MEDIA WATCH: Sweet Jesus not MORE public money for The Spinoff, NZ Herald and Stuff?
Yay, more money for The Spinoff and their corporate media echo chambers…
Broadcasting Minister Kris Faafoi has announced a $55 million fund to rescue “grassroots public interest journalism” in New Zealand – the second financial package for media since the COVID-19 pandemic began.
…this is being sold as ‘grassroots journalism’.
No it won’t.
It will go to NZ on Air mates to prop up the elite opinion echo chambers.
1 – RNZ-TVNZ merger – the spine of our public broadcasting vision.
The RNZ-TVNZ merger should be occurring immediately with the following inclusions.
-
-
-
-
-
- TV1 commercial free
- RNZ launch a commercial free youth radio station.
- RNZ/TVNZ launch a 24 hour news station on one of their existing Freeview+ channels.
-
-
-
-
2 – Tax Google & Facebook and ring fence that for direct funding of NZ on Air journalism fund
Google & Facebook charged a percentage on all revenue from NZ, that money is specifically ring fenced to a contestable fund available through NZ on Air.
3 – NZ on Air ‘Read between the Flags’ Kiwi journalism
This fund would be where Facebook and Google tax goes to. 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 ensure plurality of voice for independent media, Māori media, specific communities, news blogs and mainstream news media 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.
4 – Promoting Journalism in the Pacifc to counter other influences
I think one way NZ could uniquely promote its interests into the Pacific could be via Journalism. AUT run the excellent Pacific Media Centre to promote quality Journalism throughout the Pacific. What if NZ saw the promotion of quality Journalism as a craft throughout the Pacific as a strong way to counter corruption and external influence? Scholarships, Pacific News Media websites and support of local ethical journalism, these could be the pillars of promoting corruption free politics and holding those Governments to account. Promotion of Journalistic standards throughout the Pacific could counter external influences and promote NZs strategic interests.
5 – Māori Media
Māori TV & Māori Radio need a baseline increase rather than extra budget for collaborations because the bigger players give very little back.
The NZ population has always been too small for advertiser funded journalism, it has ALWAYS needed State support, add a broken market where social media takes all the revenue while providing none of the journalism and you have a hollowed out Fourth Estate that can’t be a watchdog to anything other than their own self interest.
Current Government policy is simply adding more money to Corporate News to cover the news they should be covering anyway and to fund echo chambers of elite opinion so that the Spinoff Story gets posted on RNZ who then co post it on Stuff who then co post it on Newshub.
It’s the same people saying the same thing to the same echo chambers.
The last election was a warning that disinformation campaigns can wreck the trust in our system, a strong public broadcaster like a merged RNZ-TVNZ alongside an expanded NZ on Air journalism fund paid for via taxes on the social media currently gutting traditional journalism would be a bold vision that would seek to genuinely rebuild public broadcasting.
$50Million thrown at the same people saying the same things is not genuinely rebuilding anything.
Increasingly having independent opinion in a mainstream media environment which mostly echo one another has become more important than ever, so if you value having an independent voice – please donate here.
If you can’t contribute but want to help, please always feel free to share our blogs on social media
I assume Bomber that you can apply for funding? Your readership numbers should definitely qualify you.
But still nothing for the benefituries and child poverty or is that not a nuclear moment now.
Public broadcasting was fatally wounded by the government in 1989, when the American model was introduced. Not sure whether it’s still alive. It displays few signs of life, and rot is evident everywhere.
However, 8 out of 10 cats is worth watching. Not much else though.
The mob of cowards, clowns and fuckwits that constitute the current government are certainly not up to the job of fixing it, just as they’re not up to the job of fixing anything else. In fact, I looked at a photo of some of the key players on the way to TDB, and thought children.
Looking at the state of the world, there’s probably no time left to fix broadcasting anyway, even if the government had any ideas or the will to implement them. Many, many decades bullshit economics and fake money have got us exactly where we would expect many, many decades of bullshit economics and fake money to get us: deep in the shit on all fronts.
Same old support for the status quo which is getting worse and worse for media each year. The Spinoff is pretty much Granny’s younger sister with a woke spin on it. More development, more mass migration to be supported under NZ’s failing social security systems, and everyone who doesn’t like it is a NIMBY, white supremecist, (not sure how it works because iwi are against the above too, but the hypocrisy can be lost in translation because modern media content is bite sized, re-hashed from the last 20 years, fluff pieces for industry that rarely makes any sense).