KNIGHTLY VIEWS: By Gavin Ellis

Excoriating is the word that may best describe expat Canadian James Grenon’s 11-page critique of NZME. His forensic examination of the board he hopes to replace and the company’s performance is a sobering read.

You may not have seen the letter. At the time of writing, it was still sitting behind The New Zealand Herald’s Premium paywall. It is, however, available through the New Zealand Stock Exchange. You can access it here.

Grenon is highly critical in a number of areas that he breaks down into sections in the letter. The headings include:

“The combined performance of the two core businesses has been mediocre, to sliding, for the past eight years, despite a temporary period of covid gains.”

“There has been a consistent pattern of over promising and under delivering since covid.”

“Public disclosure is weak, with a slant that I interpret as supporting the status quo.”

Grenon’s letter includes an analysis of NZME’s share price in relation to the perceived value of its OneRoof real estate marketing arm, and the company’s dividend policy. He claims “the disclosure on these two critical elements is, in my opinion, lacking or even misleading”. He also criticises levels of management-level remuneration and high levels of staff turnover which he says “does not suggest a happy working environment”.

NZME’s board has yet to respond to the letter stating — in a note to the New Zealand Stock Exchange accompanying the release of Grenon’s letter — that it will do so in its notice to shareholders before the annual general meeting on April 29.

Were that the sum total of his challenge to the present board, it might be characterised as simply a move to improve the group’s financial performance and its return to shareholders. Much of what he says will, in fact, resonate with ordinary shareholders worried about the group’s financial performance and direction. It may well attract even more votes at the April AGM than he currently commands.

However, there is an enormous caveat hanging over any support for Grenon’s initiative.

He states categorically in his letter that he does not propose to act as a passive board chair (yes, there is an assumption that he will head an entirely new board). Instead, he leaves a strong impression he will be an executive chairman, in effect if not in name.

“I propose to be very active at the management level, leading a board and team that will delve into the operational details so as to be able to challenge management . . . This approach to governance is the only realistic way to ensure NZME gets a fresh set of eyes questioning every aspect of operational effectiveness and shareholder value creation.” The italics are mine and are highlighted for reasons I will return to shortly, but the import is clear: James Grenon and his team will have a finger in the pie.

The second reason for exercising caution on any endorsement of the Canadian’s move relates to the three paragraphs he groups under the heading “Journalism”.

On the surface, he promises better journalism, saying his intention is that “more quality content should be produced, not less”.

In contrast to NZME’s recent announcement to “set a new tone and build positive social momentum for New Zealanders”, our proposal will lift the company’s journalistic standards, resulting in the production of higher quality news content, characterised by independent, trustworthy and balanced perspectives. There will also be material for entertainment value as well. Then all the content will be used in any number of ways to generate profit.

He also applauds the “audience leading ratings of NZME’s audio segment”.

All of this sounds laudible, until one asks the simple question: How?

He has yet to give any specific answers. A request from the journalists’ union E Tū for assurances simply led to Grenon asking more questions about what the union meant by “editorial independence”.

However, let’s return to what Grenon means by his references to NZME’s journalism.

If he means the board will limit itself to supporting an annual budget that will allow NZME’s editors to independently produce the sort of content to which his letter alludes, all well and good.

If he means the aims set out in his letter will be transmitted to editors as an expectation of their approach to journalism, no problem.

However, when read in conjunction with the intentions I italicised above, there are strong indications that he intends to be at least meddlesome and, at worst, to dictate editorial direction and content. There is a signal to his editorial preferences in the fact that he applauds radio ratings that are firmly anchored by NewstalkZB’s right-leaning content.

Nowhere in Grenon’s letter is there any undertaking to observe the principles of editorial independence that certainly permeated The New Zealand Herald when I was editor a couple of decades ago and which I inherited from a long list of predecessors. Nowhere is there recognition that NZME has responsibilities to the general public. Declining trust is seen only in terms of the impact on profits.

Responsible and accountable journalism is something editors and their staff hold in trust on behalf of society. They seek audiences for the dual purposes of spreading that journalism to the general public and, in the process, producing the profits that ensure its ongoing sustainability. Done well, it is a virtuous circle.

However, like all circles, once any part of it is fractured it collapses. If Mr Grenon views the editorial department in the same way he sees every other aspect of NZME’s business, he would be in boots and all. Then it would be only a matter of time before the circle falls in on itself.

James Grenon’s bid deserves support only if he gives cast-iron guarantees of editorial independence, and that requires more than a letter of reassurance. Mere words are not enough.

Well-founded concerns for the future of a vital component of our journalistic infrastructure will be allayed only by changing the constitution of NZME to prevent directors from instructing any employee on editorial policy or operational matters. That protection would be all the more vital if now-stalled discussions over the purchase of Stuff’s titles and associated digital outlets are resumed after NZME’s board battle is resolved.

Both Television New Zealand and Radio New Zealand have statutory protection against ministerial interference in editorial matters. The community deserves the same protection from board interference in private sector media in the public interest.

That, however, has never been a given and many news media enterprises rely on a mixture of tradition and peer pressure to ensure their journalists are insulated from undue influence.

The New York Times, for example, has a proud tradition of editorial independence but that owes more to the Salzberger family than to the company’s articles of association. The Daily Mail and General Trust have a tradition whereby its editors are appointed by the editor-in-chief in consultation with the board chairman, who also by tradition has been Viscount Rothermere (currently the fourth holder of the title). Each editor then controls the content of the respective titles. The editor-in-chief of The Guardian is not appointed by the board but by the Scott Trust, which owns the newspaper group, and reports directly to it.

I commend to Grenon and his fellow board aspirants an essay on editorial independence by the chairman of the New York Times Company, A G Salzberger. You can access it here.

For NZME to have effective guarantees of editorial independence, its articles would need to have a failsafe mechanism to prevent the sort of override that Rupert Murdoch affected with his news acquisitions. Such a mechanism might be special recourse to the Media Council in the event of an attempt by directors to interfere. The council could then independently investigate whether there had been a breach of the company constitution. Disclosure of such a breach could be damaging to both directors and the company.

The combination of protective governance plus an independent review process would allay most of the fears generated by Grenon’s utterances and his past brief encounters with news media — a former shareholding in the right-wing aggregator site The Centrist, and financing of legal action against mainstream media.

NZME shareholders and the public of New Zealand should be very wary if no such undertakings are forthcoming.

• Disclosure: I was formerly a shareholder in the previous parent company of the group but do not currently hold shares in NZME.

Dr Gavin Ellis holds a PhD in political studies. He is a media consultant and researcher. A former editor-in-chief of The New Zealand Herald, he has a background in journalism and communications — covering both editorial and management roles — that spans more than half a century. Dr Ellis publishes the website knightlyviews.com where this commentary was first published and it is republished by Café Pacific with permission.

This article was first published on Café Pacific.

COMMENTARY: By Dr Gavin Ellis

Integrity is the most valued element of a news organisation’s reputation. Without it, it cannot expect its audience to lend credence to what it publishes or broadcasts. So, The New Zealand Herald has dealt itself an awful blow.

