What if Newshub’s owners had been walking our streets?

When Newshub met its end last Friday night I was left with a niggling question: If Newshub been owned by local interests rather than an American corporation, would it have been summarily executed?

You see, I have a theory that local ownership exposes proprietors to pressures that are not felt by directors and executives sitting thousands of kilometres away.

If owners walk the same streets as the people they serve, they are confronted and held to account. Even the most isolated find themselves being questioned by the members of the social sets in which they move. They are forced to consider the impacts and consequences of their decisions.

Anonymous overseas executives and directors do not see the results of their abstract decision-making, apart (perhaps) from a small blip on the next set of financials.

TV3 has been losing about $35 million a year and, although no owner wants to see continued deficits, the amount ($21.5 million in US dollars) is not much more than a rounding number for WBD, which last year earned revenue of $US41.3 billion from its worldwide operations. That was roughly what this entire country earned from its goods exports.

There is little doubt that Newshub was costing TV3 too much money and something had to change, but was total closure of the news division the only option? At the time of its announcement, WBD said “there was nothing anyone in our New Zealand network business could have done better”. Maybe not, but could they have done things differently? Continue reading “What if Newshub’s owners had been walking our streets?” →

Biden cannot rise from the ashes after debate’s funeral rite

I am wracked with guilt over the way I sat transfixed and watched someone die on live television. Ghoulish? Macabre? Insensitive? Yes, I was guilty of all of those things.

In my defence – and I admit it is a weak excuse – it did look as though the person had already died some time ago.

But before you take to social media to flay me alive, I do ask you to consider your own reaction to the end-of-life display by President Joe Biden in his debate with Donald Trump.

And, of course, I am talking figuratively. Biden took to the hustings after the debate in a desperate attempt to prove he was very much alive and planned to remain so after being re-elected. I’m not sure he succeeded.

There is no getting away from the fact that he died a death in front of the cameras in CNN’s Atlanta studios. Even the most ardent Biden supporters had their fingers crossed behind their backs when they said Trump’s falsehoods were more damaging than their own leader’s fumbling missteps.

Media commentators were excoriating in their descriptions of Biden’s performance, and none more so than the Daily Mail’s Richard Littlejohn who drew on an imaginative array of metaphors to describe not only Biden’s performance but also the spectacle of two bizarre opponents slugging it out. Here are a few examples:

Last night’s US Presidential debate in Atlanta, Georgia, made a bar-room brawl in the Bronx between two incontinent old age pensioners look decorous…Biden and Trump reminded me of Statler and Waldorf, the quarrelsome geriatrics from the front row of the balcony on The Muppets…If the President had been a racehorse at Ascot last week, the steward would have put him out of his misery with a single shot to the temple…The post-match quarterbacks on Republican-friendly Fox News were enthusiastically describing last night as a victory for Trump. Which, because of Biden’s cringe-making meltdown, it probably was. But honestly? Trump was kicking a cripple. It was excruciating to watch. Continue reading “Biden cannot rise from the ashes after debate’s funeral rite” →

Why and how journalism can have a strong future

The contest between giving audiences what they like and what they need has been waged for as long as we’ve had mass-circulation newspapers. Research published last week suggests it’s time to put our money on the latter.

The latest global Digital News Report from the Reuters Institute at Oxford University not only surveyed where people get their news and how much they trust it but also what they expect it to provide.

Too much of our current news output is driven by emotional triggers – prompts that induce people to read, listen or watch almost in spite of themselves. Death, crime, and misfortune add little to our ability to function in society, but they are surefire ways to get our attention.

Or they were in the past.

It is clear from the Reuters report that in an information saturated digital environment, too much competition for attention means button-pushing will not drawn people to news outlets any longer. Internationally, only about a fifth of the online community identify news outlets as their sources of news. More are turning to short videos for ‘news’ and much of that isn’t being produced by news outlets but by online commentators and a new breed called ‘creators’. And, apart from that, interest in news generally is still on a downward trend.

However, the Digital News Report 2024 also points to what may be the salvation for news media if they have the sense to embrace it and to find new ways to reach their audiences.

The institute used a model of audience research, originally employed by the BBC, that measures needs rather than likes. It surveyed users on eight indicators under four headings of knowledge, understanding, feeling, and doing:

  • Update
  • Education
  • Perspective
  • Assistance
  • Engagement
  • Inspiration
  • Connection
  • Diversion

Unsurprisingly, the greatest need from news media was to update (72 per cent) but, significantly, it was closely followed by the need for news to educate (67 per cent) and to give perspective (62 per cent). Around 60 per cent also wanted news media to help them and keep them engaged with issues, two factors that were closely related. Around half needed the news for inspiration or connection. Less than half need the news for diversion.

The update role will continue to be core business for news media but cannot be relied upon to bring audiences to homepages. Much of this updating is spread through social media. It is in the more demanding functions that news media may secure their future.

But how well do they meet needs now? Continue reading “Why and how journalism can have a strong future” →

Stuff Circuit’s chilling and timely voice from the grave

In the end, the timing was impeccable. The day Chinese premier Li Qiang arrived on a state visit, Stuff dropped a bombshell announcing its documentary on the superpower’s New Zealand interference operations that have been going on for decades.

The documentary The Long Game (and daily revelations from it printed in Stuff newspapers) paint a picture of agents of influence, spying on the local Chinese community, and allegations of sabotage and intimidation. After the programme’s release, the Interparliamentary Alliance on China (co-chaired by National and Labour) called for a select committee inquiry into foreign interference.

This was powerful journalism from the Stuff Circuit team. Yet The Long Game was a documentary from the dead, and one that almost failed to claw its way out of the grave.

The Stuff Circuit team had already been disbanded when it screened. The team had included investigative journalist Paula Penfold, senior producer Louisa Cleave, editor Toby Longbottom and cameraman Phil Johnson but only Penfold remained employed by Stuff. The rest of the team had been gone for months.

The Long Game was its last project, but legal and editorial caution almost prevented the documentary (and the series of print articles that had been prepared at the same time by Penfold and Cleave) from seeing the light of day. Continue reading “Stuff Circuit’s chilling and timely voice from the grave” →