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

Newshub bell is tolling but who can hear it?

I had two visions when the imminent demise of Newshub was announced last week. One was comical and the other spiritual. Both carried a message.

The initial government reaction to the news that a significant portion of the country’s journalism could disappear at the end of June was comical. It brought to mind the Black Knight scene in Monty Python and the Holy Grail when King Arthur cleaves the knight’s limbs from his body, and the knight responds: “Tis but a scratch!”

It came to mind because neither Prime Minister Christopher Luxon nor his communications minister Melissa Lee seemed to grasp the significance of a decision made in New York that will reduce this country to one mainstream – and state owned – television news service and take out a sizeable percentage of New Zealand’s journalists and news crew.

Lee suggested there was plenty more where that came from, and the prime minister fell back on his lexicon of business school phrases, the most dismissive of which is ‘market forces’.

Coalition partner David Seymour brought only confusion to the table with his suggestion on how to even out those market forces. His solution – the logic of which escapes me – was to look at making the loss-making TVNZ pay a dividend. And the opposition had no meaningful suggestions either.

Only the other coalition partner Winston Peters seemed to grasp the impact that such a culling would have on a functioning democracy. Given Mr Peters’ long-standing combativeness toward journalists and their employers, he couldn’t resist an after-thought on media ‘wokeness’. Nonetheless, his recognition of the impact on democracy was a welcome reality check. Continue reading “Newshub bell is tolling but who can hear it?” →

Trashing journalists is not in the public interest

New Zealand journalists have been done an immense disservice by those siding with conspiracy theorists who are convinced the nation’s mainstream media are in the government’s pocket.

Broadcaster Sean Plunket told Andrea Vance in the Sunday Star Times that state funding of journalism projects “comes with the requirement to adhere to certain editorial principles. That is not independence. In truth, many parts of the media are being compromised.” He singles out the $55 million three-year Public Interest Journalism Fund as the focus of this cash-for-loyalty theory.

Journalist Graham Adams, writing on the Democracy Project website, concluded a critical examination of the fund’s criteria with this: “But it’s hard to imagine anything more damaging to the trust the public has in media organisations than plausible accusations – or even just suspicions – that they have been bought with $55 million of taxpayers’ money.”

New Zealand Herald columnist Bruce Cotterill, citing not only the $55 million fund but the level of Covid-induced Government advertising, told readers: “If there is any risk that the media is skewing their representation of the performance of government, then we are indeed on shaky ground. In fact I suggest that there is nothing quite as dangerous in any democracy as a media that is beholden to the Government.” To its credit the Herald ran his column – no doubt mindful of the firestorm that would have accompanied its rejection – but added a rider signed by eight of its senior editors. It stated:

Our NZME and NZ Herald newsrooms operate freely and independently, without fear or favour, in our editorial pursuit. The Fourth Estate is a critical pillar in the New Zealand democracy and the Herald’s editorial independence is enshrined in our code of ethics: “We will be independent and not bow to improper internal or external influences”. Any suggestion that our journalists — and those more broadly in New Zealand — are failing to ask hard questions of both the Government and opposition politicians is rejected.

At this point I need to make a disclosure: I was one of a group of independent assessors who made initial recommendations – decisions are made by NZ on Air staff and its board – on applications to the fund. I am bound by commercial confidentiality agreements not to discuss the applications and I do not intend to do so. However, I feel I have a right to defend the professional journalists whose work may be funded by the scheme, and the organisations that employ them. Continue reading “Trashing journalists is not in the public interest” →

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