Its admission that it used generative AI to scrape content and then create an editorial about the All Blacks came only after it was caught out by Radio New Zealand. RNZ’s subsequent revelation that it may have found another three robot editorials in The Herald was met with sullen silence.

All the country’s largest newspaper will say its that it should have employed more “journalistic rigour”.

That is not good enough. It does not explain why the paper made the bizarre choice to employ Gen AI to create what should be its own opinion. It does not explain why there was no disclosure of its use (although to do so on an editorial should raise more red flags than a North Korean Workers Party anniversary). It does not tell us how widespread the practice is within publications owned by NZME (The Herald editorial was reprinted in its regional titles).

It does not explain why even the most basic subediting was not applied to an obviously deficient piece of writing when editorials have previously been checked and rechecked to prevent the most minor of errors. And it does not reveal what went wrong in the editorial chain of command to allow all or any of the foregoing to occur…or not.

RNZ Mediawatch’s Hayden Donnell did an excellent job in “outing” The Herald’s practice. I admit that when I read the All Blacks editorial my reaction was that it was a particularly badly written leader that had been shoved into the paper unedited. That would have been bad enough, but it never occurred to me that it might be the scribbles of a robot hand.

Donnell had the insight to put it through AI detection software and, like the Customs Service’s First Defender against drugs on Border Patrol, it returned a positive reading. It indicated it was most likely the product of Gen AI. His finding was revealed on Mediawatch last Wednesday. A follow-up fronted by Colin Peacock on Sunday’s Mediawatch revealed a further three editorials — all on sporting subjects — had returned similar readings to the first.

Peacock told listeners the publisher had declined to comment.

AI-created editorials: What in HAL’s name was the Herald thinking?

The Herald’s own disclosure of the issue to its readers was buried in Shayne Currie’s Media Insider column. Headed “AI and that NZ Herald editorial”, it was the fourth item after an interminable piece on TVNZ’s ongoing fight with former Breakfast host Kamahl Santamaria, TVNZ’s CEO paying her own way to the Olympics, and the release of the Wall Street Journal reporter held in Moscow on fabricated charges.

The item about itself assumed everyone had already caught up with the RNZ story and simply began by saying newsroom staff had been called to a meeting “to discuss use of artificial intelligence (AI), following a case in which NZME says it should have applied more “journalistic rigour” in the way AI was used to help create a recent NZ Herald editorial”.

It quoted Herald editor-in-chief (and NZME’s chief content officer-publishing) Murray Kirkness setting out the general principles on which The Herald and other publishers used artificial intelligence. He went on to say:

“I’m keen to hold another of our regular All Hands meetings next week, which will include discussion about our use of AI now and into the future.
“As always, trust and credibility are vitally important to us and will be part of the discussion.
“Next week’s session will be an opportunity for us to talk further about our use of AI and the standards we need to maintain as we use it.”

That does not signal to me — or to other Herald readers — that he accepts there is a major issue facing him and his editorial department. Much as NZME might like to minimise what has happened, this is a serious matter that requires no small amount of damage control.

That daily column headed “We say” is more than just one of the many opinion columns peppered throughout the paper. To my way of thinking, it was supposed to be the considered, intellectually rigorous view of the masthead, one from which the public might form their own opinions and draw their own conclusions.

It was also the place from which the powerful could be called to account. As such it always played a significant role in determining the integrity of the masthead and the trust that readers resided in it. That is why its production each day was the direct responsibility of the editor or deputy editor.

I have been both an editorial writer and an editor. I know, from direct experience, the rigour that must be applied to the processes in its production — from robust discussion of the subject, to determining a justified point of view, and ensuring its accuracy and quality. I have felt the weight of responsibility in its publication each day, a weight that is the greater when calling people to account. Our editorials were unsigned because they represented the view of the masthead. The editor took direct responsibility for what it said.

My mentor, and one of my predecessors as editor of The New Zealand Herald, John Hardingham, wrote in the Manual of Journalism about the delegating nature of the editorial structure. He added the following:

One duty, however, is never delegated. That is the expression of the newspapers’ opinions through its leading articles or editorials. The editor, or the deputy editor, personally chooses the daily topics for comment, defines the approach in consultation with the specialist leader writers, and sub-edits the completed work.

That signalled the significance attached to the editorial column. Even if its readership level is low compared with other parts of the newspaper, that significance is not lost on those in power, and they have learned over time that they ignore editorials at their peril. What is said in the name of the masthead may be the touchpaper that ignites a crowd.

Shayne Currie informed readers on Saturday: “Once upon a time, The Herald had a dedicated team of editorial writers, or at least senior editors who had a special focus to consider the newspaper’s opinion on daily issues. Now, the responsibility falls on a wide cross-section of staff, including journalists who might be specialists in particular areas.”

I sense this is yet another indication of NZME’s laser focus on its digital content. The print edition is a legacy medium which, like a geriatric, is offered palliative services while the real effort is devoted to those with the promise of longer life. The fact the editorial is now written by a “wide cross section” suggests (along with the truncation of letters and addition of forgettable photographs) that the company is unwilling to devote resources to the page that was once the most direct link between paper and public.

That would not be lost on staff who could then be forgiven for regarding the editorial writing assignment as a chore rather than a privilege. Using AI to write the editorial may be a manifestation of that attitude. Sadly, all of this ignores the fact that the editorial also appears in digital form and should be accorded the same status it used to enjoy in print.

Shayne Currie used an unfortunate turn of phrase in the paragraph reproduced above. He said “responsibility falls”. The duty may fall to that wide cross-section but responsibility continues to sit where it has always been — with the person at the top of the editorial tree.

As such it falls to Murray Kirkness to fix what is a deepening problem that has been created not only for The Herald and its fellow NZME publications but for the wider media as well.

The AI generated editorial disclosure is a gift from the gods for those who seek to undermine news media and other institutions. I can hear the repeated refrain: “Don’t believe what they say: It is written by a robot”.

Doubtless, it will be extrapolated to embrace the entire content of the paper: “There aren’t any reporters: It’s written by robots.” Sound implausible? If people believed the claim the country’s reporters and editors had been bribed by the Public Interest Journalism Fund, anything is possible.

The editor-in-chief will have to deal with two related issues.

The first is integrity. I have no doubt that AI can be a useful tool in researching the subject of an editorial but never in writing one. The view of the newspaper must be created by the women and men who know and understand the intrinsic values that cannot be scraped from existing data.

Murray Kirkness must give readers an ironbound guarantee that Gen AI-written editorials have stopped, and will not happen again.

The second is transparency. Artificial intelligence has an undoubted place in the future of journalism where it can have immense benefits in, for example, the “digesting” of vast amounts of data and the processing of information. However, its use must be carefully proscribed by a publicly accessible AI code of conduct, which must also set out standardised forms of guaranteed disclosure of when and how it is employed. Failure to follow the code should be a disciplinary offence that could lead to dismissal.

