Tag: New Zealand Herald

Dear Sir, where have the letters gone?

There seems to be something wildly illogical about the New Zealand Herald’s decision to slash the space it devotes to letters to the editor.

Just when media are striving to find ways to engage with their audiences, the largest newspaper in the country devalues one of the few ways readers can engage with the print publication.

From November 20, the space given over to letters was reduced almost by half in the Monday-Friday editions, with the co-opted space given over to a pretty, but pretty forgettable, image labelled ‘Photo of the day’. What has not been lost in the change is the cross promotion for NewstalkZB’s Kerre Woodham. It remains a fixture on the page, taking up space that would have accommodated another letter.

The photograph is a cheap way of diminishing the call on the reduced resources now devoted to the print publication under NZME’s new ‘digital first’ strategy. The cost of a photo from the Herald’s existing Associated Press syndication deal is negligible compared with the extra time an editor would have to spend processing letters to fill the same space.

No doubt NZME has a carefully crafted piece of obfuscation to explain the change, but the fact remains that public discourse has been reduced by the move. Continue reading “Dear Sir, where have the letters gone?” →

TVNZ sends timely reminder on vital news processes

TVNZ’s updated rethink on how it handles stories – a consequence of Radio New Zealand’s controversy over altered foreign news content – is a timely reminder that good journalism relies not only on trust but on checks and balances.

Every functional newsroom relies on trust: It is both top-down and bottom-up. An editor (or whatever newspeak title you wish to create for the person responsible for the overall editorial output) must trust the heads of each part of the editorial structure and, through them, the cascade of staff down to the most junior. Everyone from that junior up must trust the decision-making and stewardship of those above them.

Very occasionally, that trust is broken by someone who – through malfeasance, poor judgement, or human frailty – goes rogue.

That happened at RNZ in June when inappropriate editing of foreign wire stories was discovered. It led to an independent enquiry and a raft of recommendations for change within the public broadcaster. The RNZ enquiry’s report can be found here

No such breakdown of trust occurred at TVNZ. When the RNZ scandal broke, then chief executive Simon Power ordered a review of his own organisation’s handling of news stories. General Counsel (now interim chief executive) Brent McAnulty found no similar breaches of editorial policy but nonetheless made 11 recommendations to improve processes.

McAnulty’s report preceded the release of RNZ’s independent enquiry and TVNZ has now revisited its findings in light of recommendations in that enquiry. The result is a further series of recommendations by current TVNZ senior counsel Michele Lee that have implications for editorial news handling processes. You can find the updated report here

The update recommends refresher training on upward referral and on disinformation, reviewing software and systems, and re-assessing resourcing levels in the newsroom. Continue reading “TVNZ sends timely reminder on vital news processes” →

Cartoons: High octane humour politicians love to hate

Works by four cartoonists hang on my study walls: Hogarth, Rowlandson, Minhinnick, and Emmerson.

Rod Emmerson has just marked twenty years on the New Zealand Herald, and he deserves his place in my mini gallery. He may be an adoptee from across the Tasman, but he ranks as one of the finest cartoonists this country has called its own. He has won awards internationally and in New Zealand and Australia, and his work has been published globally through the New York Times Syndicate.

He certainly deserved the double-page spread that the Weekend Herald devoted to his two decades of drawing for the newspaper. His work embodies in abundance the three attributes of an outstanding political cartoonist: graphic talent, keen perception, and wicked wit.

The English writer and philosopher Aldous Huxley described caricatures as the most penetrating of criticisms. That is because they give the cartoonist multiple shots at the target. Continue reading “Cartoons: High octane humour politicians love to hate” →

Stuff’s new paywalls send the right message to users

Stuff’s announcement that its three metropolitan mastheads will go behind a paywall should be welcomed with a loud sigh of relief.

Finally, the publisher has stopped pussy-footing around reader contributions. Although its voluntary Stuff Supporter Scheme (run through PressPatron) is still in place, it has bitten the bullet on straight-out digital subscriptions. It has made the right move.

From last Saturday, The Post (goodbye Dominion) and its metro sisters The Press and the Waikato Times became sequestered on individual, paywalled websites. For the first 16 weeks, subscribers pay $1.99 a week for one of the three sites or $2.99 for all three. After that discount period, the charge will be $5 a week (the same as the New Zealand Herald’s Premium Content) or $7.50 a week for all three.

I have opted for the bigger bundle on the basis that, if I believe we should pay to consume news that is costly to produce, I should put my money where my mouth is. I similarly paid up when the Herald introduced its premium content. It’s not a bad deal. The Australian’s digital subscription, for example, is $NZ8.50 a week.

It may sound strange that I gave a sigh of relief at having to part with some money but Stuff’s hold-out position on digital subscriptions had meant the public has been receiving mixed messages about paywalls. After Herald Premium was launched, NZME could be seen as Scrooge and free-to-all Stuff as Bruce Wayne (and his alter ego Batman). That misplaced confusion has now gone. Continue reading “Stuff’s new paywalls send the right message to users” →