The severity of the problem of a commercially viable local media is obvious, but the discussion on what to do is lacking, with National and Act failing to even turn up to a debate this week.
Opinion: It’s the media’s fault. Blaming the media is a standard tactic of most political parties when things don’t pan out the way they’d hoped. But when they get the chance to debate the issues shaping the media environment, only a few demonstrate real interest.
Governments around the world have responded in various ways to the pressures confronting traditional media. As well as funding public broadcasters many support private media. Sweden, Norway, Finland, Denmark, Iceland, France, and Italy provide direct support to commercial media companies. Germany, the UK, and Belgium provide generous indirect support (reduced taxes). Canada does both. These measures are aimed at strengthening democracy and maintaining freedom of expression.
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In this country, the biggest employers of journalists – newspapers and broadcasters – have seen their audiences and revenues carved off by global scale social networking sites and search engine platforms. Removing cost (employees) has been the only route to survival as these businesses transition to digital platforms and put content behind paywalls – if they can.
Jackson is particularly proud of the bill, which aims to help local media be viable in the digital marketplace by creating a good faith bargaining process with the likes of Meta and Google. Jackson repeated his early claims that he thinks it will bring an additional $200m a year into local news media coffers
The current government’s attempts to plug gaps in regional news, journalist training and current affairs reporting have ended up being weaponised by opposition parties, protest groups and, bizarrely, some sections of the media itself.
The $55 million Public Interest Journalism Fund and a plan to merge TVNZ and RNZ were Labour’s main answers to the economic challenges facing this country’s media. Both backfired politically and were scrapped. New ideas (and revenue streams) are needed if local media is to survive, retain its diversity and be a stronger bulwark against the flow of misinformation.
The severity of the problem is obvious, but the discussion on what to do is lacking.
Better Public Media, a group that lobbies for the expansion of non-commercial public radio and television and more investment in investigative journalism, held its 2023 election debate in Grey Lynn this week, except it wasn’t a debate. The two parties most in line to form the next Government didn’t turn up.
The spectre of Winston Peters returned as Marcroft called for a Royal Commission into ‘media bias and media manipulation’. Asked later where this idea had come from, Marcroft confirmed it had come from Peters but she agreed with it
National’s Melissa Lee, almost certain to be the Minister of Broadcasting if National win, campaigned hard against the TVNZ/RNZ merger but seemingly didn’t relish the chance to take on Broadcasting Minister Willie Jackson in this forum. BPM told Newsroom they had been contacting Lee’s office twice a week since September 1. Lee got back to them last week and said she wouldn’t be coming. Requests to send someone else or, at least, a policy statement were ignored, said BPM director Myles Thomas.
Likewise, no one from Act showed up. Its broadcasting spokesperson, Damien Smith, is not standing for the party at this election.
The Greens' broadcasting spokesperson, Chlöe Swarbrick, was also a no-show, but the party did send along Ricardo Menéndez March. His previous career as a film projectionist was noted by the organisers but he seemed to have a limited grasp on his party’s broadcasting policy.
Jackson talked about what he had done over the last eight months rather than providing a vision for the future. In the wake of the abandoned merger, he had increased RNZ’s budget by $25m a year and changed the board at TVNZ, “because we want a strong public broadcaster” and introduced the Fair Digital News Bargaining Bill to parliament.
Jackson is particularly proud of the bill, which aims to help local media be viable in the digital marketplace by creating a good faith bargaining process with the likes of Meta and Google. Jackson repeated his early claims that he thinks it will bring an additional $200m a year into local news media coffers.
In what was probably an honest insight into how he views Labour’s chances of reelection, Jackson told the audience, “Sadly I think it will be thrown out.”
Menéndez March said Jackson’s bill was a step in the right direction because local media needed to be strengthened to slow the importation of American media which was based on “misogyny and white supremacy”.
NZ First broadcasting spokesperson Jenny Marcroft, who has had a 30-year involvement in the broadcasting industry, said Jackson had done a good job, but traditional media’s business model was crumbling and “the decline in trust in the media was fundamental to the decline in democracy”.
New Zealand First has an uneasy relationship with the media. Leader Winston Peters constantly opines that he doesn’t get a fair go. Willie Jackson was quick to reference Peters’ recent interview with TVNZ’s Jack Tame where Peters alleged Tame was corrupt.
Jackson said the NZ First leader had been “annihilated” by Tame. With the shadow of the Peters interview hanging over her, Marcroft laid out NZ First broadcasting policy.
It is proposing to support media companies hiring young reporters out of journalism schools by paying 50 percent of their salaries for two years. Marcroft said the party also wanted subscriptions and corporate sponsorships of news media to be tax deductible.
It would push the next government to continue supporting the Local Democracy Reporting project and the Te Rito journalism project which addresses the shortage of reo Māori and Pasifika journalists and cultural awareness within newsrooms.
Marcroft said the need for Te Rito was brought home to her by her daughter, who is studying journalism: “Everyone in her class is like her. A young, middle-class blonde girl.”
The spectre of Winston Peters returned as Marcroft called for a Royal Commission into "media bias and media manipulation”. Asked later where this idea had come from, Marcroft confirmed it had come from Peters but she agreed with it. Where was the bias happening – Newstalk ZB, RNZ, TVNZ, or Stuff? “All of them,” replied Marcroft.
Her final policy plank was the appointment of a media ombudsman to sit above the Broadcasting Standards Authority, which she felt was too weak and needed more teeth.
During question time the candidates were asked if they supported a levy to help fund local media (BPM has promoted the idea that the current small levy on the telecommunications industry could be increased to support public interest media).
Marcroft said she supported a levy on streaming services such as Netflix. Menéndez March said he also supported a levy but he wasn’t sure on who or what. Jackson felt his fair bargaining bill was the best answer as local media “had been ripped off by these global giants”.
The crowd wandered off into the wet Auckland night wondering what National and Act would have said.
While other countries, particularly the Nordic states, actively look for ways to support a diverse and independent media in a disruptive digital age, it seems just getting our key politicians to the debating table is going to be a challenge.