The Herald must show that it is putting its house in order. It is always ready to hold others accountable. It did so last year over an RNZ staff member’s “Russia-friendly edits” of stories on the war in Ukraine, and did so this year over TVNZ’s missteps with redundancies.

It’s time to hang out its own laundry and show that it intends to be whiter-than-white.

There is a lot riding on the “regular All Hands meeting” at NZME tomorrow. If it minimises or ignores the damage done, it could reap the product of a seed unintentionally sown at the top of the first New Zealand Herald editorial on 13 November 1863. It was a quotation:

“Give every man thy ear, but few thy voice.
Take each man’s censure, but reserve thy judgment.

“This above all: to thine own self be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.”

Sage advice, true, but we should also not lose sight of the fact that the quotation is from Act 1 Scene 3 of Hamlet – one of Shakespeare’s tragedies.

Dr Gavin Ellis holds a PhD in political studies. He is a media consultant and researcher. A former editor-in-chief of The New Zealand Herald, he has a background in journalism and communications — covering both editorial and management roles — that spans more than half a century. Dr Ellis publishes the website knightlyviews.com where this commentary was first published and it is republished by Asia Pacific Report with permission.

This article was first published on Café Pacific.

New Zealand cannot sit back and see the collapse of its Fourth Estate, the director of Koi Tū: The Centre for Informed Futures, Sir Peter Gluckman, says in the foreword of a paper published today.

The paper, “If not journalists, then who?” paints a picture of an industry facing existential threats and held back by institutional underpinnings that are beyond the point where they are merely outdated.

It suggests sweeping changes to deal with the wide impacts of digital transformation and alarmingly low levels of trust in news.

The paper’s principal author is Koi Tū honorary research fellow Dr Gavin Ellis, who has written two books on the state of journalism: Trust Ownership and the Future of News and Complacent Nation.

He is a former newspaper editor and media studies lecturer, and also a member of Asia Pacific Media Network. The paper was developed following consultation with media leaders.

“We hope this paper helps open and expand the conversation from a narrow focus on the viability of particular players,” Sir Peter said, “to the needs of a small liberal democracy which must face many challenges in which citizens must have access to trustworthy information so they can form views and contribute appropriately to societal decision making.

“Koi Tū’s core argument, along with that of many scholars of democracy, is that democracy relies on honest information being available to all citizens. It needs to be provided by trustworthy sources and any interests associated with it must be transparently declared.

Decline in trust
“The media itself has contributed much to the decline in trust. This does not mean that there is not a critical role for opinion and advocacy — indeed democracy needs that too. It is essential that ideas are debated.

“But when reliable information is conflated with entertainment and extreme opinion, then citizens suffer and manipulated polarised outcomes are more likely.”

Dr Ellis said both news media and government were held to account in the paper for the state in which journalism in New Zealand now found itself. The mixing of fact and opinion in news stories was identified as a cause of the public’s low level of trust, and online analytics were found to have aberrated news judgement previously driven by journalistic values.

For their part, successive governments have failed to keep pace with changing needs across a very broad spectrum that has been brought about by digital transformation.

Changes suggested in the paper include voluntary merger of the two news regulators (the statutory Broadcasting Standards Authority and the industry-supported Media Council) into an independent body along lines recommended a decade ago by the Law Commission.

The new body would sit within a completely reorganised — and renamed — Broadcasting Commission, which would also be responsible for the day-to-day administration of the Classifications Office, NZ On Air and Te Māngai Pāho.

An administrative umbrella
The reconstituted commission would become the administrative umbrella for the following autonomous units:

• Media accountability (standards and complaints procedures)
• Funding allocation (direct and contestable, including creative production)
• Promotion and funding of Māori culture and language.
• Content classification (ratings and classification of film, books, video gaming)
• Review of media-related legislation and regulation, and monitoring of common law development, and
• Research and advocacy (related civic, cultural, creative issues).

The paper also favours dropping the Digital News Fair Bargaining Bill (under which media organisations would negotiate with transnational platforms) and, instead, amending the Digital Services Tax Bill, now before the House, under which the proposed levy on digital platforms would be increased to provide a ring-fenced fund to compensate media for direct and indirect use of their content.

It also suggests changes to tax structures to help sustain marginally profitable and non-profit media outlets committed to public interest journalism.

Seventeen separate Acts of Parliament affecting media are identified in the paper as outdated — “and the list is nor exhaustive”. The paper recommends a comprehensive and closely coordinated review.

The Broadcasting Act is currently under review, but the paper suggests it should not be re-evaluated in isolation from other necessary legislative reforms.

The paper advises individual media organisations to review their editorial practices in light of current trust surveys and rising news avoidance. It says these reviews should include news values, story selection and presentation.

They should also improve their journalistic transparency and relevance to audiences.

Collectively, media should adopt a common code of ethics and practice and develop campaigns to explain the role and significance of democratic/social professional journalism to the public.

Statement of principles
A statement of journalistic principles is included in the paper:

“Support for democracy sits within the DNA of New Zealand media, which have shared goals of reporting news, current affairs, and information across the broad spectrum of interests in which the people of this country collectively have a stake.

“Trained news media professionals, working within recognised standards and ethics, are the only group capable of carrying out the functions and responsibilities that have been carved out for them by a heritage stretching back 300 years.

“They must be capable of holding the powerful to account, articulating many different voices in the community, providing meeting grounds for debate, and reflecting New Zealanders to themselves in ways that contribute to social cohesion.

“They have a duty to freedom of expression, independence from influence, fairness and balance, and the pursuit of truth.”

Republished from Koi Tū: The Centre for Informed Futures.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

The brave little shrubs are doing their valiant best to stay intact as a plant pot skids across our balcony in Cyclone Gabrielle’s first caress. With much worse yet to come I need to know what, where, and when.

I need information and, if I have to cut my way through a jungle of official sources, I will still be in the rain forest when Gabby takes me in her crushing embrace.

This, I tell myself, is precisely why we need news media. They draw together an overwhelming range of sources and condense information into a readily absorbed format.

Then they keep updating and adding to the picture.

As I write this commentary on Monday, that picture is already changing. An hour ago, the rain was a fine drizzle and there was little wind. Now the rain is heavier, and the wind is coming in strong gusts. In another couple of hours I expect the freight train that Northland residents heard as Gabrielle passed through, and the driveway will be a cascade.

Then the triangle of soil (that has already subsided by about 30 centimetres) may slide from the edge of the adjacent bush reserve into the stream below.

From my study window I see only a small picture, but I need a wider view. I need to know how my brothers and their families are faring in Northland and on the Awhitu Peninsula, what our friends in various parts of Auckland and the North Island will be experiencing. And I have a general concern for the well-being of the city I call home.

Good overall picture
I have been well-served by news media — websites, television, and radio — keeping me updated on the impact of the cyclone. I have a good overall picture of its effects so far and how it is tracking.

