Of all the contradictions and ironies of Donald Trump’s second presidency so far, perhaps the most surprising has been his shutting down the US Agency for Global Media (USAGM) for being “radical propaganda”.

Critics have long accused the agency — and its affiliated outlets such as Voice of America, Radio Free Europe and Radio Free Asia — of being a propaganda arm of US foreign policy.

But to the current president, the USAGM has become a promoter of “anti-American ideas” and agendas — including allegedly suppressing stories critical of Iran, sympathetically covering the issue of “white privilege” and bowing to pressure from China.

Propaganda is clearly in the eye of the beholder. The Moscow Times reported Russian officials were elated by the demise of the “purely propagandistic” outlets, while China’s Global Times celebrated the closure of a “lie factory”.

Meanwhile, the European Commission hailed USAGM outlets as a “beacon of truth, democracy and hope”. All of which might have left the average person understandably confused: Voice of America? Wasn’t that the US propaganda outlet from World War II?

Well, yes. But the reality of USAGM and similar state-sponsored global media outlets is more complex — as are the implications of the US agency’s demise.

For the better part of a century, Voice of America has broadcast into countries whose governments censored free information. The Trump administration has dismantled VOA’s parent organization, put all of its employees on leave and ended funding for independent media agencies.… pic.twitter.com/TzagYQwNIx

— PBS News (@NewsHour) March 17, 2025

Public service or state propaganda?
The USAGM is one of several international public service media outlets based in Western democracies. Others include Australia’s ABC International, the BBC World Service, CBC/Radio-Canada, France Médias Monde, NHK-World Japan, Deutsche Welle in Germany and SRG SSR in Switzerland.

Part of the Public Media Alliance, they are similar to national public service media, largely funded by taxpayers to uphold democratic ideals of universal access to news and information.

Unlike national public media, however, they might not be consumed — or even known — by domestic audiences. Rather, they typically provide news to countries without reliable independent media due to censorship or state-run media monopolies.

The USAGM, for example, provides news in 63 languages to more than 100 countries. It has been credited with bringing attention to issues such as protests against covid-19 lockdowns in China and women’s struggles for equal rights in Iran.

On the other hand, the independence of USAGM outlets has been questioned often, particularly as they are required to share government-mandated editorials.

Voice of America has been criticised for its focus on perceived ideological adversaries such as Russia and Iran. And my own research has found it perpetuates stereotypes and the neglect of African nations in its news coverage.

Leaving a void
Ultimately, these global media outlets wouldn’t exist if there weren’t benefits for the governments that fund them. Sharing stories and perspectives that support or promote certain values and policies is an effective form of “public diplomacy”.

Yet these international media outlets differ from state-controlled media models because of editorial systems that protect them from government interference.

The Voice of America’s “firewall”, for instance, “prohibits interference by any US government official in the objective, independent reporting of news”. Such protections allow journalists to report on their own governments more objectively.

In contrast, outlets such as China Media Group (CMG), RT from Russia, and PressTV from Iran also reach a global audience in a range of languages. But they do this through direct government involvement.

CMG subsidiary CCTV+, for example, states it is “committed to telling China’s story to the rest of the world”.

Though RT states it is an autonomous media outlet, research has found the Russian government oversees hiring editors, imposing narrative angles, and rejecting stories.

Other voices get louder
The biggest concern for Western democracies is that these other state-run media outlets will fill the void the USAGM leaves behind — including in the Pacific.

Russia, China and Iran are increasing funding for their state-run news outlets, with China having spent more than US$6.6 billion over 13 years on its global media outlets. China Media Group is already one of the largest media conglomerates in the world, providing news content to more than 130 countries in 44 languages.

And China has already filled media gaps left by Western democracies: after the ABC stopped broadcasting Radio Australia in the Pacific, China Radio International took over its frequencies.

Worryingly, the differences between outlets such as Voice of America and more overtly state-run outlets aren’t immediately clear to audiences, as government ownership isn’t advertised.

An Australian senator even had to apologise recently after speaking with PressTV, saying she didn’t know the news outlet was affiliated with the Iranian government, or that it had been sanctioned in Australia.

Switched off
Trump’s move to dismantle the USAGM doesn’t come as a complete surprise, however. As the authors of Capturing News, Capturing Democracy: Trump and the Voice of America described, the first Trump administration failed in its attempts to remove the firewall and install loyalists.

This perhaps explains why Trump has resorted to more drastic measures this time. And, as with many of the current administration’s legally dubious actions, there has been resistance.

The American Foreign Service Association says it will challenge the dismantling of the USAGM, while the Czech Republic is seeking EU support to keep Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty on the air.

But for many of the agency’s journalists, contractors, broadcasting partners and audiences, it may be too late. Last week, The New York Times reported some Voice of America broadcasts had already been replaced by music.

Dr Valerie A. Cooper is lecturer in media and communication, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington.  This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence. Read the original article.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

ABC chair Kim Williams has attracted considerable attention with his criticism of the broadcaster’s online news choices. Williams has taken issue with what he sees as the ABC prioritising lifestyle stories over hard news.

In the process, he has raised an important issue of principle.

Is it right for the chair to insert himself into editorial decision-making, even at the level of broad direction, as here?

Generally speaking, the answer would be no.

To see why, it is necessary only to look back to the chaotic period in 2018 when a former chair, Justin Milne, inserted himself into editorial decision-making because of concerns that the reporting of some ABC journalists was upsetting the government and thereby imperilling the ABC’s funding.

That debacle ended with the resignation not just of Milne but of the then managing director, Michelle Guthrie, leaving a sudden vacuum of leadership and a nervous newsroom.

It is therefore risky for Williams to take a step down this path.

However, the weakness of ABC news leadership requires that something be done.

