By RNZ News

NZME is insisting a deal for it to purchase media rival Stuff is still on the cards, despite Stuff’s owner saying it has wrapped up talks with no deal.

Stuff and NZME are seeking leave to appeal the High Court decision blocking their merger.

NZME said today it was asking the government to allow it to buy Stuff for a nominal $1.

READ MORE: NZME seeks urgent approval … to help ‘save jobs, newspapers’

Stuff’s owner, Australia’s Nine Entertainment, responded that it had terminated talks with NZME over a purchase plan last week and no deal was in place.

In the latest twist, NZME has since told the NZX that it believed it was still in a “binding exclusive negotiation period with Nine and does not accept that exclusivity has been validly terminated.”

Stuff chief executive Sinead Boucher told staff this morning the announcement by NZME came as a surprise.

“There is no deal between NZME and Nine.

Clear no transaction message
“We are really not sure why NZME took this step, given the clear message from our owners that there would be no transaction.”

She said she would get more information and share it during the day.

In its initial announcement this morning, NZME said it was seeking Commerce Commission approval and special legislation from the government by the end of the month to purchase Stuff.

The commission has previously declined clearance for a merger of the two companies, saying it would substantially lessen competition, both for advertisers and readers. That decision was subsequently upheld by the High Court and the Court of Appeal.

NZME said in this morning’s market announcement the acquisition of Stuff would lower the costs of producing news, and ensure a committed local news media outlet into the future.

NZME believed the New Zealand media sector was too small for the current number of quality participants, the statement said.

“Consolidation is urgent in the face of dramatically declining advertising revenue and current general economic conditions.

NZME thinks it is ‘best owner’
“NZME continues to believe that it is the best owner for Stuff as it is best placed to preserve mastheads, newsrooms and jobs. NZME considers that in the current New Zealand media landscape, NZME’s acquisition of Stuff will not substantially lessen competition in any market.”

Last month NZME, which owns The New Zealand Herald, regional papers and radio stations including Newstalk ZB, announced 200 jobs would go due to sliding advertising revenue amid the covid-19 downturn. It also asked the remaining staff to take a 15 percent pay cut for the next three months.

Stuff also asked its employees to take a pay cut. Stuff staff earning more than $50,000 were asked to take a 15 percent reduction, the executive team 25 percent, and chief executive Sinead Boucher cut her salary by 40 percent.

Stuff was bought by Australian-listed media group Nine Entertainment in late 2018 but has been on the sale block for months.

In November last year NZME confirmed it had been in talks with Nine about a possible purchase and had put a proposal to the government regarding a possible transaction including a “ringfence” agreement for Stuff’s editorial operations.

Between them, NZME and Stuff own most of New Zealand’s newspapers.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Pacific Media Watch Newsdesk

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) is extremely concerned about pluralism and respect for editorial independence in the new Australian media conglomerate created from last week’s merger between the Fairfax Media newspaper chain and Nine Entertainment, a national television network.

“Commercial synergy has endangered journalistic independence and media pluralism in what is, to say the least, an incongruous marriage,” the Paris-based RSF global media freedom watchdog said in a statement today.

“On the one hand, Fairfax has provided quality investigative journalism via a network of representative regional print publications throughout the country since 1831.

READ MORE: Nine-Fairfax merger warning for investigative journalism – and democracy

“Nine, which will have control of the new entity, has already announced A$50 million (32 million euros) in budget cuts, to the alarm of news staff at Fairfax’s publications.” Image: RSF

“On the other, Nine is primarily a sports and entertainment broadcaster and its management is regarded as much more concerned about profits and cost-cutting than journalistic ethics.”

Nine, which will have control of the new entity, has already announced A$50 million (32 million euros) in budget cuts, to the alarm of news staff at Fairfax’s publications.

-Partners-

They include The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald flagship newspapers, whose editorial freedom from political or economic interference was summed up in the slogan printed under each newspaper’s name: “Independent. Always.”

Takeover
The Fairfax brand will disappear in the new media group, in what is a clear sign that this “marriage of reason” is an outright takeover.

Aside from a loss of editorial independence, Fairfax’s journalists fear that newsrooms will be merged and many of the group’s rural and suburban publications will be closed. Although not very profitable, they have until now played a vital role in providing Australians with local news of a diverse nature.

Kept a close secret until announced on July 26  and valued at A$4 billion (2.5 billion euros), the merger still has to be approved by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC).

“The freedom and independence of Fairfax’s journalists is clearly in danger,” said Daniel Bastard, head of RSF’s Asia-Pacific desk.

“We therefore urge the ACCC to block this merger until the new entity managed by Nine has adopted the Fairfax Charter of Editorial Independence in writing, in its statutes.

“Fairfax’s takeover is the end of a journalistic institution in Australia. Quality journalism must not be reduced to a variable dependent on commercial and advertising imperatives.

“This takeover is all the more worrying for journalistic pluralism and democracy because the level of media ownership concentration in Australia is already one of the highest in the world.”

Media monsters
Like Australia’s other media and advertisement giant, Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp, the future entity controlled by Nine will include national and regional newspapers radio, stations, traditional TV channels and online ones, and a string of news websites.

This is now permitted in Australia after the decision by Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull’s government a few months ago to repeal 30-year-old legislation restricting simultaneous ownership of both print and broadcast media.