And I have details. I know which schools are closed. I know power outages are affecting 58,000 households and where this has closed supermarkets and stores. I know that, if possible, the mail will get through, but that Auckland Airport has cancelled most flights and Ports of Auckland is at a standstill.

While I waited for nature to do its worst (no, I shouldn’t say that because I’m sure Gabrielle isn’t the worst sociopath that climate change will spawn), I embarked on an exercise. I wanted to demonstrate the lengths to which members of the public would have to go to stay informed if they did not have the news media reporting on what may be the worst storm in Aucklanders’ living memory.

I assumed, for the purpose of the exercise I began at 10.30 a.m. on Monday, that the average person did not know a lot about the structures and operations of emergency management.

The Auckland version of civil defence has a name that is hard to remember so I started with the Auckland City website. The first thing I noticed was information on how to pay my rates and book an inorganic rubbish collection. Then I spied a banner right at the top headed “State of local emergency”. There was a link to Auckland Emergency Management (that hard to remember name).

The AEM homepage contained 77 links to other websites and sources of information on everything from the location of evacuation centres to Mayor Wayne Brown’s carefully documented declaration of a state of local emergency (vital information when you are trapped in your house under the crushing presence of a downed macrocarpa).

I clicked on the “latest media update” but the link didn’t seem to work. I was invited to click on “Our Auckland” for the previous update. Um, no, all I found was broad general information and direction back to the homepage.

In search of weather
On my return I went in search of the weather and clicked on a link to the Metservice website. There was a fresh update on the red and orange alerts that had been well-canvassed elsewhere, accompanied by a map that was 24 hours old (it was updated shortly thereafter).

Back to the homepage.

Next, I wanted an update on road travel. I clicked first on the Auckland Transport link and then on road closure warnings. Another click and I was looking at eight area designations and found my residence (on the central Auckland isthmus) under “south urban”. Another click I was confronted by an alphabetical list of street names with no indication of the suburb, but it didn’t matter because these were simply streets with warnings of potential closure. The roads that were closed were on a separate list (another click) that did include suburbs.

But what about the highways and byways outside Auckland? That required separate excursions, first to the Waka Kotahi website then to local authority websites such as the Thames Coromandel District Council’s excellent site which also contained warnings of potential coastal inundations from storm surges.

Back to the AEM homepage and another journey to find out about power outages. There were links to the Vector and Counties Energy websites. To check whether my brother in Northland was still without power, I had to leave the AEM site because he is outside its emergency jurisdiction.

The Northpower outages map was easy to use and took me straight to his location (power restored) while the Vector map for central Auckland seems designed to push anxious customers over the edge.

My other brother’s part of the Awhitu Peninsula has communications links that I might charitably describe as tenuous, so I wanted to check whether he still had cellular coverage. I decided to check the three main providers. Spark’s outages information was top of the home page and informative while 2 Degrees was equally useful even though it required scrolling to the bottom of the homepage.

Sales pitches
Vodafone seemed too intent on selling things to me and I gave up on its website, opting instead for a Google search.

What of Gabrielle’s effect on the rest of the country?

Civil Defence now has the much easier to remember title of the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA). By and large its Cyclone Gabrielle page points me back to the places I had already been, although it offered the alternative of Facebook pages. East Cape seemed to be in for a pounding, so I clicked on the Tairāwhiti Civil Defence Facebook page. Most of its content was in the form of timely warnings rather than updates. Like all Facebook pages, the order of posts reflected the latest addition, not necessarily relative importance. And there were links and more links to other sites.

I returned to the NEMA homepage and completed my exhausting journey with a click back to the Auckland Emergency Management website, satisfied that I had proven my point, at least to myself. A level of digital competence and almost endless patience is required to access the information we seek in emergencies.

All I can say is thank God for news media. They carry out a vital task in emergencies like Cyclone Gabrielle. They bring together a mass of information which can be readily — and quickly — accessed by the public. To that they add their vital role in holding power to account, as they demonstrated during the Auckland Anniversary Weekend floods and will doubtless do again after this cyclone has passed. You will not find that on an official website.

Crucially, news media are available in forms that do not require digital competence or digital access. Newspapers, television, and radio are readily available and each has its own strengths — print provides in-depth information and advice, television brings home the reality of the storm, and radio has immediacy.

If Gabrielle is as nasty as the scene outside my window is beginning to suggest, we could lose power and mobile coverage. Then all those official websites will count for nothing, but my transistor radio — complete with a new set of batteries — will continue to bring me the news and help me to stay safe.

Dr Gavin Ellis holds a PhD in political studies. He is a media consultant and researcher. A former editor-in-chief of The New Zealand Herald, he has a background in journalism and communications — covering both editorial and management roles — that spans more than half a century. Dr Ellis publishes the website knightlyviews.com where this commentary was first published and it is republished by Asia Pacific Report with permission.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

A new study suggests that the news media’s tanking levels of public trust may be made worse merely by association with social media.

The study, released this month by the Reuters Institute at Oxford University, has exposed gaps between trust in news via conventional delivery and the same thing consumed via social media.

It doesn’t matter whether people use social media or not: Levels of trust is lower if they simply associate news with the platforms.

The gap varies between platforms and between countries but the overall finding is that levels of trust in news on social media, search engines, and messaging apps is consistently lower than audience trust in information in the news media more generally.

And our media is becoming more and more associated with social media.

Many of the country’s main news outlets have done deals with Google to appear on its Google News platform. Click on the app and you’ll see stories from Stuff, Newshub, New Zealand Herald and NewstalkZB, Radio New Zealand, Television New Zealand, Newsroom, and the Otago Daily Times.

NZME has brokered a deal with Facebook for the use of content, and other publishers are using the Commerce Commission in the hope of leveling the negotiating playing field.

Split between north and south
The Reuters study (part of the institute’s on-going research into trust in the media) was a split between north and south. The four countries surveyed were the United Kingdom, the United States, India, and Brazil. Two thousand people were surveyed in each country and covered seven platforms: Facebook, Google, Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, WhatsApp, and YouTube.

New Zealand use of social media more closely follows that of the United States and the United Kingdom than India and Brazil so the data relating to those two nations are quoted here. The full results can be found here.

Google showed the smallest gap between platform and general trust in news. It was only one percentage point behind in Britain where 53 percent express general trust in news. In the US, where the general trust level sits at 49 percent, Google was actually four percentage points ahead.

The same could not be said for other platforms.

To ease the calculation, we’ll say roughly 50 percent of respondents in both countries express trust in news in general. Contrast that with news on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, which score in the mid to high twenties.

TikTok news is trusted by only 20 percent on those surveyed, the same number as WhatsApp rates in the United States (the UK is higher on 29 percent).

Only YouTube emerged from the twenties, with its news content being rated by 33 percent in Britain and 40 percent in the United States.

Complex reasons
The reasons for these gaps in perception of news on social media are complex. This is due in part to the fact that social media serves many different purposes for many different users.

News is only a small part of the interchange that occurs. The study shows that no more than a third use Google or Facebook for daily access to news, with other platforms below 20 percent, and on TikTok only 11 percent.

