Tag: future of journalism

News media’s hellish year, as seen by a cock-eyed optimist

Hidden in every nightmarish landscape there has to be a glimmer of hope. And, unless we look for it, we are sentenced to a form of purgatory. So, while I am struggling to retain my optimism in the face of claims that I am naïve beyond my (advanced) years, I refuse to see New Zealand media’s past year only in terms of what has been lost.

I was heartened to see that New Zealand Geographic has reached the 10,000 subscribers it needed to continue publishing. I was encouraged by Duncan Greive’s note that The Spinoff added 3,000 recurring members in less than two weeks in response to a plea for financial support. He said in an email: “The goal remains the goal, but between the new members and some one-off donations, we’re feeling much better about where we’re at going into summer, and cautiously optimistic that with a lot of work we can achieve that big goal some time in the new year.”

Then my old colleague Tim Murphy also came to my rescue with an email that included a link to Newsroom’s report to readers for 2024 (you can read it here). In the report was a section titled “Journalism with impact”. It listed the news site’s prominent investigations and analyses, demonstrating that accountability journalism is alive in this country. It was work of which Murphy and his co-editor Mark Jennings could be justly proud.

Had other outlets chosen to follow Newsroom’s end-of-year example I am sure they, too, could have pointed to where their journalism had worked as it should – speaking truth to power.

Our journalists can take real pride from some of what they have done. They demonstrate they have the knowledge, talent and intellect to deliver on their solemn obligations. That’s the good news.

However, the news is never all good. In the past, I have referred to such fine examples as ‘oases of good journalism’, recognising that they exist in an otherwise arid desert. There is still much wrong with the way the editorial content of our news media is being produced and that, together with a raft of systemic failures, has placed the industry in jeopardy. And in 2024, the sand encroached even further. Continue reading “News media’s hellish year, as seen by a cock-eyed optimist” →

Raising the Bar: The Day the News Dies

“The Day the News Dies” was a presentation – given in my role as an honorary research fellow at Koi Tū: The Centre for Informed Futures – at the Raising the Bar event organised by the University of Auckland on 27 August 2024. You can also listen to the talk here

There is a little book entitled The Piano Player in the Brothel by celebrated Spanish editor Juan Luis Cebrián. It takes its title from a popular saying: “Don’t tell my mother I’m a journalist. She thinks I play piano in the whorehouse”.

It’s an association that goes back some way. The 19th-century English philosopher John Stuart Mill – himself a sometime journalist – wrote: “Journalism is the vilest and most degrading of all trades because more affectation and hypocrisy, and more subservience to the baser feelings of others, are necessary for carrying it on than for any other trade from that of brothel-keeper upwards.” I’m not sure whether that is more an indictment of human beings than of journalists, but it’s journalism that sustains the reputational damage.

So, if it’s held in such low regard – apologies to any brothel-keepers present – why should we worry if it dies? I hope that by the end of this talk you will not only know the answer but be as worried by the prospect of its demise as I am. Continue reading “Raising the Bar: The Day the News Dies” →

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” →