Observers fear that the Fairfax takeover will open the way to even more ownership concentration.

Australia is ranked 19th out of 180 countries in RSF’s 2018 World Press Freedom Index. The chronic lack of journalistic pluralism is one of the reasons why it is not ranked any higher.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

The opening gambit is an appeal to advertisers, not readers. It promises to enhance “brand” and “scale” and to deliver “data solutions” combined with “premium content”.

Exciting stuff for a media business in the digital age. But for a news organisation what is missing are key words like “news”, “journalism” and “public interest”.

Those behind the deal, its political architects who scrapped the cross-media ownership laws last year, and its corporate men, Fairfax’s and Nine’s CEOs, proffer a commercial rather than public interest argument for the merger. They contend that for two legacy media companies to survive into the 21st century, this acquisition is vital.

Perhaps so. But Australia’s democratic health relies on more than a A$4 billion media merger that delivers video streaming services like Stan, a lucrative real estate advertising website like Domain, and a high-rating television programme like Love Island.

The news media isn’t just any business. It does more than entertain us and sell us things. Through its journalism, it provides important public interest functions.

Ideally, news should accurately inform Australians. A healthy democracy is predicated on the widest possible participation of an informed citizenry. According to liberal democratic theorists, the news media facilitate informed participation by offering a diverse range of views so that we can make considered choices, especially during election campaigns when we decide who will govern us.

Check on power
Journalists have other roles too, providing a check on the power of governments and the excesses of the market, to expose abuses that hurt ordinary Australians.

This watchdog role is why I am concerned about Nine merging with Fairfax. To be clear, until last week, I was cautiously optimistic about the future of investigative journalism in Australia.

Newspapers like The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, the Newcastle Herald and the Australian Financial Review have a strong record of using their commercial activities to subsidise expensive investigative journalism to strengthen democratic accountability by exposing wrongdoing. Channel Nine does not.

Since the formation of The Age’s Insight team in 1967, Fairfax investigations have had many important public outcomes after exposing transgressions including: judicial inquiries, criminal charges, high-profile political and bureaucratic sackings, and law reforms. Recent examples include the dogged work of Fairfax and ABC journalists to expose systemic child sex abuse in the Catholic Church and elsewhere, leading to a royal commission and National Redress Scheme for victims.

Another was the exposure of dodgy lending practices that cost thousands of Australians their life savings and homes, which also triggered a royal commission.

The problem with Nine’s proposed takeover of Fairfax (if it goes ahead) is that it is unlikely to be “business as usual” for investigative journalism in the new Nine entity. First, there is a cultural misalignment and, with Nine in charge, theirs is likely to dominate.

With notable exceptions such as some 60 Minutes reporting, Nine is better known for its foot-in-the-door muckraking and chequebook journalism than its investigative journalism. In comparison, seven decades of award-winning investigative journalism data reveal Fairfax mastheads have produced more Walkley award-winning watchdog reporting than any other commercial outlet.

Financial fortunes wane
Second, even as the financial fortunes of Fairfax have waned in the digital age, it has maintained its award-winning investigative journalism through clever adaptations including cross-media collaborations, mainly with the ABC. This has worked well for both outlets, sharing costs and increasing a story’s reach and impact across print, radio, online and television.

How will this partnership be regarded when Fairfax is Nine’s newlywed? Will the ABC be able to go it alone with the same degree of investigative reporting in light of its successive federal government budget cuts?

Third, my latest research (see graph) has shown that in Australia, as in Britain and the United States, investigative stories and their targets have changed this decade to accommodate newsroom cost-cutting.

Investigative story targets in three countries: 2007-2016; n=100. Andrea Carson/Journalism Studies

Investigations are more likely to focus on stories that are cheaper and easier to pursue. This means some areas such as local politics and industrial relations have fallen off the investigative journalist’s radar. Here and abroad, this reflects cost-cutting and a loss of specialist reporters.

Echoing this, The Boston Globe’s Spotlight editor, Walter Robinson, warned:

There are so many important junctures in life where there is no journalistic surveillance going on. There are too many journalistic communities in the United States now where the newspaper doesn’t have the reporter to cover the city council, the school committee, the mayor’s office …

we have about half the number of reporters that we had in the late 1990s. You can’t possibly contend that you are doing the same level or depth of reporting. Too much stuff is just slipping through too many cracks.

Smaller topic breadth
Of concern, Australian award-winning investigations already cover a smaller breadth of topics compared to larger international media markets. The merger of Fairfax mastheads with Channel Nine further consolidates Australia’s newsrooms.

If investigative journalism continues, story targets are likely to be narrow.

Finally, investigative journalism is expensive. It requires time, resources and, because it challenges power, an institutional commitment to fight hefty lawsuits. Fairfax has a history of defending its investigative reporters in the courts, at great expense.

Will Nine show the same commitment to defending its newly adopted watchdog reporters using earnings from its focus on “brand”, “scale” and “data solutions”? For the sake of democratic accountability, I hope so.

Andrea Carson is incoming associate professor at LaTrobe University and has previously worked as a journalist at Fairfax Media at The Age (1997-2001). She is a former lecturer, political science, School of Social and Political Sciences; Honorary Research Fellow, Centre for Advancing Journalism, University of Melbourne. This article was first published by The Conversation and is republished under a Creative Commons licence.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz