The Government MUST Step In To Save New Zealand News

First they came for Newshub, and I said nothing because I didn’t watch TV3. Then they came for One News, and I said nothing because I didn’t pay much attention to them either. Then they came for me, and there was no one left to speak out because all the news channels had collapsed and without them, no one knew the government was doing anything at all.

That’s how that quote goes, right?

It is today in New Zealand, because One News has just announced the closure of their website and app. This removes yet another written and video source from New Zealand’s ever-dwindling online media presence.

I was informed about this, ironically, by the 1 News app’s push notifications because apparently I’m one of the few people accessing news this way. That’s not because I am a big fan of One News in particular, it’s because our media coverage overall is fairly weak and far too spread out, and you have to be paying attention to multiple sources to get a proper overview of New Zealand current events, particularly politics.

There is just much too much happening at any one time for one or two single news sources to cover. And any scarcity of information is exacerbated because every news source needs to do their own independent reporting on most major events, and this doubling up allows medium and small news pieces (like the sort of articles that shine light on community issues or put the spotlight on our politicians or calls for action around small-to-medium issues) to fly below the radar and be neglected or remain unwritten.

This is (presumably) a recognised problem in the news industry because for some years, news sites have been sharing their articles with each other; it’s very common to go on Stuff, for example, and see a credit for the written article for RNZ, where it as originally published. This is despite a mix of public and private ownership and funding across a range of different entities, and should in itself be an indication of how dire this situation has been for some time.

News organisations and journalists have been sounding the alarm, but when their words aren’t falling on deaf ears, the varying ideas (or total lack of them) that go nowhere have meant that nothing permanent has been done.

Which isn’t to say there haven’t been some weak attempts at saving news. Despite initially opposing it, and despite threats of news censorship by Google, National and NZFirst are currently putting through Parliament a previously-Labour bill that will force search engines to share their revenue from news results and “displays” with New Zealand news companies. Time will tell whether they stick to their promises in the face of Google’s attempts to skirt financial liability.

(Guess who’s opposing that one though — your favourite monopoly-enabler, ACT).

But this is vastly outweighed by their lack of action earlier this year when Warner Bros Discovery pulled out of producing New Zealand television news.

And so the fall of the dominoes has begun. Most alarmingly for Newshub and TV3 and One News is that these programme already receive huge state subsidies in the form of funding from New Zealand On Air. One News plays on and is partly paid for by TV1 owner TVNZ, a government-owned channel funded mostly through commercial advertising — but which notably doesn’t need to make a profit. Combined with NZOA funding, this means our news is already partly paid for by the taxpayer, and it’s still not sustainable.

TV One’s editorial independence is enshrined in the act which created it: the Television New Zealand Act 2003 stipulates that no Minister can tell TVNZ what news to report or how to cover a story. Despite that, it has previously and recently come under fire from ACT and NZFirst, who accused all recipients of the Public Interest Journalism Fund of being biased towards Labour, for creating and announcing the funding. This ties in in a much greater sense with far-right discourse promoted by the FSU at their meetings that government and government-sponsored bureaucracy is corrupt or somehow malignant because it funds itself (e.g. university academics are themselves profiting when they emphasise how important university research is to grow their field — a neoliberalist narrative that delegitimises publicly-funded programmes and resources while legitimising private funding sources).

The PIFJ was established by Labour as a temporary bandaid solution for the well-known long-term news media industry issues, as well as to provide extra funding and employment, during COVID — and, ironically, to provide an extra layer of accountability by putting a few more pairs of legs on the ground at a time that trust in the government and in news media was challenged by an increasing number of false narratives. This funding allowed journalists to specifically pursue stories in the public interest, and it worked well with other initiatives like Local Democracy Reporting. For a hairy three years, it did in fact do a lot to supplement our information stream at a time when information itself waz under threat.

Now, most of the people our reporting is under threat from are in this current government.

All three right wing parties serve to gain by driving people away from independent and impartial news towards right-leaning sources like The Platform, which is primarily funded by the Wright Family, who own 270 preschools across New Zealand under the Best Start umbrella.

On a semi-related note, I just recently received a much-delayed follow-up (from David Seymour himself this time, instead of his team!) I haven’t yet posted about the lies the ACT leader spread on national television regarding preschool teachers being prevented from teaching phonics in order to justify his deregulation programme.

Following on from my earlier response to an OIA from his team, in which they informed me Seymour’s massively-exaggerated claims were based on a teacher “expressing concerns” that regulations may prevent them from teaching phonics, Seymour confirms that in fact preschools are not on any way prevented from teaching phonics, but were instead instructed to incorporate children’s interests better into their planning process. i. e. the preschools being told this are exactly the sort of organisation I predicted they were, one identified in MOE reports as running phonics programmes that were not suitable for preschoolers due to not engaging students. This was presented as a leading reason for needing to overhaul pre-primary regulations.

Isn’t it funny how “You run a bad phonics programme” can be twisted into “MOE overregulation isn’t letting us teach children phonics!”

And isn’t it just so funny this came to us from a “concerned teacher” in an industry dominated by family known for supporting neoliberal interests, owning a charity that may be a tax shelter, solely funds Sean Plunket’s The Platform, and is known for airing some questionable seemingly-politically-motivated ads?

That Spinoff piece linked above on how they’re funding The Platform, a station that promotes media conspiracies and pro-neoliberal propoganda and views, discusses how much more relaxed Wayne Wright Jr was during COVID without mentioning that it was likely because they didn’t have to pay their staff despite having millions of dollars behind them.

Good thing the government picked up the bill; now just don’t let that happen on the fees-paying end of the funding!

And the birthing hospital they paid for ended up closing due to being entirely unviable.

The foundation’s wealth, of course, comes from the New Zealand taxpayer in the first place, who pay mostly four large ECE companies directly for the bulk of pre-primary childcare alongside fees charged to parents. But that’s neoliberalism for you.

(I’m sure Seymour’s regulation rewrite won’t advantage these families in any way…)

The criticism and discourses levelled by The Platform supports this government’s and the far right’s presentation of facts as flexible, as truth as something that can be made subjective, and even tries to pretend normal public media funding schemes are Labour attempt to “buy” the press. Meanwhile the press has already been brought and paid for by non-tax paying companies that will benefit from the right’s cronyist decisions.

This government has already neglected to save one kiwi news titan. I don’t need a crystal ball to know they’re not going to particularly care about another star blinking out in the increasingly-dark sky that is our news information network.

It’s just one less way for people to read about all the shit they’re trying to pull.