John Campbell the wrong target in reporter opinion controversy

The attack on TVNZ’s John Campbell for having the gall to express a clearly labelled opinion reminds me of an incident that occurred when I was in Rio de Janeiro. Police stormed a bus on which passengers were held hostage. They opened fire, killing a passenger and leaving the gunman unscathed.

Mysteriously, the captured gunman was dead when the police van arrived at the police station…but that’s another story. I am more concerned with well-intentioned actions that hit the wrong people.

Former Dominion editor Karl du Fresne criticised an opinion piece about the national hui at Tūrangawaewae Marae that Campbell penned for the TVNZ website. At the core of du Fresne’s criticism was the belief that a journalist working for a state-owned media organisation invalidated his position by expressing a personal view (critical of government policy) that nailed his colours to the mast. He called for Campbell to be dismissed.

A cover story in the latest issue of North & South interrogated the controversy. It quoted a number of journalists and academics and, although none called for the TVNZ chief correspondent’s head on a pike, most were of the view that his forthright opinion pieces should not have been published. Some felt it affected public trust in journalists, others placed TVNZ in the same public interest journalism sphere as fully taxpayer-funded RNZ (it is not) and saw this as an opinion-free zone (even RNZ is not).

The issue contained an eloquent – and compelling – defence by John Campbell in which he stated: “I have never been, and I am not, partisan. Full stop. My journalism has never, once, supported a political party.” He spoke of “work in which I am able to amplify other voices”. Adding “That’s still the journalism that matters to me most.”

I have no difficulty with John Campbell stating his opinion on the TVNZ website, so long as it is clearly identified as such – and it is. Thinking back to my days as editor of the New Zealand Herald, I liken Campbell to the paper’s then political editor John Armstrong, who wrote attention-getting opinion pieces but did not allow it to intrude into his straightforward reportage that earned the respect of Parliament and beyond. Continue reading “John Campbell the wrong target in reporter opinion controversy” →

Politicians must get the message: Journalism is facing an extinction event

A publisher giving evidence before a select committee last week on the state of New Zealand’s media used a phrase that sent an icy chill down my spine: An extinction event.

James Frankham, publisher of the widely acclaimed New Zealand Geographic was echoing the words of New Yorker magazine, but his use of that phrase brought it home to this country with a resounding thud.

He was one of a succession of media representatives appearing before the Economic Development, Science and Innovation Select Committee, which is considering the Fair Digital News Bargaining Bill. Each of them painted a grim picture of the future of journalism if new ways are not found to pay for the production of news and its derivatives.

Days before the hearing, New Yorker had published an article headed “Is the media prepared for an extinction-level event?” It chronicled massive layoffs in the American media – 2681 last year and an accelerating number already this year – and quoted a January newsletter by media consultant Matthew Goldstein in which he said: “I see a potential extinction-level event in the future.”

He was adding the impact of artificial intelligence integrated search to the media’s existing woes. AI-integrated search, rolled out by Google, answers queries without referring users to outside websites. In other words, even the limited benefit that news sites have had in the past are about to be lost.

The article was accompanied by an illustration of a meteor racing towards Earth, with writhing dinosaurs meeting their end. The use of that extinction stereotype was unfortunate. We are not talking only about the death of legacy media like newspapers – the so-called dinosaurs. We are facing the death of journalism itself. It is more helpful to remember that there have been five extinction events in Earth’s history. The end of the dinosaurs was the fifth, and some argue that humankind is now causing the sixth. Continue reading “Politicians must get the message: Journalism is facing an extinction event” →

Submission: Fair Digital News Bargaining Bill

Yesterday the Economic Development, Science and Innovation Select Committee heard submissions on the Fair Digital News Bargaining Bill. I made a written submission on the bill, which proposes a system under which New Zealand news organisations could negotiate with social media and search platforms for compensation for the use of news content. Here is my submission:

My name is Gavin Peter Ellis. I am a media researcher and consultant. I hold a doctorate in political studies and am an honorary research fellow at Koi Tū: Centre for Informed Futures at the University of Auckland. I have a background in news media stretching back more than fifty years.

I wish to make the following submission on the Fair Digital News Bargaining Bill.

The introduction of the Fair Digital News Bargaining Bill follows the adoption of measures by Australia and Canada to bring some balance to a playing field tipped on its end by the immense power of Alphabet (Google) and Meta (Facebook).

A Cabinet Paper on the New Zealand proposal stated: “The overwhelming feedback from the New Zealand media sector has been that in all respects of their commercial dealings with Google and Meta, news media organisations must accept ‘take in or leave it’ terms that are weighted in favour of the platforms. This inherently limits news media companies’ ability to negotiate about what is a fair return for their investment in news content.”

