In a bewildering move that shows how desperate Fairfax and APN have become, they have the audacity to come out and threaten ‘aggressive’ job cuts if the Commerce Commission doesn’t give them their precious monopoly…
Now or never to avoid ‘aggressive’ cuts to journalism, media firms warn merger regulator
Fairfax New Zealand and NZME have warned it may be now or never for their proposed merger, and refusal will mean “aggressive” cuts to journalism.
…looking past the audacity of these media monoliths threatening the Commerce Commission publicly with threats to self mutilate their fourth estate responsibilities, maybe this will be a good thing?
Think of NZ Herald without Mike Hosking, Rodney Hide, that dreadful Clare Trevett – no more right wing lunatics dominating the newspaper.
No more cartoons like this?
But then you read deeper into the threat these companies are making…
The companies said they had nearly exhausted opportunities to cut costs in administration. If the merger was rejected they were likely to “aggressively consider cuts to frontline news functions such as reporting”.
Cuts would be felt deepest in “regional and local coverage and minority issues”, they said.
…ah ha, the white male right wing lunatics won’t lose their positions, the ‘minority issues’ will. That sounds a lot like coded language to the Commece Commission doesn’t it?
“You don’t let us have the monopoly we demand and we’ll gut reporting of the very democracy you’re using to deny us our merger.”
In other words, ‘give us what we want or we’ll take you all down with us”.
How charming.
In other countries with a sophisticated enough media, such threats by Media Corporates would dominate headlines alongside a critical analysis providing insight into how these media monoliths undermine the quality of our democracy. Unfortunately we live in NZ and have a media with the maturity of your average can of coke.
The mainstream media won’t be missed. In fact we’d be a lot better off without them and the lies they promulgate. In the meantime, don’t feed the monster.
That said, TPTB probably have plans for Orwellian surveillance and mass indoctrination as per ‘1984’ which will make present misreporting and manipulation of the masses by MSM look like a picnic in the park.
I see NZ has scored extremely badly in science and maths -fields requiring critical thinking and logical thinking: a predicable outcome of decades of underfunding and dumbing down.
http://www.msn.com/en-nz/news/national/nz-kids-worst-at-maths-in-english-speaking-world/ar-AAkVNfV?li=AA521r&ocid=spartandhp
You can bet the coward Government will fold here also.
Take that to the bank.
Remember warner Bros???
They’ll make the same ‘aggressive’ cuts anyway if the merger is allowed. That’s the whole point of the merger, to secure profitability at the expense of the staff, the public and a healthy democracy.
So they should be told to get lost.
Got to feel sorry for the decent journalists however.
Staff lay-offs are a trait of mergers, anyway. This threat can be construed as their intention for the direction of their media operations regardless of merger or not.
Why waste money on purchasing newspapers when one can obtain more news from various free sources? Their online news sources are abysmal, had a look at the NZ Herald this morning on my mobile and the front page can’t be deemed to contain any news, just trivial stories one would expect to find in some trashy lightweight magazine.
They seem to be behaving as if they’re too big to fail–such is their hubris. They’re far from indispensable, let them die. Mainstream media news outlets cast the impression more as a well resourced propaganda outlet. This lot appears to be morphing into some sort of Breitbrat type crap.
It sounds like those jobs are gone whether they merge or not.
Really, no move pointless, vacuous live crosses to rubble or anywhere really. What we forget is this is entertainment not facts. If you turn the TV off and source your own information then they will shut and life will go on regardless.
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