Tag: TVNZ

Brace yourself: This could be crunch year for NZ news media

Buckle up because 2025 is going to be a rough ride for news media.

It has started inauspiciously with NZME’s announcement of 38 job losses at the New Zealand Herald and NewstalkZB, the full impact of which has yet to be seen. That followed the closure of 11 of the company’s community newspapers at the end of last year, plus the loss of 11 roles in its regional newsrooms last July.

We began the year with the effects of TVNZ’s cuts, announced last November, starting to appear. Familiar faces on its sports team reappeared on Sky and Trackside over the summer break, and yesterday Breakfast was back with a reduced lineup but no reduction in forgettable chitchat. The state-owned broadcaster has lost almost 130 staff since 2023. The latest tranche took out 50 jobs and adverse effects on its newsgathering are inevitable.

In December Whakaata Māori cut 27 roles and ended its news programme. Jobs have also gone at Stuff, although musical chairs have made it difficult to determine exactly how many have gone. Earlier, of course, TV3’s American owners walked away from their responsibility to provide its own news service.

What more, you ask, could be lost when news services have been cut to the bone? The answer: A lot. Our commercial news media are in a worrying financial state. Continue reading “Brace yourself: This could be crunch year for NZ news media” →

Where will consumers turn to get a fair go?

If I were planning to set up a shonky, shady business to rip off consumers (and I assure you that would be entirely out of character) I would wait until Fair Go ceases broadcasting.

The programme that has been protecting the rights of consumers for 47 years faces the axe under the cuts announced last week by Television New Zealand although its staff – characteristically and courageously – will not admit defeat until they are deep into the Valley of Death.

It is unlikely that it will stay as part of the TVNZ inventory. There may be a faint hope that the format could be sold to another media entity but TV3 is out of the question given the imminent demise of its entire news and current affairs offering. Stuff and the New Zealand Herald could pick it up for streaming on their websites as could Sky but each possibility must be seen as unlikely in the current financial climate. It carries the added burden of being inherently local and therefore not attractive to a streaming service looking to maximise its value on the international market.

So, barring miracles such as a financial rescue package from the coalition government, Fair Go is destined to disappear.

I will mourn its passing not so much because it came so close to racking up the magic half-century but because New Zealand will lose a unique form of consumer power. Continue reading “Where will consumers turn to get a fair go?” →

John Campbell the wrong target in reporter opinion controversy

The attack on TVNZ’s John Campbell for having the gall to express a clearly labelled opinion reminds me of an incident that occurred when I was in Rio de Janeiro. Police stormed a bus on which passengers were held hostage. They opened fire, killing a passenger and leaving the gunman unscathed.

Mysteriously, the captured gunman was dead when the police van arrived at the police station…but that’s another story. I am more concerned with well-intentioned actions that hit the wrong people.

Former Dominion editor Karl du Fresne criticised an opinion piece about the national hui at Tūrangawaewae Marae that Campbell penned for the TVNZ website. At the core of du Fresne’s criticism was the belief that a journalist working for a state-owned media organisation invalidated his position by expressing a personal view (critical of government policy) that nailed his colours to the mast. He called for Campbell to be dismissed.

A cover story in the latest issue of North & South interrogated the controversy. It quoted a number of journalists and academics and, although none called for the TVNZ chief correspondent’s head on a pike, most were of the view that his forthright opinion pieces should not have been published. Some felt it affected public trust in journalists, others placed TVNZ in the same public interest journalism sphere as fully taxpayer-funded RNZ (it is not) and saw this as an opinion-free zone (even RNZ is not).

The issue contained an eloquent – and compelling – defence by John Campbell in which he stated: “I have never been, and I am not, partisan. Full stop. My journalism has never, once, supported a political party.” He spoke of “work in which I am able to amplify other voices”. Adding “That’s still the journalism that matters to me most.”

I have no difficulty with John Campbell stating his opinion on the TVNZ website, so long as it is clearly identified as such – and it is. Thinking back to my days as editor of the New Zealand Herald, I liken Campbell to the paper’s then political editor John Armstrong, who wrote attention-getting opinion pieces but did not allow it to intrude into his straightforward reportage that earned the respect of Parliament and beyond. Continue reading “John Campbell the wrong target in reporter opinion controversy” →

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” →