Three short words fill me with a sense of dread when they are linked to the media industry – private…equity…company. Collectively they represent a form of enterprise that never peers over the top of a sterile balance sheet.
Their sole purpose is to provide the best possible return for their investors. There is nothing inherently wrong it that goal, but the single-minded pursuit of profit makes them manifestly unsuited for ownership of companies providing social, cultural and democratic services to the public.
Media companies that produce or carry news and information services have impacts on society that were once recognised as imposing inherent obligations on the organisation.
In the past, owners accepted forms of cross-subsidisation without question. They funded journalism that was important, but which may not have attracted audiences as readily as the salacious or merely entertaining. They sent journalists far afield following politicians, when reporting a rugby tour was arguably more popular. They did so because one of those inherent obligations was holding power to account.
Some owners continue to shoulder those obligations and long may they continue to do so. However, for every organisation that continues to meet social and civic needs, there is another that has been decimated in the name of ‘return on investment’.
The latest manifestation of private equity bitemporal hemianopsia (I chose this form of tunnel vision because it doesn’t just affect the periphery but half of what we see) is what has happened to MediaWorks at the hands of Sydney-based private equity firm Quadrant and the New Zealand media company’s previous owners. Continue reading “My feeling of dread can reach biblical proportions”