This weakness has a moral as well as a professional-practice dimension.

A risky path to follow. Video: ABC News

The moral dimension is demonstrated by the treatment of high-profile staff such as Stan Grant and Laura Tingle, and of less well-known but still valued journalists such as ABC Radio Victoria’s Nicole Chvastek, and Sydney radio’s Antoinette Lattouf. All of these journalists, in various ways, have fallen victim to the ABC’s propensity to buckle under external pressure.

The professional-practice dimension is demonstrated not just by the online performance criticised by Williams but by the prioritising of police-rounds stories over far bigger issues on the evening television bulletin, and by occasional spectacular failures such as the attempt to link the late NSW Premier Neville Wran with Sydney’s Luna Park ghost train fire.

The standing of the ABC’s best journalism — programmes such as Four Corners and Radio National’s Background Briefing — is undermined by these systemic failures.

However, indicating his preference for hard news over lifestyle stories will get Williams only so far. It lies within his power and that of the board to do what ought to have been done long ago if the ABC is serious about strengthening its news service: separate the roles of managing director and editor-in-chief.

Having them in the one person creates an inherent conflict that has nothing to do with the integrity of the individual occupying the position, but everything to do with the core responsibilities of the two jobs.

The managing director, as a board member, is responsible for the overall fortunes of the ABC. This includes its financial fortunes and its relationship with its most important stakeholder, the federal government.

An editor-in-chief’s first responsibility is not to these considerations at all, but to the public interest. That requires above all the creation of a safe space in which ABC journalists can do good journalism without looking over their shoulders to see if they are going to be the next target of an attack from a politician (Chvastek), a lobby group (Antoinette Lattouf), or News Corporation (Grant and Tingle).

The Stan Grant controversy.      Video: The Guardian

It also requires the imposition of rigorous editing processes to see that stories are properly verified, accurate and fair, regardless of the standing or wilfulness of the staff involved, and that the stories deal with issues of substance.

And in the case of Lattouf, the focus shifts to the public interest in the impact on money and morale of the prolonged legal proceedings over her sacking.

She was removed from a temporary role on ABC Sydney radio for posting on Instagram a report by Human Rights Watch, in which it was alleged that Israel was using starvation as a weapon of war in Gaza.

The ABC argued unsuccessfully in the Fair Work Commission that she had not been sacked. Subsequently Lattouf made an offer to settle for $85,000 in damages and her old role back. However, the ABC has not accepted this and instead is now involved in a further legal dispute, this time in the Federal Court, over whether due process was followed in sacking her.

Fair Work Commission finds Antoinette Lattouf was sacked by ABC.  Video: ABC News

This is causing consternation in Canberra, where the Senate standing committee on environment and communications has asked the ABC how much this action is costing.

The ABC has supplied the committee with the amount but it has not been made public.

It is a textbook case of how a strong editor-in-chief who was not the managing director would act in this situation. A reporter would be assigned to find out the amount, since it is clearly a matter of public interest, and a well-connected press gallery journalist would get it without too much trouble.

ABC management would then be asked to comment, and a story containing the amount and any ABC comment would be broadcast on the ABC.

A managing director has a conflicting responsibility: to do all he or she can to protect the corporate interests of the ABC, so the amount remains secret.

Meanwhile, the ABC gives rival news organisations the chance to scoop the ABC on its own story, leaving its news service looking even weaker.

Dr Denis Muller, senior research fellow of the Centre for Advancing Journalism, The University of Melbourne. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence. Read the original article.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

A board member at RNZ appointed less than a month ago quit this week after making public comments on former Justice Minister Kiri Allan’s downfall and criticising media coverage of it.

RNZ had asked Jason Ake to stop and the government said he breached official obligations of neutrality, but he was unrepentant.

Jason Ake (Ngāti Ranginui) was one of the appointments last month to the boards of RNZ and TVNZ that represented “an exciting new era for our public broadcasters as they continue to tackle the challenges of … serving all people of Aotearoa now and into the future,” according to Broadcasting Minister Willie Jackson.

“Looking forward to the mahi ahead,” Ake told his LinkedIn followers at the time.

“Hoping to bring an indigenous perspective to the strategic direction at the public broadcasting institution,” he added, honouring the advocacy of pioneers Whai Ngata, Derek Fox and Henare Te Ua “for a much more visible Māori perspective in RNZ’s strategic direction”.

But even before he could be inducted into RNZ or attend a single board meeting, Ake resigned this week in the wake of controversy over social media comments he made about the downfall of cabinet minister Kiri Allan.

“When there’s blood in the water the sharks circle, and they’re more than happy to digest every last morsel and watch the bones sink to the depth. It’s a bloodsport,” he said in a Facebook post.

Referenced mental breakdown
He also referenced former National Party leader Todd Muller, who recovered from a mental breakdown to resume his work as an MP.

Jackson told reporters in Parliament on Tuesday Ake had “often been quite vocal about issues and he’s gonna have to stop”.

RNZ chair Dr Jim Mather had already been in touch to remind Jason Ake of his responsibilities under the Public Service Commission’s code of conduct for crown entity board members.

“When acting in our private capacity, we avoid any political activity that could jeopardise our ability to perform our role, or which could erode the public’s trust in the entity,” the code says.

Ake’s initial Facebook comment was not explicitly or aggressively politically partisan. Most of the comments could be construed as a reflection on the media as much as on politics or politicians.

But there is heightened sensitivity these days because of Te Whatu Ora chair Rob Campbell, who was sacked after publicly criticising opposition parties’ health policies recently. (That was amplified when media commentaries of other government-appointed board members were scrutinised in the wake of that).

In a statement earlier this week, RNZ’s chair acknowledged that  Ake was “new to the board of RNZ”.

