Next time you see a journalist, ask if you really matter

The books have simple one-word titles. I have finished reading one and am halfway through the other. Neither is about media or journalism, but both should send important messages to those who presume to report on our society. The titles of those books are Mattering and Noise.

Mattering is really a self-help book. Written by former CBS Sixty Minutes producer Jennifer Breheny Wallace, it is aimed at people who feel their relevance is unrecognised, slipping away, or (worst of all) non-existent.

Noise is an altogether different book. Written by three professors – Nobel prize winning psychologist Daniel Kahneman, business strategist Olivier Sibony, and legal scholar Cass Sunstein – it is a deep analysis of what gets in the way of sound judgement.

After I finished Mattering, and was reflecting on yet another profound insight in Noise, it suddenly occurred to me that I was reading about things that are fundamentally important for the future of professional news media.

Let’s start with mattering.

At a personal level I am sure we have all, at some time in our lives, questioned whether or how much we matter to our friends, work colleagues, local community and society in general. The multitudes who have been made redundant at a point in their working lives invariably ask such questions. So, too, do people like me who are increasingly separated by advancing age from the occupations that helped define us. Even a change in personal circumstances may give rise to doubts about whether we matter.

However, mattering is not only a personal need. We are social animals and our sense of identity and worth are bound up with neighbourhood, community and country. Just as we need to know that we are significant to those who directly touch our lives, we also need to know that we matter collectively.

This raised in my mind a question that I invite you to ask yourself the next time you read your newspaper or tune in to a news bulletin. This question is this: “Does this tell me that I or my community matter?” Continue reading “Next time you see a journalist, ask if you really matter” →

Chair’s subtext contains key to RNZ audience revival

New Radio New Zealand chair Brent Impey has told every journalist who has interviewed him about his new role that he will not interfere in operational matters. He does not need to meddle because he has now made it abundantly clear where changes have to be made.

He told Colin Peacock on RNZ’s Mediawatch that there were four priorities. Audience numbers on RNZ National and Concert must improve. So, too, must the state-owned organisation’s level of trust, and the size of its various digital audiences. Finally, it needs to become country’s most popular digital news platform.

Earlier in the week he threw down the gauntlet to a principal target.  He told the New Zealand Herald’s Shayne Currie that RNZ was “coming after” the Herald’s NZME stablemate NewstalkZB. He also highlighted a point of difference between RNZ and the commercial network – 18 minutes of advertising to which RNZ audiences did not have to listen. That may have sounded odd coming from a man whose background was in leading a company that had fought hard for every advertising dollar it could earn. However, Impey’s experience as chief executive of MediaWorks for a decade taught him more about audiences than advertising.

That was clear from what Stewart Sowman-Lund reported in The Post. Impey told him young people were not interested in radio, which was the province of people over 50. And he acknowledged that the habits of this older audience were harder to shift. He told The Post that adding 28,000 to the listenership of RNZ National by the end of the year (a goal the broadcaster had set itself) was “actually quite a challenge”.

The over-50s may be harder to shift but they have already moved…away from RNZ. Continue reading “Chair’s subtext contains key to RNZ audience revival” →

First points to Hooton for daily editorials in The Post

Aristotle may have warned us that one swallow does not make spring, but Matthew Hooton’s first-week-in-the-chair decision to reinstate daily editorials in The Post is a welcome portent of things to come.

So, too, is his decision to establish an Editorial Leadership Team to “guide the daily leaders on the issues that matter to New Zealand and New Zealanders”. In other words, Hooton has sent the strongest signal that the daily editorial will not be simply a re-masted version of his now-discontinued opinion column in the New Zealand Herald.

Announcing the move last week, The Post said Hooton will chair the team along with associate editor Luke Malpass and national affairs editor Andrea Vance. The other members of the team suggest the spectrum of editorial subjects will be wide-reaching. Its full membership includes chief arts correspondent André Chumko, political editor Henry Cooke, Auckland business editor Dita De Boni, assistant editor Kelly Dennett, chief sport news director Mark Geenty, chief Wellington news director Marc Greenhill and Auckland editor Amelia Wade. Others will contribute as required on specialised topics.

The first editorial, published yesterday, was a well-researched and well-articulated critique of failed government projects – large-ticket items that had produced little or nothing in spite of having public money thrown at them. The peg on which it was hung was the outrageous immigration facial recognition software scandal now subject to an enquiry by the State Services Commissioner.

The leader was measured but pulled no punches: “…failure has ceased to be an exception. It has become a governing philosophy. That is a far graver scandal than any single abandoned project.”

It was prominently displayed across the top half of a page and was attributed to “The Post Editorial Leaders Team”. The aim is to produce editorials based on team consensus but Hooton has taken the highly unusual step of allowing dissenting members of the team to disassociate themselves publicly from the collective point of view. Continue reading “First points to Hooton for daily editorials in The Post” →

The news shown in bite-sized social media morsels

The significant investments that Stuff and NZME have made in video news are starting to look like wise moves even if the payback has yet to fully materialise.

Their current major initiatives – Stuff’s production of Three’s nightly news and NZME’s two breakfast video shows on Herald Now – are unlikely to be financial saviours for either group. They are, however, the foundations that will allow both groups to take advantage of significant shifts in news consumption.

Their strategic thinking was given a boost last week with publication of the latest Reuters Institute Digital News Report which has found growing audience enthusiasm for online video content at a time when search referrals to digital news sites is plummeting toward ‘Google Zero’.

The Reuters report surveys 48 markets (Australia is the closest we get). For the first time, all of the surveyed countries report a majority of people watching online video news. Seventy seven per cent of people globally consume it each week. In 45 of those markets, more people watch online video news than broadcast television bulletins. And 57 per cent of 12 to 15 year-olds identify a single platform as their most important news source. It is TikTok – the go-to site for short-form vertical videos.

It is noteworthy that this growth in online video consumption is all happening on third party platforms. Worldwide, video consumption on news websites and apps has dropped five per cent in the past year. The report is unequivocal: “…if news videos from mainstream news organisations are being watched, that consumption is likely happening somewhere other than that publisher’s own website or app”. Over the past three years the proportion who consume video on news websites and apps has dropped from 28 per cent to 23 per cent.

In a New Zealand context, that points to a future where few will be watching Garth Bray’s HeraldNow Business or Ryan Bridge Today on the Herald website, or repurposed Three News on Stuff, but will turning to YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok. Continue reading “The news shown in bite-sized social media morsels” →