The local media equivalent of China Watchers will be keeping a close eye on who takes the job of chief executive at Stuff.
The position becomes vacant with the move by Laura Maxwell to take over News Corp’s Queensland operations.
The role of CEO in a one of our main media companies is significant in its own right but the next appointment could well have additional impact.
It may point to the future direction in which owner Sinead Boucher wishes to see the company go.
If the appointment is internal, the signal it sends will likely be ‘steady as she goes’. However, the identity of an external appointment could give clues to a strategic shift.
Stuff’s ultimate owner is Kenepuru Holdings, whose sole shareholder is Boucher. As a private company, Stuff does not have the same disclosure requirements as a listed company like NZME. Hence, we only know about Stuff’s plans if Boucher chooses to make a public comment.
However, if the new CEO is an external appointment, that person’s background may be a strong indicator of where Boucher wishes to take the company. Depending on that background, it may also indicate where the owner’s thinking may be going in terms of capital structure and business sectors.
Stuff has a heavy commitment in news media and, although Boucher will wish to see this remain a core activity, the vagaries of advertising are such that alternative revenue sources are becoming a necessary part of the news company portfolio. Will Boucher be looking to a new appointment to further a diversification strategy?
The Herald’s Media Insider Shayne Currie has speculated on who might take the role but his long list seems based more on potential availability or ability than actual inside knowledge. He includes names that would be well-suited to the role but no left-field candidates who would suggest that strategic shift.
It may, in fact, be some time before an appointment is made as Boucher has re-inserted herself into the role on an interim basis. Whoever takes the job will be doing so in challenging times
A case made for tabloids
The murder trial of retired eye surgeon Philip Polkinghorne is a tabloid editor’s dream: Sex, drugs, and death. Week after week its salacious detail has been shared with a salivating public that tut-tuts…and reads every dramatic word.
To the daily minute-by-minute coverage on news websites, has been added the observational skills of Herald writer Steve Braunias. In a conversation a while back, Braunias objected to my description of his court coverage as ‘colour pieces’ and the description – while accurate in terms of the generally understood meaning of the genre – may sell short his considerable powers of description and observational insights. His coverage has been compelling and we await with anticipation his summing up at the end of the trial. The case has the makings of a book, to say the least.
Unsuccessful efforts have been made by suicide prevention bodies to limit details of the trial in which allegations of murder have been countered by defence claims that Polkinghorne’s wife Pauline Hanna had committed suicide. Unsurprisingly, the judge has ruled in favour of open justice. It is difficult to see how the public could reach any conclusions on the efficacy of the jury’s eventual decision in the absence of crucial details relating to cause of death. There is little doubt, however, that details in the case have been harrowing.
Last weekend, in a perceptive editorial in the Sunday Star-Times Tracy Watkins noted the manner in which the trial had robbed Pauline Hanna of her dignity. As Watkins says, she knows more about Pauline Hanna than she feels she needs to know: “…the face she presented to the world has unravelled; it’s been cruelly dissected, judged in the harsh glare of a courtroom by an adversarial system that allows her to be put on trial as much as the man accused of killing her.”
Evidence, and the outpouring of Hanna’s innermost thoughts (from the grave, as it were), were, indeed, a harrowing consequence of the adversarial nature of our justice system. Neither Watkins nor I really see the revelations as anything but inevitable in the quest to determine guilt or innocence. Would her dignity have been protected by the inquisitorial system preferred by parts of Europe? Probably not. It’s a sad fact that the living retain the ability to defend their reputations but the dead do not. And reputation must take a back seat to the greater importance of proving guilt or innocence.
One swallow
One swallow may not maker a summer, but the radio industry will be pleased to see that its total audience is back to levels last seen two years ago.
The latest GfK audience survey for the second quarter of the year shows the 10-plus audience sitting at 3,425,600. It is a modest 26,500 up on the previous survey but, but given the previous two surveys were trending in the wrong direction, it will be welcome news. That number represents 74 per cent of the population.
The survey takes NewstalkZB back to its weekly audience of a year ago, although its number one position in total audience share has been unassailable in the commercial market for years. The Breeze takes the number two spot with its domination of the 45-64 market, although its overall audience is down on the previous two surveys. The fortunes of other stations are mixed. Mai FM is a music station winner with increases in both the 18-39 and 25-54 demographic.
The results show that the radio market is proving more resilient that some other media. Even taking account of the fact the survey numbers are a combination of broadcast and online listening, its reach is particularly telling when compared to broadcast television which has been in decline.
Constitutional wake-up call
I have never had to think very hard for a justification of our journalistic start-ups like The Spin-Off, BusinessDesk or Newsroom. Each has filled a gap in the media ecosystem. However, if I did need proof of their worth, I found it late last week on Newsroom.
It carried an article by former prime minister and constitutional expert Sir Geoffrey Palmer warning that we are ‘in danger of lurching toward constitutional impropriety”.
In it he warned that the National-led government was rapidly pushing through legislative changes that that are “unfit for purpose, legally suspect, contrary to the public interest, and inappropriate”. It catalogued overburdened legislative workloads, unprecedented urgency in the House, and interference with judicial principle and process. Further, it suggests Government ministers have ignored warnings from the Attorney-General, Judith Collins KC, about poor constitutional behaviour.
Constitutional law may not be a particularly sexy subject in an age of emotion-driven news, but it does find a ready home on sites like Newsroom.
This article was particularly important because it brought together Palmer’s constitutional knowledge, his analytical skills and his unrivalled ability to maintain a carefully measured tone.
He analysed the work of Parliament between December 2023 and August this year and found more than a third of bills went through their first and second readings under urgency with no referral to select committees.
When one is familiar with Geoffrey Palmer’s sombre tone, the import of some of his statements take on added impact. This is about as strident as he can get:
“The tight executive control of the legislative process was remarkable and a loss for democratic and parliamentary accountability. To legislate so fast and with so little reflection creates a dangerous precedent for the future of the New Zealand law-making system. It demeans the role of the House of Representatives and undermines public confidence and trust in our political institutions. To draft complex legislation at speed without proper advice, public consultation or proper scrutiny is undesirable and reckless.”
I hope Palmer’s article is the beginning of a widespread public debate, one that the coalition ignores at its peril. As he has noted on many occasions, New Zealand has too few constitutional safeguards. For our politicians to play fast and loose with what conventions we do have to protect democracy, is to court disaster. You can read his article here.