An RNZ board member appointed less than a month ago quit this week after commenting on Kiri Allan’s downfall and criticising media coverage. The government said Jason Ake breached official obligations of neutrality, but he was unrepentanthttps://t.co/ttGog3rDLG

— Mediawatch (@MediawatchNZ) July 29, 2023

Communications professional
But he is also a former journalist and a communications professional who is currently Waikato Tainui’s communications manager. Along with his partner — Māori communications consultant Deborah Jensen — he is a director of a consultancy called Native Voice.

RNZ said no further comment would be made until Dr Mather and Ake had discussed the matter further.

But Ake did not wait for that.

He went on Facebook again insisting mental health was a topic that needed to be talked about, particularly because it affected Māori so much.

He also referred to “an ideological premise that we as Māori must conform”.

And while he thanked some journalists for “getting the key message”, he repeated his criticisms of the media.

“21 Māori journos got it — more than the entire compliment [sic] of our two major media entities in Aotearoa, who between them have more than 700 reporters on the staff.”

Unable to ‘stay quiet’
After that, Ake told The New Zealand Herald he had resigned from the RNZ board “on principle”, because he would have been unable to stay quiet about broadcasting decisions which impacted on Māori.

“Crown entity governance has its own tikanga and protocols that need to be observed,” Dr Mather said in a statement describing it as “a missed opportunity.”

That was reinforced by Deputy Prime Minister Carmel Sepuloni.

“It’s really important that they seem to be impartial and they’re not getting involved in the politics in any way. They’ve got really important roles to play and so the public needs to have faith in them being impartial,” she told TVNZ’s Te Karere.

Whanua Ora Minister Peeni Henare told Te Karere that crown entity board members “must represent all of Aotearoa”.

Rob Campbell wrote a piece for The New Zealand Herald the same day, applauding Ake for in his words, “having the guts to speak his truth”.

“They should not remove people, or put pressure on people to resign while in a position because the public views are not mutually shared or inconvenient. Nor should they be censored or silenced. They can appoint new directors when their term has served,” he said.

Obliged to be ‘politically noisy’
In a piece for the Herald explaining his own decision, Ake said that membership of Te Whakaruruhau o Nga Reo Irirangi o Aotearoa, the umbrella group representing more than 20 iwi radio stations around the country, obliged him to be “politically noisy”.

“This would have placed me on a collision course with the political neutrality expectations as set out in the Crown Entities guidelines,” he wrote.

“I made it clear that I came with a deep commitment to the Treaty and ensuring that it is embedded into the fabric and culture of the organisation. The Treaty is by definition a political pact and this required uncomfortable and sometimes public conversations,” Ake wrote in The Herald.

“My presence cannot be a distraction to the transformative mahi ahead of it. It would not be fair on the chair or the other board members and it will undoubtedly stymie progress for the entire organisation,” he added.

But commenting on mental health or broadcasting would not be a problem if he refrained from criticising political decisions or individual politicians, or discussing RNZ in public.

Jackson also appointed Ake to lead the Māori Media Sector Shift review back in 2020.

While in that role, Ake aired opinions on broadcasting broadly mirroring Jackson’s own aspirations for state-owned media.

Boost for Māori creators
“Where is the allowance for decent Māori stories? We’ve got an opinion and a view under a whole range of things that’s not reflected in the television in high rating programmes. It shouldn’t ghetto-ised into digital online platforms only,” Ake told Radio Waatea in 2021.

In another Radio Waatea interview, Ake said RNZ and TVNZ’s merger must be a boost for Māori content creators.

“The human capability and capacity out there is really, really limited. And it doesn’t make sense for the Māori sector to fight with itself in order to bring to the market good content. I think that’s where the merger ought to look for what a decent template would look like,” he said.

Ake also aired concerns about the commercial media organisations getting money from the Public Interest Journalism Fund for Māori journalism, content and topics.

“Why would you put yourself in front of an environment that’s diabolically opposed or structured in a way that doesn’t recognise the value that Māori bring to the discussion?

“The internal culture at some of these organisations is so ingrained that it has become part of the carpets, the curtains and everything else. So there needs to be systemic change inside these commercial organisations,” he argued.

Content funding increased
Māori broadcasting content funding was boosted by $82 million in the past two years, as part of the review which Jackson appointed Ake to oversee.

In the wake of the merger’s collapse, RNZ’s own funding has been boosted — in part to fuel the Rautaki Māori (Māori strategy) Jackson called for in the past and now supports.

Ake has rejected a governance role at RNZ at a time when his input and influence may have had its greatest effect.

He has not responded so far to Mediawatch’s calls and messages.

But his most recent post on LinkedIn announcing his resignation has this footnote for reporters: “Stop ringing me. I have mahi to do.”

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Recently, there was a serious revelation that some wire service reports were edited, without attribution, by an individual employee of our national broadcaster, RNZ.

Now, let’s examine the way I composed the above sentence.

I included the word “serious” to signal to readers that this news is of significant importance. The reason is that I believe there is already extensive frustration at media coverage of news — and therefore anything that erodes trust in our major media should be taken seriously.

Later in the sentence, I used the word “edited”. Initially, I had used the word “altered” but I made a conscious decision to change it to “edited”. I did this because I thought the word “altered” might suggest a higher type of wrongdoing — one that could be linked to fraud and criminality, such as being paid by a foreign agent to alter documents.

There is no evidence that this was the case at RNZ. The word “edited” suggests the use of some sort of journalistic judgment which, in this particular case, regardless of the factuality or falsehood of the edits, were clearly unethical because they were unauthorised and undeclared.

The reference to “an individual employee” was to ensure that other journalists at RNZ, and the organisation as a whole, were not implicated in the revelation. If I had thought RNZ was systematically biased in its reporting, I probably would have just written that RNZ had been found to be altering wire service news.

