MEDIAWATCH: ComCom NZ media Facebook deal the worst outcome for journalism

By
Martyn Bradbury
-
13
1518
Imagine the Hosking algorithm

ComCom outlines issues for bid by media to collectively bargain with Facebook, Google

The Commerce Commission has outlined the issues it will consider in an application by New Zealand news media to collectively bargain with Facebook and Google to seek fair payment for journalism used on their digital platforms.

Last month the News Publishers’ Association (NPA) filed an application with the Commerce Commission seeking permission on behalf of its members, which includes NZ Herald publisher NZME, and all other independent New Zealand-owned media organisations.

What is being proposed is the worst outcome for NZ journalism.

Here is what SHOULD happen.

Google & Facebook should face a separate media tax that is ringfenced and handed directly to NZ on Air.

NZ on Air in turn hands that money out to any journalist to specifically do investigative journalism.

That journalist’s work gains a ‘flag’ and NZ on Air runs a ‘read between the flags the way you swim between the flags’ campaign to help NZers distinguish what is journalism and what is social media disinformation.

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This way you set the bench mark for actual journalism while countering misinformation while expanding investigative journalism.

We set this media tax on Google and Facebook to fund real journalism to counter their platforms misinformation.

That is what we SHOULD be doing.

What we are instead doing is allowing desperate media owners to gain the algorithms of Facebook to pimp out extreme headlines to drive more clicks and royalty revenue!

This won’t save good journalism, it will speed the demise of it!

Allowing mainstream media to gain royalties from hate algorithms is a recipe for disaster.

 

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13 COMMENTS

    • I do like our Tim Pool (though I am wondering if he’ll ever take that beany off) and Breakfast TV is just dreadful. Mind you I’m old enough to remember the days before the goggle box over cornflakes

  2. So those are the rules for ‘journalists’ to adhere to.
    What about regulating the news influencers and wannabe Bubble Leader Influencers like the Nazi Green party Yoof Stasi?

    One set of rules for all or are the exceptions?

  3. Facebook and Google are involved globally in much more than social media /journalism. Something else being slipped in amid the distractions of the festive season.

  4. it’d be nice Martyn but any tax income will be funneled to private business/middle class socialism….though having said that the demographics of our media practitioners might mean some get a share on a class not quality basis though.

  5. Well it would be a jolly good start as the reporting and so called journalism in our 2 x main traditional print media outlets ( nz herald and stuff ) is so piss weak that a 10 year old kid writing a story on what they want for Xmas is more provocative, well researched with less grammatical errors than some of the shite put out by these two publications.
    Merry Christmas to you all

  7. Not sure why anyone would watch breakfast TV when morning report is on, frankly RadioNZ for all their faults do the best journalism there is. I do occasionally when someone points it out to me later watch the pieces that John Campbell has done on breakfast.

    I want more of Guyon Espiner’s looks into things on radio. His TV programe on our love affair with booze and the booze industry was great.

    We do need so much more investigative journalism, yes we are a relatively un-corrupt country but there is stuff going on and unless we are on to it.

    When is someone going to do a decent piece of journalism about all the tax evasion that goes on and why the IRD is not constantly closing the loops in the system. Billions of dollars every year, outrageous.

    We need some investigation into KiwiBank, we need to get people banking with them and kicking those other money grubbers out of the country. Why would you bank with a bank that sends billions of profits out of the country. Yes I know that some people can’t get loans from Kiwibank. The government in the interests of us all need to pump money into kiwibank.

    When are we going to have something on charities, that pay no tax, which include Sanitarium.

    Where are Luxon’s houses in Auckland, I am sure most of us would like to know.

    What has happened to the report on TVNZ on Talleys – they are shits and everyone knows it, MONEY MONEY MONEY.

    THE BEST IDEA EVER.
    Google & Facebook should face a separate media tax that is ring-fenced and handed directly to NZ on Air.
    NZ on Air in turn hands that money out to any journalist to specifically do investigative journalism.

  8. Let’s get it straight. There is a misunderstanding about what journalism is. It seems for many journalism denotes an activity of integrity and of worth for people. An honourable occupation to enhance the human condition.

    journalism | ˈdʒəːn(ə)lɪz(ə)m |
    noun [mass noun]the activity or profession of writing for newspapers, magazines, or news websites or preparing news to be broadcast.

    The definition does not outline or hint at quality, it’s about the simple act of putting stuff out. Like sitting on a toilet bowl. While some would argue that Hosking’s photo is out of place on a piece about journalism, “he’s not a journalist,” it is appropriate. Ironically the claims are that he is ‘number one’ in NZ commercial radio yet on there and in print he specialises in ‘number twos.’

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