Large portions of the public, in fact, do not use social media platforms at all (although this does not stop them having opinions about them in the survey). Usage varies between Britain and America but a quarter to a third never use Facebook, Google or YouTube and half to three quarters do not use the remaining platforms.

Previous Reuters research has shown levels of trust in news are higher in those who access it on a regular basis. Distrust is highest among those who have least contact with news and with social platforms. This is confirmed by the latest survey.

News organisations may take some comfort from the findings that young people are more trusting of news on social platforms than older people. The gap is huge in some cases.

An average 14 percent of Americans and Britons over 55 trust news on Facebook. That rises to 40 percent among those under 35. The gap for Google is similar and even greater on other platforms.

News aside, however, people have generally positive views of platforms. More than two-thirds give Google a tick and almost as many give the thumbs-up to YouTube. Both are seen as the best platforms on which learn new things.

Facebook doesn’t fare so well
Facebook does not fare quite so well but at 40-45 percent positive rating, while fewer than a third feel positively about Twitter and TikTok.

In spite of these warm fuzzies, however, the surveys reveal “big problems”, particularly with Facebook.

Almost two-thirds of respondents blame Facebook for propagating false or misleading information and it is also seen as the worst culprit in on-platform harassment, irresponsible use of personal data, prioritising political views, and censoring content.

Although opinions expressed by non-users has complicated the Reuters study, both users and no-users express similar views when it comes to these problems. For example, the proportion of Facebook users that say false or misleading information is a problem on the platform (63 percent) is virtually the same as those who say it is in the overall sample.

The study, which includes an even wider range of variables than are included here, attempts to correlate platform usage and ideas about journalism. After all, it is on such platforms — and from the mouths of some politicians — that users encounter discussions about journalism and criticism of journalists.

The survey asked specific questions about journalists. Half the respondents thought journalists try to manipulate the public to serve the agendas of powerful politicians and care more about getting attention than reporting the facts.

Forty percent thought journalists were careless in what they reported, and a slightly higher proportion thought they were only in it for the money.

Criticism of journalism
The researchers then attempted to identify where and how criticism of journalism is encountered. Twitter users are most likely to encounter it. In the United States almost half said they often see criticism of media there and the UK is not far behind.

More than 40 percent of Facebook and Google users in America encounter it and a third of British users of those two platforms say they see it there. Other (newer) platforms have even higher incidences.

So that is where the criticism of journalists is propagated, but who is doing the criticising? Almost half those surveyed in the United States pointed the finger at politicians and political parties, although a similar number also say the hear it from “ordinary people”.

The figures are slightly lower in the UK but around a third identify political or government sources.

The survey also asked whether other public figures were responsible for criticism of journalists. Celebrities and activists figure in around a third of responses but so, too, do journalists themselves.

The surveys also give some pointers about the relative importance of “clicks” or how much attention our newsrooms should give to real-time analytics. The answer is  . . . some.

Respondents were asked to pick the factors that were important in deciding whether they could trust information on online platforms. In both countries fewer than 40 percent said the number of likes or shares were important or very important.

Media source familiarity
Around half paid attention to comments on items but far more important was whether they had heard of the media source. Two thirds were influenced by the tone or language used in headlines and almost 60 percent were influenced by accompanying images.

That finding correlates with another in which respondents were asked who should be responsible for helping to differentiate between trustworthy and untrustworthy content on the internet.

More than two-thirds put that responsibility on media organisations, higher than on tech companies, and significantly higher than on government (although Britons were more inclined toward regulation than their American cousins).

However, if the research proved one thing, it was that the media/social media environment is deeply nuanced and manifests the complexities of human behaviour. The conclusions drawn by the researchers say as much. They leave a couple of important take-aways.

“As a trade-off for expanding reach and scale, newsrooms have often ceded considerable control to these outside companies in terms of how their content is distributed and how often and in what form their work appears on these services.

“Such relationships have been further strained as publishers become increasingly dependent on platforms to reach segments of the public least interested in consuming news through legacy modes, even as platforms themselves have pivoted to serving up other kinds of experiences farther removed from news, recognising that many of their most active users have less interest in such content, especially where politically contentious issues are involved.”

They say the gap they have identified is likely a reflection of this mismatch in audience perceptions about what platforms are for, the kinds of information they get when using the services, and how people think more generally about news media.

“It is possible that the main challenge for news organisations when it comes to building and sustaining audience trust is less about the specific problem of how their journalism is perceived when audiences encounter it online, and more about the broader problem of being seen at all.”

My conclusion
Years ago, we heard the term “News You Can Use” as a response to the challenge of declining newspaper circulation. That was a catchy way of saying “We must be relevant”. The Reuters study is further proof that journalism’s real challenge lies in producing content that ordinary people need to live their daily lives. If that means collating and publishing daily lists of what every supermarket chain is charging for milk, bread, cabbages and potatoes then so be it.

Dr Gavin Ellis holds a PhD in political studies. He is a media consultant and researcher. A former editor-in-chief of The New Zealand Herald, he has a background in journalism and communications — covering both editorial and management roles — that spans more than half a century. Dr Ellis publishes a website called Knightly Views where this commentary was first published and it is republished by Asia Pacific Report with permission.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

COMMENTARY: By Gavin Ellis of Knightly Views

Nothing justifies the killing of Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh and the wounding of her colleague Ali al-Samoudi during an Israeli raid on Jenin in the Occupied West Bank. Nothing.

I believe the renowned reporter died at the hands of Israeli armed forces and that she was deliberately targeted because she was a journalist, easily identified by the word PRESS on the flak jacket and helmet that did not protect her from the shot that killed her. Her wounded colleague was identically dressed.

I am left in no doubt about the culpability of the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) on a number of grounds.

Several eyewitnesses, including an Agence France-Presse photographer and another Al Jazeera staffer, were adamant that there was no shooting from Palestinians near the scene of the killing. Shatha Hanaysha, the Al Jazeera journalist who had been standing next to Abu Akleh against a high wall when firing broke out, stated they were deliberately targeted by Israeli troops.

Israeli spokesmen who initially laid the blame on Palestinian militants became more equivocal in the face of the eyewitness accounts, although they would go no further than saying she could have been accidentally shot from an armoured vehicle by an Israeli soldier.

That is about as close to an admission of guilt as the IDF is likely to get.

However, perhaps the strongest evidence of IDF culpability is the fact that the killing of Abu Akleh is part of a pattern of targeting journalists. Reporters Without Borders — which has called for an independent international investigation of the death that it says is a violation of international conventions that protect journalists — says two Palestinian journalists were killed by Israeli snipers in 2018 and since then more than 140 journalists have been the victims of violations by the Israeli security forces.

30 journalists killed since 2000
By its tally, at least 30 journalists have been killed since 2000.

Of course, those deaths are but one consequence of the IDF’s disproportionate response — in terms of the number of victims — to actions by Palestinian militants over the occupation of the West Bank. Since the present Israeli government took office last year, 76 Palestinians have died at the hands of Israeli forces.

