Tag: Koi Tū: Centre for Informed Futures

News deserts: A problem coming to a place near you

Remember the fable about frogs in a pot slowly being brought to the boil? News deserts are a little like that: You don’t realise you are in one until the sand starts to choke. 

Today Koi Tū Centre for Informed Futures has published my report on the growth of news deserts around the world, and the implications for New Zealand.

Millions of people around the world – 55 million in the United States alone – have limited or no access to local news. The ‘local rag’ that told them what was happening in their community has gone.

In Australia, 27 local authority areas have no local news outlets. In the past decade more than 200 regional newsrooms have closed.

In New Zealand, over the past seven years the two largest publishers (Stuff and NZME) have announced the closure of more than 40 newspaper titles. There are fewer journalists employed in New Zealand than by the New York Times (1400 versus 1700).

Too often, what replaces the long-established local newspaper is either inadequate or non-existent.

News deserts spell danger for social cohesion and democracy. They are already apparent in areas where the scrutiny of local journalists has been weakened or entirely removed. These are some of those effects:

  • Decreased public knowledge and participation in local democracy
  • Decreased social cohesion
  • Increased misinformation and disinformation
  • Increased official corruption
  • Higher costs of public finance
  • Less effective commercial advertising.

Many governments at national, state and local levels have acknowledged the need for intervention and have implemented measures to prevent or ameliorate the impact of news deserts.

No measures are currently in place that will prevent the growth of news deserts in New Zealand. Schemes such as the government-funded Local Democracy Reporting programme operate out of existing newsrooms which could themselves be threatened by cuts or even closure.

The report recommends a range of measures – by central and local government, the media industry, and the community – to prevent the sands smothering local journalism. You can access the report, written with the able assistance of several colleagues, on the Koi Tū website

Picture credit: iStock Piyaset

 

 

 

You don’t know what you’ve got ’til it’s gone

News media are good at telling us about other people but not so good at explaining the importance of their own existence. That has to change.

The standing of journalism has been undermined by characterising government funding of it as bribery. That has to change.

The New Zealand public either do not know or wilfully choose to ignore the fundamental reason why journalists are a vital part of a democratic society. That, too, has to change.

Unless the general public starts to value the role of professional journalism and demand its survival (and improvement) they are in danger of waking up one morning to find it gone or, if not gone, then reduced to the point where it can no longer hold power to account.

Today Koi Tū: The centre for Informed Futures has published a position paper on the media titled If not journalists, then who? It is a rhetorical question because there is no viable substitute for the role of the journalist in a free society.

I am an honorary research fellow at Koi Tū and I am the principal author of the paper. Today’s commentary, however, is written in my private capacity and should not be seen as necessarily reflecting the views of Koi Tū.

I don’t intend to use this commentary – delayed a day to coincide with publication of the paper – to set out its contents. You can read the paper here: informedfutures.org/if-not-journalists-then-who Rather, I want to discuss how I hope it will be used in essential development of public dialogue, the formation of government policy, and actions by the media themselves. Continue reading “You don’t know what you’ve got ’til it’s gone” →