Oh great…
No help for struggling news media as relief package kicked for touch
The long-awaited second tranche of media assistance has been kicked to touch with no decision likely to be made on it before the election.
The first media support package was announced in April. That package amounted to $50 million worth of assistance, although it came mainly in the form of relieving companies of costs.
The commerce, and broadcasting and communications minister, Kris Faafoi, said at the time that a second trance of assistance would be coming in the ensuing weeks, although it has not materialised.
Stuff understands there is a sense within the Beehive that there is less urgency to the media’s plight now than there was during the level 4 lockdown.
…The reform of public broadcasting which Kris Faafoi and Labour have been doing sweet bugger all with is now eroding the actual democracy it is supposed to be protecting.
We don’t want to ‘bail out foreign owned media’ but we must reset the broken market that is media in NZ and the failure to commit to structural change has allowed Facebook conspiracy theories dominate this bloody election!
I honestly think one of the things that has been horribly exposed in this pandemic alongside many other structural weaknesses – is how important well funded public broadcasting is to the health of a democracy.
For those abused by the Government and for indiginous people who have been oppressed by the State, the rise of MAGAtanga conspiracy theory politics makes sense.
Those who have been let down by the System won’t believe the experts when it matters.
They will drift further away from a mainstream media who exist to sell them things they can’t afford and draw their news increasingly from only Facebook, an International Corporation who makes money by emotionally manipulating readers into staying online by prompting users with more and more outlandish content.
These fears are exploited by the National Party promoting conspiracy theories alongside fringe party politicians.
By not fixing the broken market of NZ media, we have allowed conspiracy theories to infect our politics and our election!
The fundamental problem is that the advertising market has been bled dry by Google and Facebook while being owned by vulture capitalists who are only interested in using profits to cover the debt they’ve used to buy the companies.
Labour are allergic when it comes to big ideas needed to combat neoliberalism and market failure, they need to inoculate and inoculate fast because some huge ideas need to be invested in to see the media market stabilise.
1 – Public Funded Media in the nations interest
The RNZ-TVNZ merger should be occurring immediately with the following inclusions.
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- TV1 commercial free (so existing advertising can go to Mediaworks).
- RNZ launch a commercial free youth radio station.
- RNZ/TVNZ launch a 24 hour news station on one of their existing Freeview+ channels.
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2 – Tax Google & Facebook and ring fence that for direct funding of corporate journalism
Google & Facebook charged a percentage on all revenue from NZ, that money is specifically ring fenced to a contestable fund available to established Media to specifically provide Fourth Estate Journalism.
3 – NZ on Air ‘Read between the Flags’ Kiwi journalism
In a world of disinformation, we need journalism we can trust. We all get the ‘swim between the flag’ model of surf life saving, NZ on Air should be given extra funding for ‘Read between the flags’ Kiwi Journalism. This money is to break the current elite opinion NZ on Air circle jerk and provide revenue for smaller blogs and citizen journalism who become eligible if they agree to a set of Journalistic Principles. If you do agree and sign up, you are entitled to funding and must have a Kiwi Journalism flag on your site to show you are obliged to the Journalistic Principles Code of conduct.
You would have an awareness campaign to urge NZers to ‘read between the flags’ for trusted information.
The NZ population has always been too small for advertiser funded journalism, it has ALWAYS needed State support, add a broken market where vulture capitalists use media profits to pay the interest on their debt and you have a hollowed out Fourth Estate that can’t be a watchdog to anything other than their self interest and it has eroded trust in the media which is being exploited by Facebook and unscrupulous politicians.
Big ideas are needed but where the hell is Labour?
Willie Jackson needs to be the new Broadcasting Minister.
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The MSM is going the same way as the VCR and CDs. The world has moved on from them as their performance over the past decade has been woeful and their support for the establishment rejected by those on the extremes of the left and the right.
Throwing more money towards them is like lending to a trading insolvent company. You know they are going to die it’s just when.
I agree with Frank here 100%
I can’t watch TV any more as it is just rubbish, with the constant loud commercials that make my ears ring, and continual mindless chatter on talk shows, is so mindless that it turns a sane man into a screaming idiot.
So Labour, if you cant get off your arse and as promised bring back the TV7 channel you constantly promised before the last election, then forget it and just trash the bloody lot.
We are a poor country Cleangreen. Be careful about smashing broken toys, there might not be any more of the same. The analogy here is to be like Rekindle that arose in Christchurch, they build things using cast-off timber out of broken earthquake homes.
https://www.rekindle.org.nz/
The rot started in NZ when they replaced the current affair slot at 7pm with garbage you’d expect in Women’s Day. Since then there has been a sustained drop in standards to the point where all news was been dumbed down to the lowest common denominator.
Case in point the “political editors” of TVNZ and FakeNewshub. Yes I know young females however when it comes to political reporting surely competence trumps diversity.
I for one welcome the demise. I’ll read what I want to read on the internet and make up my own mind. That’s democracy and why internet censorship is going to become the biggest issue for democratic nations over the next decade. The establishment needs a mouthpiece. Without the MSM watch all Western nations establish more and more restrictions on the web. NZ under the current government is one of the leaders of this crusade.
Good Frank…..very good. Except for the casual sexism.
Frankie something we can agree upon. The best example this year, Bauer.
I disagree Bertie. Bauer was more a case of poor investment impregnating a corporate entity with debt, replacing interested parties with corporate cowboys and then some how expecting the business to make more money in a sunset industry.