There has been condemnation of such deaths, particularly when they include a number of children. So the reaction to the killing of Shireen Abu Akleh was sadly predictable. In other circumstances the outcry would dissipate and Israeli forces would continue to carry out their government’s wishes.

However, three things may make the condemnation louder, longer and more effective.

First was the fact that, although she was born in Jerusalem, she was a United States citizen. This could well explain the US Administration’s statement condemning the killing and its willingness to back a similarly reproachful UN Security Council resolution.

The second factor was that, although a Palestinian, Abu Akleh was not a Muslim. She was raised in a Christian Catholic family. It may not be a particularly becoming trait but the ability of the West to identify with a victim affects the way in which it reacts.

However, it is the third factor that may have the most telling effect on the long-term consequences of her death. I am referring to the desecration of her funeral by baton-wielding armed Israeli police.

Pallbearers assaulted by police
The journalist’s coffin was carried in procession from an East Jerusalem hospital to the Cathedral of the Annunciation of the Virgin in the Christian Quarter of the Old City where a service was held before burial in a cemetery on the Mount of Olives. However, shortly after the pallbearers left the hospital the procession — waving Palestinian flags and chanting — was assaulted by police.

Mourners were hit with batons, stun grenades were detonated, and a phalanx of armed police in riot gear advanced on the coffin. The procession scattered in disarray and, as the pallbearers tried to avoid the police action, the coffin tilted almost vertical and was in danger of falling to the road.

At that point, an Al Jazeera journalist providing commentary on live coverage of the funeral said an an anguished voice: “Oh my God. Such disrespect for the dead, for those mourning the dead. How is that a security threat? How is that disorderly? Why does it require this kind of reaction, this level of violence on the part of the Israelis?”

The horrifying scene was captured by international media and shown around the world

“The Israeli army is asking people if they are Christian or Muslim. If you’re Muslim you weren’t allowed in.” – @ajimran

Israeli occupation forces are attacking Palestinians during the funeral of killed Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh. pic.twitter.com/Xq3VkeOCqn

— Al Jazeera English (@AJEnglish) May 13, 2022

Why did the police act as they did? Apparently because it is illegal to display the Palestinian flag and chant Palestinian slogans. Even after Abu Akleh’s coffin was transferred to a vehicle, police ran alongside to tear Palestinian flag from the windows.

The message was clear: There was no contrition on the part of Israeli authorities for the death of the Al Jazeera journalist. The justification for the police action was pathetic. There were lame excuses that stones had been thrown at them. In other words, it was business as usual.

That may not be the way the world sees it. Nor, indeed, the way it may be seen by many ordinary Israelis who would have been affronted by the indignity shown to the remains of a widely respected woman who died doing her job.

‘Time for some accountability?’
Yaakov Katz, the editor of the Jerusalem Post, an English-language Israeli newspaper, said on Twitter: “What’s happening at Abu Akleh’s funeral is terrible. This is a failure on all fronts.” In a later message he asked: “Is it not time for some accountability?”

The targeting of journalists aims to intimidate and to prevent them from bearing witness, particularly where authorities have something to hide. That is why, for example, we have seen seven journalists killed in Ukraine, 12 of their colleagues injured by gunfire, and multiple reports of clearly identified journalists coming under fire from Russian forces.

One might have thought the international community — and in particular Israel’s close friend the United States — would have put significant pressure on Tel Aviv to cease such intimidation a year ago after Israeli aircraft bombed the Gaza City building that was home to various media organisations including Al Jazeera and the US wire service Associated Press.

Israel claimed, without any evidence and contrary to AP’s own knowledge, that the building was being used by Hamas, the Palestinian nationalist organisation.

Associated Press chief executive Gary Pruitt said after that attack that “the world will know less about what is happening in Gaza because of what happened today”. Aidan White, founder of the Ethical Journalism Network described the bombing as a “catastrophic attempt to shut down media, to silence criticism, and worst of all, to create a cloak of secrecy”.

That, no doubt, was what Tel Aviv intended.

Yet there were no recriminations sufficient to change the course Tel Aviv was on. As the killing of Shireen Abu Akleh so tragically illustrates, Israel has continued its policy of intimidation and violence against journalists.

Sooner or later, it will come to realise that such actions diminish a government in the eyes of the world. The death of Abu Akleh and the indignity shown to her remains have added significantly to the damage to its reputation.

Dr Gavin Ellis holds a PhD in political studies. He is a media consultant and researcher. A former editor-in-chief of The New Zealand Herald, he has a background in journalism and communications — covering both editorial and management roles — that spans more than half a century. Dr Ellis publishes a website called Knightly Views where this commentary was first published and it is republished by Asia Pacific Report with permission.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

The proposal for a new entity to replace Television New Zealand and RNZ has two fundamental flaws that must be fixed if it is to gain the public’s trust.

The first flaw is the assumption that an existing legal structure — the Autonomous Crown Entity — is an appropriate form of governance. The second is that it has provided inadequate protection from political interference. The two issues are related.

Let me say at the outset that I support the restructuring of public service media. It is an idea whose time has come. It is an opportunity to create, almost from the ground up, a public organisation designed to live up to a digital incarnation of BBC-founder Lord Reith’s dictum that public media should inform, educate and entertain (now, however, in a creative and clever mix).

My concern lies in the need for this new entity to demonstrate from the outset that it will be free-standing and free from influence. By treating its formation little differently from a stock-standard Autonomous Crown Entity (ACE) into which existing organisations are dropped, the government is sending the wrong signals. From Day One (i.e., right now) it needs to be treated very much as a special case.

Let’s not lose sight of what is possible here: The creation of a ground-breaking structure that can set new standards for public service media in the digital age – if it is born out of independent thinking, creativity, and wisdom.

And let’s not forget why it is vital that it succeed in that aim. Public trust in the institutions of democracy and a free society are being systematically undermined. We need to look no further than the darkly manipulated “protest” in front of Parliament.

Stirrers wanted the prime minister and journalists lynched and violent “protesters” set fires and threw paving bricks at police. They were supported throughout by a much wider social media narrative that neither politicians nor the media could be trusted.

Public trust in media eroding
Public trust in media is already on the way down. AUT’s Centre for Journalism, Media and Democracy polled trust in media last year and found it had declined across all four industry-wide metrics it had measured in 2020. RNZ and TVNZ remain the most trusted brands but both declined year-on-year. So, too, did all media included in the previous survey.

There is a real need for media institutions in which the public has trust and the JMaD studies point to public service media being at the pinnacle of that structure.

I have no doubt that the Minister of Broadcasting and Media, Kris Faafoi, is well-intentioned. As a former journalist he is only too well aware of the importance of trust and of the need to protect, nurture and champion media independence. Whether his cabinet colleagues have the same set of imperatives is harder to judge.

However, the restructuring requires a longer view than what might happen around the cabinet table over the next few months. We need to be concerned that the structure which emerges is not only fit for purpose now, but will endure for decades and be capable of withstanding winds of political change that on a global scale are showing more negative than positive signs.