From my knowledge of the relationship between the platforms and New Zealand media, I would endorse this assessment but would add that there are some media entities with which the platforms simply refuse to engage. This is in spite of the fact that material produced and paid for by these entities is appropriated for use on the platforms.

The Cabinet paper also noted New Zealand companies had no ability to negotiate over issues such as changes to algorithms that affect the distribution of content. Since the paper was tabled, Facebook has, in fact, changed its algorithm affecting New Zealand news, resulting in a drop in page views across our news media.

The Bill proposes a bargaining code but there are alternatives that would be both more robust and would more accurately reflect the impact that search and social media platforms have had, and will continue to have, on vital news media services here.

Those alternatives include a levy on the New Zealand revenue of multinational digital platforms to produce a pool of funds to be distributed equitably to news media.  A ring-fenced revenue tax would nullify the platforms’ profit-minimising strategies in selected jurisdictions, such as New Zealand.

I submit that the alternatives should be preferred above attempts to strengthen the bargaining position of New Zealand media, simply because the power imbalance between the parties is too great and no agreements will reflect the relative impact on each party.

Search and social media platforms have gained such power that anything less than an impost on their commercial activity is unlikely to benefit the diverse forms of New Zealand news media, either sufficiently or equitably.

At the core of the proposed law is a framework for negotiation between the digital platforms and news media entities. The framework sets out timelines on negotiation, mediation, and final offer arbitration if required. There are definitions of what types of digital platform would be captured by the legislation. Unlike the Australian law, where a government minister designates which platforms will be included, the New Zealand proposal (and the similar Canadian law) adopts a catch-all approach from which a platform could be exempted if it meets conditions showing it has already significantly benefitted the New Zealand news media sector.

These conditions appear to be subjective, and provide the means by which Alphabet and Meta could seek exemptions despite the fact that, relative to their levels of commercial activity in this country, their settlements have been minimal.

The Bill provides little or no redress for those companies that have already negotiated with the multinationals – from a position of weakness. The proposed law  cannot be used to over-ride existing agreements between the digital platforms and New Zealand news media entities. Nor can it be used to renegotiate the terms of those agreements. The net effect of such provisions is to make the principal powers of the Bill a nullity in respect of some of our most significant media entities.

In my view, while the Bill has good intentions – making digital platforms pay for news content produced by others – it fails in providing adequate means for achieving that goal. Nor does it reflect in any way the need for a form of reparation. For years, these platforms have benefitted from content without payment and have decimated the business models of news producers performing civic and social functions that the platforms do not. They have both an obligation and the means to make reparations.

Neither goal will be met by a ‘bargaining framework’.  Implicit in such an arrangement is good corporate citizenship but that has not always been evident in the actions of the platforms. When Canada passed its C-18 Law, Facebook responded by blocking Canadian news links, an act that Canadian Minister of Heritage, Pascale St-Onge, called “irresponsible and unreasonable”. A review of the Australian law after the first year of operation included a request that the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission investigate whether bargaining power imbalances still exist.

Nothing in the Bill relates to a newer threat to the ownership of news content. Generative AI depends on existing data from which to construct its new ‘realities’. A significant element of that data is found on the websites and in the archives of news media. Nothing in the Bill provides redress for news media for the ‘scraping’ of their content by AI engines, the most powerful of which are likely to be owned by the platforms at which the Bill is aimed. It is a serious omission, although I acknowledge it is one that may be redressed through other legislation.

The financial state of the New Zealand news media gives cause for serious concern. That state is due in no small part to the actions and attitudes of multinational digital platforms that are immensely powerful and immensely wealthy.

The only way in which that power and wealth can be met on anything approaching equal terms is to employ undeniable sovereign power – in this case, the right of an elected government to impose taxes on business activities within its jurisdiction.

I submit that the Bill should be rewritten to reflect such determination, or that it be replaced by a new Bill that does so. The result – a sovereign fund to sustain democratically and socially significant journalism – could be the difference between a healthy civic environment and democratic deficit.

From one old man to another: Time to call it quits

After President Biden was described last week as “an elderly man with a poor memory”, many of the world’s media questioned his fitness for a second term at the age of 81. As one old man to another, I have some advice: Don’t do it, Joe.

I am almost the age at which Biden commences his first presidential term. Even if I had the political experience and the opportunity, I would not contemplate taking on the job. Nor had any other American politician before him at that age.

Based on what my own body tells me, and on what I see around me, the prospect of anyone presiding over the most powerful nation of Earth until he is 86 fills me with dread.

It is the same sort of dread I feel at the prospect of the post being held by a septuagenarian lunatic who thinks the way to increase NATO defence spending is to invite Russia to invade some of its member states. Continue reading “From one old man to another: Time to call it quits” →