanthropic foundations and donors want charity status.
“We've still been operating but we've just had fewer resources, so this means we can be better resourced, we'll be applying for donations to do the work that we want to do in terms of supporting public media and bringing those educational benefits to New Zealand.”
As for its future workload, he said the trust was waiting to see who the Broadcasting Minister was and what their policies were.
He said Winston Peters' alarming anti-media rhetoric during the election didn’t necessarily gel with New Zealand First’s previous media policies, so it was hard to know where he truly stood, and some of National’s broadcasting spokesperson Melissa Lee’s stances while in opposition were also of concern.
Thomas said he was apprehensive about what the next government would bring for media, “but we really hope that some good things may come of it – we’re open-minded”.