In other words, it must be robust enough to survive not only known risks but also some conceivable unknowns: We had a Robert Muldoon, so could we have a Donald Trump?

Unfortunately, the announcement last week provides a less-than-reassuring beginning. The cabinet go-ahead was sparse on structural and operational detail. It did speak of a charter and proposed legislation that will contain a much-vaunted guarantee of editorial independence from ministerial control. However, that is undermined by other planned moves and much of the potential damage could be done even before the new structure is up and running.

Significantly, control of the governance of the implementation phase of the restructuring is one area of the cabinet paper and supporting documents in which there is real detail. Absence of detail elsewhere is explained away by saying these are matters for the Establishment Board to decide.

Seen as the architect
The draft terms of reference for the Establishment Board state it will be responsible for overseeing the detailed organisational design of the new entity and the transition to the new structure. In other words, it is to be seen as the architect. That was certainly the inference in Kris Faaoi’s announcement last week.

Yet the Establishment Board is precisely where the Minister (and his Cabinet colleagues) and the Ministry for Culture and Heritage have a potentially high level of influence.

The Establishment Board is expected to stay aligned to any cabinet decisions and is responsible for ensuring it “progresses government policy” and meets the minister’s objectives.

All members (up to nine) are to be appointed by the minister, who will also appoint the chair. The minister can terminate any member’s term before the expiry date and there is no requirement for him to state cause.

The board will not have its own staff but may ask the Ministry for Culture and Heritage – which will provide the secretariat — to appoint people to provide specialist or technical advice. MCH will also procure other services on the board’s behalf and its chief executive will decide what functions it will delegate to the board. Meanwhile MCH will continue to provide advice directly to the minister.

The Establishment Board will, according to the terms of reference, operate on a consensus basis — not a majority vote — and where it can’t reach consensus “the chair will advise the minister of the difference of opinion”. That begs the question: Does the minister effectively have a deciding vote?

He certainly has a tight hold on what the Establishment Board says in public. The section in the terms of reference relating to the Establishment Board’s relationship with the minister is devoted almost entirely to public statements. There can be “no surprises” (no surprise there) and the chair is the sole spokesperson.

The minister is to be informed of any public comment “either prior to, or as soon as possible after comment is made”, and all press releases must be sent to the minister in advance.

Multiple avenues for influence 
All of this suggests to me that both the minister and the ministry have multiple avenues through which they can influence the way the new structure is put together.

I freely admit there is good reason for liaison. For example, the early activity of the board will take place while the entity’s empowering Act and other law changes are working their way through the legislative process. The board’s thinking on the new entity should be reflected in that legislation and, if it isn’t, we might question why it is not.

However, there are equally good reasons why the Establishment Board should be seen to be independent. If the minister deflected questions on detail by saying they were matters for the Establishment Board, then let it be so.

The way it now stands, it looks (as my betting old dad would say) as though the government is trying to have a quid each way. Hedging bets is not a good way to begin the trust-building process.

Step one in that process should be an unequivocal statement from the minister that the Establishment Board does, in fact, have autonomy and, so long as its actions support the aims of the new entity, it will not be subject to ministerial or ministry direction. It should also have the power to appoint its own advisors.

Then there is the new entity itself. I was frankly surprised that work by a Chief Executives Working Party (to which I was an advisor), a Business Study group, and then a Business Case Governance Group did not produce a unique structure for what will be a unique organisation. Specifically, I expected to see the strongest recommendations for iron-clad protections, and I expected to see such protections accepted by cabinet. That hasn’t happened…yet.

Instead, cabinet has accepted the option of an Autonomous Crown Entity with a traditional minister-appointed board, with two board members appointed in consultation with the Minister for Māori Development. The only aspects that separate it from a stock-standard ACE is a charter (to which I’ll return) and a section that protects the entity’s editorial independence. As it stands, that section is less prescriptive that either the Television New Zealand Act or the Radio New Zealand Act.

Statement of good intentions
Cabinet has approved what is titled a “proposed basis for charter structure” that is little more than a statement of good intentions. Admittedly, no charter should be so detailed that it limits initiative or the ability to respond to changed circumstances.

However, what is missing from this document is an overarching statement that the organisation as a whole will be predicated on autonomy and independence. Instead there is a clause stating that the organisation itself should “demonstrate editorial independence”.

Also missing — or among the 12 redacted sections of the cabinet paper relating to financial implications — is how the new entity will be protected from the cudgel that governments here and elsewhere have used to bring recalcitrant public broadcasters to heel. That big stick is control of the purse-strings.

It is vital that there be some certainty of funding, both for operational reasons and to demonstrate to the public that the entity doesn’t kowtow to government in order to pay the bills.

We do not know what the core level of public funding will be, the term over which it will be paid, and who will set it. Funding, of course, is ultimately in Parliament’s hands and, as we’re talking taxpayer money, that is as it should be. However, it still needs protecting in some way from a vengeful ruling party – and here I want you to think forward to that Trump figure in our possible future. Multi-year funding, for example, is a pre-requisite.

There is still time to put right the governance shortfalls in the proposal.

The first step should be for the government to accept the need for an additional tier of governance that sits, effectively, above the board. Not to second-guess it, but to ensure that it meets the spirit of the charter under which the entity will operate, to review proposed budgets and Crown appropriations, and to act as a shield against external interference from government, the ministry or elsewhere.

Why Guardians are needed
The entity needs Guardians. RNZ’s board is described as guardians but they are effectively the equivalent of company directors (even if they are absolved from the need to turn a profit). The new entity will need something more akin to the Guardians of Lakes Manapouri, Monowai, and Te Anau that were established by Norman Kirk to protect those waters against detrimental effects from the hydro power scheme.

The Guardians of Public Media should, however, differ from that precedent in several fundamental ways.

First, they should not be appointed by a minister but by Parliament. In fact, the board of the entity should be similarly appointed, as is the case with a number of European public service media.

Second, they should produce an annual report, made not to a minister but to Parliament. It should include a judgement on funding adequacy and a review of the entity’s relationship with the minister, the ministry, and government as a whole.

This annual report should replace the proposed yearly review by at least four government departments, but not annual reports to Parliament by the entity itself.

The cabinet paper proposes a five-yearly review of the charter by Parliament. That can be read as a review by the politicians in power. Therefore any parliamentary review should be preceded by a Guardian review of the charter’s fitness for purpose and it is that review that should go to the House. That way, if a ruling party wants to mess unilaterally with the charter, it will be seen for what it is. In addition, each year the guardians should review performance against charter objectives, separate from any assessment by the entity itself.

They should also act as a bulwark against interference in decisions relating to any content produced or disseminated, and that is not limited to news. A shiver still runs down the spines of old broadcasters at the mention of Robert Muldoon’s undoubted role in the decision in 1980 not to screen the drama Death of a Princess to avoid upsetting the Saudi government.

