Tag: New Zealand Herald

No printed Herald? Let’s hope the speculation is wrong

Amid a wave of speculation in The Australian about the future of New Zealand publisher and broadcaster NZME, one line sent a shiver down my spine. It suggested the owner of the New Zealand Herald could opt for “a digital-only publication model”. That would decimate its newsrooms.

Normally, speculation is just that: Something to take with a grain of salt until it comes to pass or not. However, the editor of The Australian’s Dataroom column, Bridget Carter, seems to have been particularly well plugged-in to the NZME boardroom battle precipitated by Canadian billionaire and New Zealand resident James Grenon.

Carter has been devoting more space than usual to what is happening, or about to happen, to media on this side of the Ditch and, although her suggestion of interest in NZME from toy manufacturer Nick Mobray did not pan out, she has been up with the play on other scores.

Hence, I am more inclined to put some weight on her predictions for the directions that a reconstituted NZME board might take. For example, I agree that there could be a pull-back on the plan to move more into news video streaming (by no means a guaranteed revenue source). She also flagged investing in talent to boost subscriptions and I can see the benefit of that.

However, I hope she is wrong about a potential move to a digital-only publication environment.

Yes, I freely concede that on my bookshelf is a coffee mug carrying the slogan I love the smell of newsprint in the morning (a souvenir from Washington’s Newseum). And, yes, it does sit beside another mug that is testament to my age – Grumpy Old Man. However, my reasoning goes beyond a sentimental attachment to the medium in which I spent a large proportion of my now-surprisingly-lengthy working life.

I believe a digital-only strategy at this point could well spell the end of the New Zealand Herald as an influential news source. The revenue fall would leave it unable to maintain the current newsrooms. So I only hope that incoming NZME directors are smart enough to leave a digital-only strategy in the ‘pending’ file.

NZME relies on its print publications for a significant proportion of its revenue and, although it is declining, it continues to far outstrip what is generated by its digital services. Continue reading “No printed Herald? Let’s hope the speculation is wrong” →

Canadian billionaire must explain his designs on NZME…now

New Zealand-based Canadian billionaire James Grenon owes the people of this country an immediate explanation of his intentions regarding media conglomerate NZME. This cannot wait until a shareholders’ meeting at the end of April.

Is his investment in the owner of the New Zealand Herald and NewstalkZB nothing more than a money-making venture to realise the value of its real estate marketing subsidiary? Has he no more interest than putting his share of the proceeds from spinning off OneRoof into a concealed safe in his $15 million Takapuna mansion?

Or does he intent to leverage his 9.6 per cent holding and the support of other investors to take over the board (if not the company) in order to dictate the editorial direction of the country’s largest newspaper and its number one commercial radio station?

Mr Grenon has said little beyond the barest of announcements that have been released by the New Zealand Stock Exchange. While he must exercise care to avoid triggering statutory takeover obligations, he cannot simply treat NZME as another of the private equity projects that have made him very wealthy. He is dealing with an entity whose influence and obligations extend far beyond the crude world of finance.

While I do not presume for one moment that he reads this column each week, let me suspend disbelief for a moment and speak directly to him.

Come clean and tell the people of New Zealand what you are doing and, more importantly, why. Continue reading “Canadian billionaire must explain his designs on NZME…now” →

AI-created editorials: What in HAL’s name was the Herald thinking?

Integrity is the most valued element of a news organisation’s reputation. Without it, it cannot expect its audience to lend credence to what it publishes or broadcasts. So, the New Zealand Herald has dealt itself an awful blow.

Its admission that it used generative AI to scrape content and then create an editorial about the All Blacks came only after it was caught out by Radio New Zealand. RNZ’s subsequent revelation that it may have found another three robot editorials in the Herald was met with sullen silence.

All the country’s largest newspaper will say its that it should have employed more “journalistic rigour”.

That is not good enough. It does not explain why the paper made the bizarre choice to employ Gen AI to create what should be its own opinion. It does not explain why there was no disclosure of its use (although to do so on an editorial should raise more red flags than a North Korean Workers Party anniversary). It does not tell us how widespread the practice is within publications owned by NZME (the Herald editorial was reprinted in its regional titles). It does not explain why even the most basic sub-editing was not applied to an obviously deficient piece of writing when editorials have previously been checked and rechecked to prevent the most minor of errors. And it does not reveal what went wrong in the editorial chain of command to allow all or any of the foregoing to occur…or not. Continue reading “AI-created editorials: What in HAL’s name was the Herald thinking?” →

Trans-Tasman imbalance in court suppression orders

We all see the merit in Justice’s blindfold that speaks of all being equal under the law, but isn’t it high time we re-examined the gag on her mouth? The number of court suppression orders is inordinately high.

That assessment is based on a comparison of suppression data collected by the New Zealand Herald and by the Melbourne newspaper The Age.

Data assembled by the Herald’s data editor Chris Knox and revealed in Shayne Currie’s Media Insider column on Saturday shows that name suppressions have risen by 47 per cent in the past decade and last year stood at 1616 orders. That represents 2.5 per cent of all people charged, up from 1.3 per cent a decade ago.

The fact that suppression has risen almost by half since 2014 was worrying enough, but what made Knox’s figures all the more disturbing was a story I had read in The Age a couple of weeks ago. Continue reading “Trans-Tasman imbalance in court suppression orders” →