All covid did, ironically was to bring forward a slow, prolonged death. Ditto goes for the idiot corporate that brought the mess. If I was a guessing man – a sweetheart deal from a bank, a leveraged balance sheet and the same problems as before. People don’t buy magazines anymore – its a boutique sunset industry when people operate for the love not the profit. Likely when stripping out “goodwill” another media company trading insolvent just like Stuff(ed).
And the world has moved on from Glossy magazines, thus I stand by what I said. Like VCR’s and CD’s,they are outdated. The expectation of a government bailout, thus enabling blame to fall at the governments feet shows a company with very low integrity and poor personal responsibility in job loss.
Willie Jackson needs to be the new Broadcasting Minister.
Willie Jackson is the person for this role. Hopefully he’s already giving serious thought to what needs to be done, the changes to be made, to regenerate and reinvigorate the world of broadcasting within Aotearoa. It would be great if, right after the election, he grabs the baton and is ready to hit the ground running.
It takes a long time to grow a spine when you don’t have one. And some people are just not able to do it.
Frank the Tank – I bloody won’t let you roll over me without a fight. Everything is not TINA. We make our lives by accepting what we are presented with – or thinking what we want and pounding the table till we get it. All without violence, but the controlled anger of people who see the spectrum available, and know what is important to have.
Radionz has reduced itself to RNZ because that is the current hegemony, but it still has the idea of being an informer to us of what is happening here and in the world, bringing people forward who can explain what they have found or done etc. Television seems to have gone into lala land. I would watch Maori Television if I still watched at all. And bert I thought you were wise but you disappoint me. The idea of compressing different media with different zeitgeist is facile and neoliberal. Things are what they are, and mixing two disparate things, is likely to end up in one lesser outcome.
One good thing has happened – stuff NZ is in NZ hands and is looking to its future. Keep the newspapers in the loop of whatever co-operation government and media have. And didn’t we have a NZPA source Reuters-like? I suggest hold onto our gambling, food? chips as long as we can, and protect against some seagull financier spotting and whipping it out of our hands.
The New Zealand Press Association (NZPA) was a news agency that existed from 1879 to 2011 and provided national and international news to the media of New Zealand. The largest news agency in the country, it was founded as the United Press Association in 1879, and became the New Zealand Press Association in 1942. Following Fairfax New Zealand’s withdrawal from NZPA in April 2011, NZPA told staff that it would be wound up over the next four to six months,[1] and ceased operation on 31 August 2011.
NZPA was superseded by three new services, all Australian-owned: APNZ (on-going), Fairfax New Zealand News (on-going as Stuff), and NZ Newswire (folded in April 2018). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Zealand_Press_Association
But to digress – see how Anahila Kanongata’a-Suisuiki progresses, she has been trying in politics for a while, comes from Tonga to here with a background of determination, sticking with the task and inclusiveness of family. Which is what we need here in NZ, and which her National competitor lacks. Whether she will turn out to be a hard-line evangelistic christian I do not know.
In the 2020 New Zealand general election, she will contest the Papakura electorate, challenging Judith Collins, the Leader of the Opposition. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anahila_Kanongata%27a-Suisuiki
Sorry but it’s going the way of the dinosaurs. Half the argument is economics – if you can produce the same ‘news’ at a tenth of the cost via the internet then long term that is how news is going to be made. The other side is that if it costs substantially more then you have to prove to listeners and advertisers that you are worth that premium. MSM in NZ and the western world at the moment can’t prove its worth that premium hence right around the world, unless they have a rich benefactor (ala Wapo) are in survival world.
In the words of Ramsay Bolton: “If you think this has a happy ending then you haven’t been listening”. In other words – go woke, go broke.
After the 2020 general election maybe? A commision of enquiry run by Heather Simpson, aka H2.
I think this about sums it up! All in one beautifully crafted sentence.
The NZ population has always been too small for advertiser funded journalism, it has ALWAYS needed State support, add a broken market where vulture capitalists use media profits to pay the interest on their debt and you have a hollowed out Fourth Estate that can’t be a watchdog to anything other than their self interest and it has eroded trust in the media which is being exploited by Facebook and unscrupulous politicians.
Sadly 95+% of the media, probably in most OECD countries, is nothing but pure right wing propaganda. The presstitutes have no shame and have seemingly willingly sold their soul for their ’30 pieces of silver’.
I don’t know what the solution is, so I lean towards the TDB’s suggestions as the ‘let them rot’ option seems more worrying than the present ‘FUBAR’.
Laughable that you think media organisations are right wing – perhaps you mistake business and economic requirements with politics. The politics of most major news organisations worldwide is left, the obvious outrider being Fox.
I regards to your last sentence – unfortunately for all governments at present there are bigger fish to fry than the media and political parties are slowly but surely viewing social media and the web as more important than the MSM. Where does the PM spend most of her free political time on the MSM or facebook?
They will rot and not before time
Minister Kris Faafoi on the proposal before it became public.
URL: https://www.fencingcompanyokc.com/
Bomber’s brilliant brain strikes again!
Love this blog.
The trust is goneburger.
Long gone.
And with it has gone the country we once thought we loved. Not all is lost….just most of what matters.
Just as well the poor bastards who’ve been thrown under the bus are a damn sight more civilised than the savages who threw them under.
There is still yet hope.
“Facebook, an International Corporation who makes money by emotionally manipulating readers into staying online by prompting users with more and more outlandish content.”
Facebook doesn’t provide the content on Facebook. The users of Facebook provide the content. If the content is bad, it’s because of the person sharing it, not Facebook. I share really good content, none of it from Facebook. All of it from the best independent media in the world, plus quality music, thoughts etc. Lots of others share crappy content etc
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