More protection for news
News and current affairs, however, require more protection and guarantees of autonomy than other forms of programming. That was not apparent in the documents released last week. There must be explicit prohibitions — in legislation and in the charter — on both external and internal interference in news operations. A minister is not the sole potential source of pressure. Officials, board members, commercial staff, and management of the entity must be held at arm’s length.

Legislation should also preclude the chief executive from also holding the position of editor-in-chief. Paul Thompson holds both positions at RNZ and has done so without controversy, but the new entity will be both much larger and will be a hybrid of commercial and non-commercial functions.

I believe all of the entity’s news and current affairs functions and decision-making, including the position of editor-in-chief, must be kept within that department if autonomy and independence are to be seen to be real.

Details missing from last week’s announcement and document release created frustration but there may be a brighter side. If the detail has yet to be worked out, there is still time for Kris Faafoi, his cabinet colleagues, his ministry, and the Establishment Board to get it right.

Dr Gavin Ellis holds a PhD in political studies. He is a media consultant and researcher. A former editor-in-chief of The New Zealand Herald, he has a background in journalism and communications – covering both editorial and management roles – that spans more than half a century. Dr Ellis publishes a blog called Knightly Views where this commentary was first published and it is republished by Asia Pacific Report with permission.

• Read the full Gavin Ellis article here:

Fundamental flaws in public media plans call for big fixes

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

I have been reading the tea leaves in the bottom of the online subscription cup.

My fortune-telling has been assisted by some very interesting international statistics.

The pattern in the bottom of the cup is telling me that the winner-takes-most paywall phenomenon that has characterised the US market may not be repeated in the New Zealand market in the longer term.

If we follow the American example of great success by the New York Times and Washington Post, The New Zealand Herald (which is the subscription leader in New Zealand with more than 110,000 online premium subscribers) will soak up the majority of those willing to pay for their news.

In the United States, where 21 percent have paid for online news in the past 12 months, more than half subscribe to either the New York Times or Washington Post and less than a quarter to local or regional sites.

In Britain, the heavyweight nationals – Telegraph, Times, and Guardian – command 55 percent of the paid online market and the very small percentage of Brits who are prepared to pay (only 8 percent) won’t look at paying for papers further down the food chain.

However, the latest Reuters Institute Digital News Report contains statistics that suggest winner-takes-most may not be a foregone conclusion. We could follow the Scandinavian experience.

Norwegian model
In Norway, where close to half the population pay for online news, the three biggest national titles do command a significant subscriber audience between them but so, too, do regional and local news sites. Almost half of the subscribers take either VG, Aftenposten or Dagbladet but almost 60 percent subscribe closer to home.

In Norway, according to the Reuters survey, local newspapers are seen as the “go-to” source for politics (71 percent), crime (73 percent), coronavirus news (53 percent), and things to do (46 percent).

“Our research this year also shows a link between how attached people are to their local community and levels of local news consumption,” the report states. “Respondents in both Austria and Switzerland are amongst those countries that feel most strongly attached and – like Norway – these are also countries where local news consumption tends to be higher and the value of local newspapers is more keenly felt…

“None of this is to suggest that publishers in countries with more attachment are not also suffering from the impact of digital disruption. We see blind spots and decline in most markets, but the fact that local newspapers in Norway are still valued for a local newspaper bundle of different information services gives them a stronger chance of persuading people to pay for online news.”

New Zealand is a country that traditionally has had a regional and local focus in paid-for news. There are historical reasons for that. Transport in the newspaper industry’s formative period was difficult and the country’s topography means it remains expensive.

Newspapers developed around regional and local population centres. Even if they don’t buy it each day, most people will be able to tell you the name of their local newspaper. It is a different story with free-to-air broadcasting.

After short private enterprise experiments, broadcasting became government-owned and news management centralised. Network technology solidified the national focus of television in particular.

Closest to national daily
We have never had a national daily general newspaper. The closest we came was National Business Review’s five-year stint as a daily from the late 1980s. Efforts a decade later to fly The New Zealand Herald into Wellington and the South Island (The Dominion was briefly flown into Auckland) were expensive exercises that could not be sustained as revenue declined and internet use grew.

And, in any event, the Herald was an additional purchase for the majority of buyers in those centres, not an alternative.

Like most countries, New Zealand is still feeling its way through the conundrum of payment for news in the digital age. There are various forms of subscription in the online news market but the most obvious (and numerically superior) is the paywall.

The New Zealand Herald had first mover advantage on paywalls in the daily general news market (National Business Review had long ago introduced an expensive and impenetrable paywall on anything worth reading on its site). It also has far and away the largest regional population base.

So, although it has done remarkably well with its premium subscriptions, it is premature to put the title up there with the winner-take-most titles The New York Times, Washington Post and Britain’s Daily Telegraph.

Stuff has yet to take the subscription plunge but it will come in one shape or another. The donation strategy it currently pursues is drawing support but it is too haphazard in terms of contributions to cashflow. It relies on goodwill and there is no real downside to not donating. How it characterises its subscription strategy will be the key to success or failure.

If it sells itself as a national news source serving all of the country it may come second. NZME is already pursuing that strategy with the Herald brand. It is banking on New Zealand following the US/UK model and last November unveiled plans to make the Herald “New Zealand’s Herald” by, among other things, rebranding its regional titles – Bay of Plenty Herald, Rotorua Herald, Hawkes Bay Herald and so on.

NZME has first-mover advantage
If the US/UK model is working here, NZME has a clear first-mover advantage. If, however, the New Zealand market does not perform to that model, Stuff may capture the same sentiment that is manifesting itself in Norway. If it capitalises on the legacy value of its regional titles as subscriber brands, that could be more successful than the perception of a bunch of JAFAs playing fast and loose with a local masthead that has been around for more than a century.

This does not necessarily mean a host of separate news sites that could be a nightmare to administer. Technology is now clever enough to construct individual and group offerings that are tailored to need. What appears to be a separate site may, in fact, be a subset of Stuff determined by algorithms.

Stuff might like to look to Canada’s Globe and Mail (whose publisher is one-time New Zealand Herald chief executive Phillip Crawley). It has developed artificial learning technology, which it calls Sophi, to automate and optimise a host of publishing decisions around its paywall.

It can, for example, determine what covid-19 information to put behind the paywall and what to provide free for everyone to access. It is a powerful engine that is now used by 11 different publishers across 50 outlets.

The leaves at the bottom of my cup tell me that regional and local brand identity will play a crucial role when the major paid-for news outlets go head-to-head in a subscription contest.

Time will tell whether the dregs of my cup are better at foretelling the future than the cup of someone’s desk at NZME. If I have any advantage it may be that I make a very nice cup of Taylors of Harrogate Yorkshire Tea.

Dr Gavin Ellis holds a PhD in political studies. He is a media consultant and researcher. A former editor-in-chief of The New Zealand Herald, he has a background in journalism and communications – covering both editorial and management roles – that spans more than half a century. Dr Ellis publishes a blog called Knightly Views where this commentary was first published and it is republished by Asia Pacific Report with permission.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz