Tag: Stuff

Matthew Hooton’s controversial appointment: A smart move?

 It takes a lot to bowl over seasoned journalists but the appointment of Matthew Hooton as editor-in-chief of The Post in Wellington skittled more than a few. Even the Stuff website described it as “a bombshell move”.

Hooton’s background is political communication and public relations. He was one of Jim Bolger’s press secretaries and a National Party strategist. He has never been a journalist, although his commentaries have been a regular feature in the New Zealand Herald and other publications.

His website describes him as “the country’s leading centre-right political commentator”. It goes on to say he “is well connected with the most senior figures in all three parties in New Zealand’s centre-right National-Act-NZ First Coalition Government and with the Opposition Labour Party.” Perhaps he is not on the Green Party or Te Pāti Māori invitation lists.

Although he has widespread consulting experience beyond politics, it is his perceived political leanings that will create the greatest controversy over his appointment at The Post.

There will be critics aplenty, who will see The Post being printed on blue paper and espousing the unchallenged views of the Right (with a very large Capital R). They will be goaded into red-faced rage when they see the title of his recently completed PhD thesis: “Groundwork and Principles of Applied Conservatism”.

I suspect that controversy has a large part to play in Sinead Boucher’s decision to appoint him editor-in-chief of Wellington’s daily newspaper, but it will not be through any desire to provide him with a powerful soapbox for political allegiances. Continue reading “Matthew Hooton’s controversial appointment: A smart move?” →

Let’s hope the gods smile on Stuff’s printing plans

The management at Stuff must have great trust in the weather and mechanical gods. The publisher faces multiple risks if its printing relocation from Wellington to Christchurch displeases the deities.

A willingness to risk displeasing the gods shows the problem Stuff has in addressing a predicament facing many newspaper publishers. Their large and expensive printing plants were built for an age that has passed.

Some media suggest Stuff has had its hand forced by the sale of the property housing its Petone printing plant to what might be described as a hostile party. The property had been retained by Nine Entertainment when it sold Stuff to Sinead Boucher for a token dollar. Last year the Australian media firm displayed its total disregard for its former New Zealand subsidiary when it sold the property. New owner Troy Bowker had made no secret of his dislike for Stuff (which Nine would have discovered when it did due diligence) and he lost no time in serving notice on the publisher to quit the premises by April next year.

Since the purchase, Boucher and Bowker have engaged in what could variously be described as a game of poker or a Mexican stand-off. If the new owner thought he would panic Stuff into paying over the odds to buy the property in order to keep printing, he was wrong. Last week, Boucher announced that the printing plant would be shut and all of the company’s printing requirements for the lower North island would be met by its modern plant near Christchurch Airport. She said the press consolidation had long been part of Stuff’s strategic plan. Her announcement made no mention, however, of any transport arrangements for getting the Stuff titles and third-party contract printing products to the North Island. Continue reading “Let’s hope the gods smile on Stuff’s printing plans” →

My feeling of dread can reach biblical proportions

Three short words fill me with a sense of dread when they are linked to the media industry – private…equity…company. Collectively they represent a form of enterprise that never peers over the top of a sterile balance sheet.

Their sole purpose is to provide the best possible return for their investors. There is nothing inherently wrong it that goal, but the single-minded pursuit of profit makes them manifestly unsuited for ownership of companies providing social, cultural and democratic services to the public.

Media companies that produce or carry news and information services have impacts on society that were once recognised as imposing inherent obligations on the organisation.

In the past, owners accepted forms of cross-subsidisation without question. They funded journalism that was important, but which may not have attracted audiences as readily as the salacious or merely entertaining. They sent journalists far afield following politicians, when reporting a rugby tour was arguably more popular. They did so because one of those inherent obligations was holding power to account.

Some owners continue to shoulder those obligations and long may they continue to do so. However, for every organisation that continues to meet social and civic needs, there is another that has been decimated in the name of ‘return on investment’.

The latest manifestation of private equity bitemporal hemianopsia (I chose this form of tunnel vision because it doesn’t just affect the periphery but half of what we see) is what has happened to MediaWorks at the hands of Sydney-based private equity firm Quadrant and the New Zealand media company’s previous owners. Continue reading “My feeling of dread can reach biblical proportions” →

Tom Phillips: Your right to know is bottom on a sliding scale

A positive element of the Tom Phillips saga – perhaps the only positive apart from the safe recovery of his children – has been in highlighting the fragile nature of the public’s right to know.

It is an outstanding example of attempts to control the narrative in a story that has generated worldwide interest and raised a plethora of questions about Phillips and about official handling of the case.

The interests of the three Phillips children are paramount, and no-one in this country wishes to see them face any further trauma. They endured almost four years of deprivation, and one witnessed the violent death of her father after he attempted to take the life of a police officer.

But where does the wellbeing of those children end, and the self-interest of all the other parties associated with this case begin? There are serious questions about the Oranga Tamariki handling of the domestic arrangements for the children during the custody dispute, and certainly after Phillips’ first abduction of his offspring. There are questions about the police operations throughout the case. And there are many questions about the character and actions of a man who would deprive his daughters and son of a normal childhood while normalising criminal behaviour.

Oranga Tamariki has invoked the children’s right to privacy. Police have fallen back on the old trope of ‘ongoing investigations’. And sitting over it all is an interim court order that – temporary or not – has almost the effect of a super injunction where even the purpose and justifications for suppression of facts are shrouded in secrecy. Continue reading “Tom Phillips: Your right to know is bottom on a sliding scale” →