Tag: advertising revenue

NZ media’s lab test results spell bad news

Three primary indicators of the health of New Zealand news media will be published this week and, if the first is anything to go by, the industry needs to be moved to the Intensive Care Unit.

AUT’s JM&D Trust in News Survey, the Acumen Edelman Trust Barometer, and the annual breakdown of advertising spend by the Advertising Standards Authority are all due this week.

The JM&D report – based on methodology developed by the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at Oxford University for its survey of global trust – was released yesterday (two days early). It shows overall trust in news has dropped dramatically in the past year.

Two-thirds of people do not trust the news. Surely to God that sends a message to all mainstream, media that their approach to journalism has to change.

The overall level of trust has dropped by a staggering 38 per cent in the five years the AUT study has been carried out. Even trust in the news people use has declined by more than 27 per cent since 2020 and now fewer than half of us trust those sources.

We now rank alongside the UK in the low proportion of people who trust most news most of the time. Only the United States posted lower rates.

We also ranked highest in news avoidance in a comparison with the Reuters international survey. In New Zealand, three-quarters actively avoid the news to some extent.  Greece ranks next with about 58 per cent and the international average sits below 40 per cent. Continue reading “NZ media’s lab test results spell bad news” →

The tweet that could cook Twitter’s goose

Perversity being what it is, I think Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter could be the best thing that could happen to the Christchurch Call.

Remember the Christchurch Call, the international effort to curb online hate speech led by Jacinda Ardern after the mosque attacks? Do you recall the enthusiasm with which social media platforms joined international leaders to commit to a better tomorrow and Facebook, Twitter and Google collectively stating they were “resolute in our commitment to ensure we are doing all we can to fight the hatred and extremism that lead to terrorist violence”?

Last Thursday we had confirmation of what we already knew: The social media platforms were either inept or liars. The Washington-based Center for Countering Digital Hate produced a report showing the platforms had failed to act on Anti-Muslim hate 89 per cent of the time. We can only imagine their failure rate on other forms of hate speech, to say nothing of dangerous disinformation, although the centre has previously identified failures to deal with antisemitism, anti-black racism, misogyny, and anti-vax disinformation.

The centre, using the platforms’ own search tools, identified 530 anti-Muslim posts that had been viewed at least 25 million times and much of the abusive content was easily identifiable. Users were able to adopt hashtags that were overtly anti-Muslim. Posts supporting the “Great Replacement” conspiracy theory that formed the basis of Christchurch terrorist Brenton Tarrant’s ‘manifesto’ continue to be carried on the platforms.

So how does Musk’s purchase of Twitter potentially help to rid the world of such poison? Continue reading “The tweet that could cook Twitter’s goose” →