So my choice of words to form the first sentence of this column was informed by my personal perspectives, as well as the impression I hoped to create in the minds of those reading it.

The subject of this column isn’t about what happened at RNZ. We will be informed of this, in time, when the result of the ongoing inquiry is made public.

Unbiased reporting?
The question I intend to explore here is if there is such a thing as unbiased reporting.

I went back to university later in life to study journalism because it was important to me to understand how the news was produced. My course placed a lot of emphasis on the importance of objectivity and impartiality as ideal standards of news reporting, without much discussion about the limits of achieving such unrealistic standards.

News is produced by reporters and shaped by editors who cannot help but inject their own perspectives and personal experiences into the final product. Even when reporting live from the scene, journalists often have to form a judgment as to what is newsworthy, and so depending on who is reporting the story, the information we receive may alter.

In general, the idea of “unbiased”, “objective” or “neutral” reporting cannot be entirely divorced from the editorial guides journalists use to determine what information to report, and also what they believe is the truth.

Omitting context or the decision to exclude some key words can, in some instances, produce a misleading report.

For instance, my interest in the Palestinian cause has meant that I notice the journalistic language used in reporting on Palestine. I consider that Gaza and the West Bank (including East Jerusalem) should always be referred to as “occupied Gaza” and “occupied West Bank” because this is their legal status under international law.

But in many articles about Palestine, the word “occupied” is often dropped even though its use matters because it gives relevant context to reporting of political and military events there.

#Mediawatch: Further #fallout as #RNZ takes out the ‘Kremlin garbage’ #CafePacific #AsiaPacificReport #rnznews #PacificMediaWatch #rnzinquiry #kremlingarbage #RussiaUkraineWar #media #mediacredibility #newsedits @USPWansolwara https://t.co/waIGzEUdwE pic.twitter.com/wfzDEFZjdi

— David Robie (@DavidRobie) June 18, 2023

Impartial presentation
Some journalistic codes refer to “balanced” and “fair” reporting. The idea here is that, where there is controversy, there should be an impartial presentation of all facts as well as all substantial opinions relating to it.

A fair report, it is said, should avoid giving equal footing to truths and mistruths and should provide factual context to any inaccurate or misleading public statement.

In recent years, The New York Times has used a series of articles known as Explainers to, as they describe it, “demystify thorny topics”.

Stuff’s Explained follows a similar format to help deconstruct topics that are complex and challenging to understand.

The notion of bias in news writing has become the most common criticism of the media.

Ultimately, the solution to increasing trust in journalism lies in transparency and disclosure of the standards, judgments and systems used to produce and edit news. It is therefore right that RNZ has announced an external review of its processes for the editing of online stories.

But there should also be a mind shift in our understanding of the notions of unbiased and objective reporting — namely that these notions have always existed and continue to operate within power dynamics that give privilege to certain perspectives.

The best approach, therefore, is to always allow for an element of doubt — and only believe something to be true just so long as our active efforts to disprove it have been unsuccessful.

Donna Miles-Mojab is an Iranian New Zealander interested in justice and human rights issues. She lives in Christchurch and works as a freelance journalist and a columnist for The Press. This article is republished with the author’s permission.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

The RNZ board is meeting tonight to begin setting up an independent review on how pro-Russian sentiment was inserted into a number of its online stories.

An RNZ digital journalist has been placed on leave after it came to light he had changed copy from news agency Reuters on the war in Ukraine to include pro-Russian views.

Since Friday, hundreds of stories published by RNZ have been audited, and 16 Reuters stories and one BBC item had to be corrected, with chief executive Paul Thompson saying more would be checked “with a fine-tooth comb”.

The journalist told RNZ’s Checkpoint he had subbed stories that way for a number of years and nobody had queried it. Thompson said those comments appeared to be about the staffer’s overall role as a sub-editor.

Board chairperson Dr Jim Mather said the public’s trust had been eroded by revelations and it was going to take a lot of work to come back from what had happened.

“We see ourselves as guardians of a taonga and that taonga being the 98 years of history that RNZ has in terms of trusted public media and high standards of excellent journalism and so it is fair to say we are extremely disappointed,” he told RNZ’s Checkpoint on Monday.

“We need to demonstrate that we are prepared to review every aspect of what has occurred to actually start the restoration process in terms of confidence in RNZ.”

The board would discuss who will run the investigation and its terms of reference, and would make a decision “very soon”.

Currency is trust
“The role the board is going to take is we are going to appoint the panel of trusted individuals, experienced journalists, those that do have editorial experience to undertake the review. This is going to be done completely separate from the other work being undertaken by management,” he said.

Dr Mather said the currency of the public broadcaster was trust, and the revelations had impacted the organisation’s journalists.

“I know that we pride ourselves as having the highest standards of journalistic quality so I can just say that it’s had a significant impact also on our journalism team.”

Reuters said it had “addressed the issue” with RNZ, noting in a statement that RNZ had initiated an investigation.

“As stated in our terms and conditions, Reuters content cannot be altered without prior written consent,” the spokesperson’s statement said.

“Reuters is fully committed to covering the war in Ukraine impartially and accurately, in keeping with the Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.”

‘Important that politicians don’t interfere’ – Hipkins
Prime Minister Chris Hipkins said while he would never rule out a cross-party parliamentary inquiry, he had not seen anything so far to suggest the need for an wider action.

Hipkins told RNZ’s Morning Report he was not sure a cross-party parliamentary inquiry on issues around editorial decisions would be a good way of protecting the editorial independence of an institution like RNZ.

“Having said that, we always monitor these kinds of things to see how they are being handled, it’s really important that politicians don’t interfere in that,” he said.

“I think if it reached a point where public confidence in the institution was so badly tarnished that some degree of independent review was required, I’d never take that off the table.”

But in the first instance, it was important to allow RNZ’s management and board to deal with it with the processes that they had in place, Hipkins said.

“I haven’t seen anything in the last few days that would suggest that there’s any case for us to trigger something that’s more significant than what’s being done at the moment.”

Hipkins said he had not sought, nor had, any briefings from New Zealand’s security services in relation to the incident because it was a matter of editorial independence and it was important that politicians did not get involved in that.

“RNZ, while it’s a publicly-funded institution, must operate independently of politicians.”

Not an issue for politicians – Willis
National Party deputy leader Nicola Willis agreed that it was not an issue for politicians to be involved in.

She said it was important the investigation was carried out, and the concern was about editorial standards that let the situation go unnoticed for such a long time.

Trust in media was important and people reading mainstream media expected stories to go through a fact-checking process and reflect appropriate editorial independence, she told RNZ’s First Up.

“I think it will be a watch for newsrooms around the country, and I hope that it’s a thorough investigation that comes out with robust recommendations.”

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Fijian Broadcasting Corporation (FBC) chief executive officer Riyaz Sayed-Khaiyum’s employment status has been terminated, new board chair Ajay Bhal Amrit confirmed today.

Amrit said in a statement that chief financial officer Vimlesh Sagar would act in the position until the board could “confidently appoint” a person with appropriate commercial competency and attributes needed to lead the company.

This decision was made following a board meeting with Amrit, Sayed-Khaiyum, executive directors and senior management team on Friday.

Amrit later said Sayed-Khaiyum was earning considerably more than government ministers and even the prime minister. Riyaz is the brother of former FijiFirst attorney-general Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum.

Amrit said this came as a shock to the new FBC board members and to most of the citizens of Fiji.

FBC grant to be reviewed
iHe said there were discussions with Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka and Minister for Finance Professor Biman Prasad and it was agreed that the government grant to FBC would be reviewed.

“The board will work with staff and management to ensure that FBC is a financially viable and a self-sustaining commercial business, while honouring its PSB [public service broadcasting] responsibilities,” he said.

He added that the public broadcaster FBC was willing to work with other media organisations to ensure that there was positive change to the current media laws as this would allow the newsroom to function in a fresh, balanced and new environment going forward.

“Our collective objective and commitment to our staff, shareholders, our valued listeners and viewers remains.”

Wata Shaw is a Fiji Times reporter. Republished with permission.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Radio Australia was conceived at the beginning of the Second World War out of Canberra’s desire to counter Japanese propaganda in the Pacific. More than 70 years later its rebirth is being driven by a similarly urgent need to counter propaganda, this time from China.

Set up within the towering framework of the ABC, Radio Australia was, and remains, an institution with a lively multilingual culture of its own. Sometimes it has thrived and sometimes, especially in recent decades, it has struggled as political priorities and media fashions waxed and waned within the ABC and the wider world.

Phil Kafcaloudes, an accomplished journalist, author and media educator who hosted Radio Australia’s popular breakfast show for nine years, was commissioned by the ABC to write the service’s story for the corporation’s 90th-anniversary celebrations. The result is a nicely illustrated and comprehensively footnoted new book, Australia Calling: The ABC Radio Australia Story, which uses the original name of the service for its title. (With appropriate good manners, Kafcaloudes acknowledges previous accounts of the Radio Australia story, by Peter Lucas in 1964 and Errol Hodge in 1995.)

The overseas service’s nadir came in 2014 after the election of the Abbott government. At the time, Inside Story’s Pacific correspondent Nic Maclellan described in devastating detail the impact in the region of the eighty redundancies brought on by the government’s decision to remove the Australia Network, a kind of TV counterpart to Radio Australia, from the ABC. The network had controversially been merged with key elements of Radio Australia to create ABC International.

Among the casualties was the legendary ABC broadcaster Sean Dorney, known and loved throughout the Pacific. Programmes for Asia were axed, as was much specialist Pacific reporting, with English-language coverage to be sourced from the ABC’s general news department.

The ABC’s full-time team in the Pacific was reduced to a journalist in Port Moresby and another (if it counts) in New Zealand. Australia’s newspapers had already withdrawn their correspondents from the region, and online-only media hadn’t filled the gap. Where once, in 1948, Radio Australia had helped beam a signal to the moon, the countries of our own region now seemed even more remote.

Despite the steady erosion of the service over decades, though, Kafcaloudes’s book has a happy ending of sorts. Its final chapter, titled “Rebirth: Pivoting to the Pacific,” tells how Radio Australia benefited from the Morrison government’s “Pacific Step-Up,” launched in response to China’s campaign to build regional connections. Steps to rebuild Radio Australia’s capacities have since been enhanced by substantial new funding from the Albanese government.

Placing listeners at scene
When current affairs radio is at its most effective, it places listeners at the scene. Kafcaloudes tells of being on air when a listener in Timor-Leste called to tell of an assassination attempt on José Ramos-Horta and Xanana Gusmão.

“Radio Australia instantly changed its scheduling to broadcast live for three hours so locals would know whether their leaders were still alive.”

But, as Kafcaloudes explains, “for all the good work, global connections and breaking news stories, the truth is, for many Australian politicians there was little electoral capacity in a service that a domestic audience did not hear.” Thus the abrupt funding reverses and the constant tinkering.

Former ABC journalist and manager Geoff Heriot describes how, during a challenging phase for the ABC about 25 years ago, managing director Brian Johns’s desire to defend the ABC meant that, “if necessary, you could cut off limbs.” And Radio Australia was the limb that often seemed most remote from the core.

Back in the 1950s and 1960s, Kafcaloudes says, the service “was often at or near the top of the polls as the world’s best.” Many listeners, especially in China and elsewhere in East Asia, testified to having learned English from listening to Radio Australia.

Its popularity in Asia and the Pacific was boosted by the fact that it broadcast from a similar time zone, which meant its morning shows, for instance, were heard during listeners’ mornings. In 1968 alone, the station received 250,000 letters from people tuning in around the region.

For decades, broadcasts were via shortwave, the only way of covering vast distances at the time. But the ABC turned off that medium for good in 2017, so Radio Australia now communicates via 24-hour FM stations across the Pacific and via satellite, live stream, on-demand audio, podcasts, the ABC Listen app, and Facebook and Twitter.

New audiences emerging
With new audiences emerging in different places, the geography of Radio Australia’s languages have changed too. As the use of French in the former colonies in Indochina declined, for instance, new French-speaking audiences developed in the Pacific colonies of New Caledonia and French Polynesia.

One of the continuities of Radio Australia is the quality and connectedness of its broadcasters. Most of them come from the countries to which they broadcast, and together they have evolved into a remarkable cadre who could and should be invited by policymakers and diplomats to help Australia steer and deepen its relations with our neighbours.

Kafcaloudes rightly stresses the importance of that first prewar step, when Robert Menzies, “a man who believed he was British to the bootstraps, despite being born and bred in country Victoria,” decided “Australians needed to speak to the world with their own voice.”

How best to do this has frequently been disputed. In a 1962 ministerial briefing, the Department of External Affairs argued that Radio Australia’s broadcasts “should not be noticeably at variance with the broad objectives of Australian foreign policy” — an instruction that John Gorton, the relevant minister, declined to issue publicly.

Tensions have inevitably resulted from the desire of the service’s funder, the federal government, to see its own policies and perceptions prioritised. Resisting such pressure has required greater stamina and skill at Radio Australia than at the ABC’s domestic services, which can count more readily on influential defenders.

Kafcaloudes says it was Mark Scott, who headed the ABC a dozen years ago, who linked Radio Australia with American academic/diplomat Joseph Nye’s idea of “soft power.” Then and now, this was a seductive phrase for politicians. It also became a familiar part of the case for restoring, consolidating or increasing funding, while underlining the familiar, nagging challenge for the station’s “content providers” of choosing between projecting that kind of power on Canberra’s behalf and dealing with stories that might well be perceived as “negative” for the Australian government.

Of course, the conventional public-interest answer to that dilemma is that fearless journalism is itself the ultimate expression of soft power by an open, democratic polity. But not everyone sees it that way.

Public broadcasting ethos
The public broadcasting ethos of the station’s internationally sourced staff has meanwhile stayed impressively intact. Kafcaloudes introduces one of them at the end of each chapter, letting them speak directly of how they came to arrive at Radio Australia and their experiences working there.

Running Radio Australia has been complicated for decades by its being bundled, unbundled and bundled again with television services that have sometimes been run by the ABC and sometimes by commercial stations. Technologies have of course become fluid in recent years, freeing content from former constraints. So too has the badging — the service is now “ABC Radio Australia,” which morphs online into “ABC Pacific.”

Radio Australia continues to broadcast in Mandarin, Vietnamese, Indonesian, Khmer, French, Burmese and Tok Pisin (the Melanesian pidgin language spoken widely in PNG and readily understood in Vanuatu and, slightly less so, in Solomon Islands), as well as in English.

Dedicated, high-quality journalism remains the core constant of an institution whose story, chronicled so well by Kafcaloudes, parallels in many ways Australia’s on-again, off-again, on-again engagement with our region.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

How the RNZ/TVNZ merger went from its first reading in Parliament to the legislative extinction list is an example of why New Zealand actually needs more public media and not less. Let me explain.

It has been labelled a grenade, a dog and a monolithic, monopolistic monster. Yet it is actually a reasonable policy that would bring New Zealand public media in line with most other developed countries.

No other developed country has separate national television and radio networks. They have seen how it fails us and said, “no thanks”.

Most other developed countries spend quite a bit more on their public media platforms too. Brits pay $81 each, Norwegians $110, Germans $142, but Kiwis just $27 each year to fund RNZ, TVNZ and NZ On Air.

Even with the government’s funding increase over the next three years, we’ll still be spending less per person than Australia, Ireland or any other country we like to compare ourselves to.

A big part of our public media underspend is successive governments’ policy that TVNZ pay its own way and rely on advertising dollars.

Other countries subsidise their public media because they realise that a reliable source of news and information is too important to be left in the hands of marketers and advertising departments.

Other end of the spectrum
At the other end of the spectrum is the US spending just $3 per person on public media. You have to wonder how different US politics might be if it had fully-funded public media.

It is true that TVNZ does receive funding for programmes through NZ On Air but those shows still have to be simple and entertaining because TVNZ sells adverts around them. Only Sunday mornings have programmes for minorities or long-form political interviews, and of course, that is when there is no advertising.

That is the big difference between public media and commercial media. Public media doesn’t rely on advertising so it isn’t so desperate to get your attention and blast adverts at you.

Public media has time to examine public issues in-depth.

Commercial media needs to make money and with advertising dollars drifting to Google and Facebook, they work even harder to make content as eye-catching, entertaining and easy to understand as possible.

You may have noticed it on TVNZ, Newshub, Stuff or at the New Zealand Herald. These days there are more articles about crime, car crashes and weather bombs because they catch people’s attention.

Political reporting also wants to catch your attention. While public media can spend half an hour discussing a policy in-depth, commercial media want eyeballs so they go for the fun stuff — who’s up and who’s down in the pugilistic soap opera of daily politics. It is entertaining and it’s quick and easy to explain.

Complicated issues
Unlike this opinion piece I’m writing for you now — I’m already halfway through my allotted word count, yet I’ve spent all of them just explaining the background. Complicated issues take more time to explain. I had better get on with it.

It was in this commercial political reporting soap opera that the media merger lost its way. Like many politicians, opposition broadcasting spokesperson Melissa Lee exploited commercial media’s focus on simplification and pugilism to attack the government. She repeatedly claimed the government could not explain why we need the merger, but the government had tried to explain it, only the public hadn’t heard because it is too complicated to explain quickly and simply on commercial media (as I’m trying to do here).

Political reporting fixated on Willie Jackson’s various stumbles as though this reflected the policy, rather than analysing the policy itself.

National Party leader Christopher Luxon also exploited commercial media’s lack of examination. He criticised the merger for being “ideological”, claiming it would destroy TVNZ’s business model, and saying he would demerge it if National win the election.

But none of the interviewers asked Luxon to explain his figures or why the destruction of TVNZ’s business model would be a bad thing. None asked him if demerging would also be “ideological” and none asked if he would get a cost-benefit analysis done before demerging.

Lee and Luxon’s criticism worked. A Taxpayers Union poll in November claimed 54 percent opposed the merger and 22 percent supported it.

Different polling outcome
My organisation, Better Public Media Trust, also polled on the subject but we added some information about the merger, its costs and benefits. We got quite different results with just 29 percent opposing and 44 percent supporting the merger.

That shows what a little bit of information can do to public opinion. It also shows that reliance on commercial media for political discussion is prone to being style over substance, posturing over policy, soap operas over documentaries.

That is why the merger should go ahead. People would see it’s not a dog, grenade or monster, but intelligent, diverse and informative public media. Just in time for the election.

Myles Thomas is chair of the Better Public Media Trust (BPM). He is a television producer and director of various forms of “factual” programming, and in 2012 he established established the Save TVNZ 7 campaign. This article was first published in the New Zealand Herald and is republished here with the author’s permission.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

The Aotearoa New Zealand Public Media Bill — introduced to Parliament this week — will have a long journey before it is fit for purpose.

The Bill gives effect to the government’s plan to replace TVNZ and RNZ with a new entity designed for the digital age, but the legislation as it stands does little more than cement the two public broadcasters together.

On first reading (mine, not Parliament’s), it looks like a legislative instrument to give effect to the merger, but its stated intent and functions are much wider. This is supposed to be the legal foundation upon which a new age of public media is to be built.

The general policy statement accompanying the Bill says: “This Bill seeks to strengthen the delivery of public media services by establishing a new public media entity.” It may achieve the latter, but it falls far short of guaranteeing its objective.

The Bill falls short on many fronts: Matters that should be covered are omitted, others are dealt with in obtuse ways, boilerplate clauses are employed in place of purposeful creativity, and ironclad protection of the public interest is absent.

The Bill’s shortcomings are too numerous to set out all of them, but a few key failings give a sense of how much work must be done on the proposed law through its committee stages.

The Bill states the new organisation will be a Crown entity but does not stipulate the category under which it must fall. We need to go to Schedule 2 Part 1 to find that Schedule 2 of the Crown Entities Act is to be amended to make Aotearoa New Zealand Public Media an autonomous Crown entity.

Why the change?
Both TVNZ and RNZ are currently Crown companies. Why the change?

Was it because autonomous Crown entities “must have regard to government policy when directed by the responsible Minister”? While the new public media organisation will be protected against ministerial interference on matters relating content and news gathering, there are many ways to skin the cat.

Why was the new entity not designated an Independent Crown Entity which is “generally independent of government policy”?

The Bill states that, in accordance with provisions of the Crown Entities Act, the Minister of Broadcasting and Media will appoint the board of the new entity, but the new Bill stipulates at least two of those directors will be nominated by the Minister for Māori Development.

As things stand, that means Willie Jackson will appoint the entire board because he holds both portfolios. The proposed legislation does not anticipate that aggregation of power.

Ministers are writ large across the Bill. There is oversight of the new entity by no fewer than three, possibly four. Aside from the Minister of Broadcasting and Media, the finance minister has direct powers over financial issues and the Māori development minister has Te Tiriti oversight.

The Crown Entities Act provides for the broadcasting minister to appoint a monitor to act as his eyes and ears over the new entity. The Ministry for Culture and Heritage has been working behind the scenes to gear itself to take on that role – and an even wider role across all media if its current strategy framework draft is anything to go by. So, it is possible that its minister (currently Carmel Sepuloni) will also have a look-in.

Independence absolutely vital
I do not think that augers well for the independence that is absolutely vital if the new body is to gain and retain public trust and confidence.

Yes, the Bill does carry over the provisions in existing legislation that tells ministers to keep their hands off editorial matters. However, there are too many other mechanisms by which politicians can influence the direction of the new organisation.

There is a charter that should provide its own protections, given that the relevant minister’s actions must be consistent with it. However, the charter in the Bill consists largely of boilerplate generalities that are less aspirational than the existing RNZ charter.

It is in marked contrast to the BBC Charter, which is erudite, explicit, and carries more direct obligations.

Submissions on the Bill will, no doubt, focus on the charter and it may yet go through iterations that improve it. One necessary improvement relates to the digital environment that made all of this reorganisation necessary. Although there is passing reference to online services, the tenor of the Bill is rooted in the present, not the future.

The entity’s principal purpose is “broadcasting”. That would be fine if the term was defined in broad enough terms. However, it talks of “transmitting” and “reception by the New Zealand public by means of receiving apparatus”. That hardly conjures up pictures of very smart interactive devices and a community for whom one-way linear transmission is antiquated.

The charter does state that one of its principles is “innovating and taking creative risks” but that looks tame alongside the BBC Charter’s clause on technology that states it “must promote technological innovation, and maintain a leading role in research and development”.

Technologically aspirational requirements
I would have thought that, in order to set the stage for a future-oriented organisation built for the digital age, the Bill just might contain some technologically aspirational requirements.

It is not the only element of the new organisation that is absent from the proposed legislation.

Aside from a pressing need to provide far more robust independent governance, the Bill’s most glaring omissions relate to finance and internal structures.

The Bill contains an explicit requirement that RNZ’s commercial-free services will continue, and where a charge is applied to new services on first broadcast it will later be free. There is no reference in the Bill, however, to TVNZ’s current commercial status, nor to annual appropriations from government.

It takes a careful reading of the Bill’s schedules and amendments to those in other acts to determine whether the current practice of channelling RNZ’s funding through NZ on Air will continue. Reading between the lines it appears that a more direct funding stream is being contemplated, with some form of coordination with other bodies such as NZ on Air and Te Māngai Pāho.

The Bill itself makes no direct reference to future requirements for TVNZ to pay a dividend but a tick in a column in the Bill’s schedule suggests the new entity will not contribute to the Treasury coffers.

Beyond that, the finances of the new entity are a deep void. The new organisation faces real challenges in reconciling public funding and commercial revenue. It must also determine the division of expenditure associated with programming to meet the expectations created by both sources.

No legislative guidance
However, there is no legislative guidance on how these challenges should be met. There is total silence on commercial expectations, and on the mechanisms by which any continuity of government funding will be calculated or guaranteed. The Cabinet papers released to date suggest funding matters will be dealt with through the Ministry for Culture and Heritage. So why is that not explicit in the Bill?

Internal structures — which must address the cultural and funding process differences between commercial and non-commercial broadcasting — are apparently entirely in the hands of the Establishment board as there is nothing in the Bill that mandates the unique internal structure that will be needed to satisfy both imperatives. Does Parliament have no view, for example, on whether news and current affairs should be structurally separated from a commercial enterprise, say as a separate subsidiary with its own statutory independence?

Why is there no requirement to follow the Irish precedent whereby the state broadcaster RTÉ must adhere to a Fair Trading Policy that complies with EU rules on State aid? That policy requires RTÉ “to trade in a manner which ensures that public funds are not used to subsidise RTÉ’s commercial activities…[and] that ensures that RTÉ’s commercial activities are compatible with its public service objects.”

These questions, and more, will be raised during the Bill’s select committee hearings. My fear is that the timetable set out for the legislation — it must be passed and in force by the end of the year — will truncate the process to the point where the necessarily exhaustive examination of its provisions will not take place.

Last week I set 12 labours for the new Minister of Broadcasting and Media. This Bill, as it currently stands, will make Willie Jackson’s tasks even more Herculean.

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

The announcement of the government’s decision to merge RNZ and TVNZ into a non-profit “public media entity” was long anticipated but, coming in the second year of Labour’s second term, underwhelming in its lack of detail.

Cabinet had discussed the proposal back in 2019, and yesterday’s announcement was expected to be the culmination of extensive planning, consulting, expert committees and corporate accounting reports.

The protracted process was intended to give shape to the broadcasting minister’s vision of a multi-platform public service provider capable of fulfilling its cultural and civil remit into the 21st century.

And while it’s significant that the government recognises the importance of strong public media across all platforms in New Zealand, and is committed to its strategic vision, in many respects the announcement raises more questions than it answers.

Video: NZ Herald

Commercial tension
Firstly, how will the organisational and governance structures across radio, television and online services function? Minister Kris Faafoi has indicated that these details will now be delegated to a new “establishment committee”, although the Strong Public Media governance group had delivered a business case to cabinet last year.

Complications arise because TVNZ is a commercial entity, which competes directly with other commercial media for (slowly declining) audiences and advertising revenues, while RNZ is a fully funded public service provider with a charter.

The minister has affirmed that the current non-commercial radio services will be retained. But aligning the commercial television arm and future online services — for example, the integration of the RNZ and TVNZ news operations — entails potentially contradictory priorities, even under the broad directives of a public charter.

Plans unveiled for #NZ‘s new mega public media –
it will operate under a #charter, with “trustworthy #news” as a core service #AsiaPacificReport #RNZnews #RNZPacific #publicmedia #publicbroadcasting #KrisFaafoi @shrek45 @EveningReportNZ #communitymediahttps://t.co/Wf6sLWKP7p pic.twitter.com/5dpefe2XCc

— David Robie (@DavidRobie) March 10, 2022

Secondly, what funding arrangements will support the new public media entity? The ratio of public to commercial revenues and the mechanisms for ensuring its adequacy across future changes of government are critical, but have not been specified — although some redacted figures in related cabinet papers suggest these have been estimated.

The minister suggests these will be determined through forthcoming budget deliberations. If this implies that the level of funding depends on annual budget wrangling with other cabinet portfolios, then there is little hope of gaining substantial and sustainable commitment over the demands of health, education, housing and other policy priorities.

NZME and Stuff voice unease over merger of TVNZ and RNZ, but TV3 owner says ‘so far, so good’. https://t.co/NV9ji1mMJ0

— Stuff (@NZStuff) March 10, 2022

Budget uncertainty
Faafoi’s predecessor, Clare Curran, ran into this problem in 2018. Having announced an anticipated investment of NZ$38 million to develop RNZ’s services, the budget delivered only $15 million.

Prior to that, Labour’s attempt to restructure TVNZ with a dual-remit charter was compromised by cabinet disagreements. The Ministry for Culture and Heritage allocated $95 million of public funding only for Treasury to extract $142 million in dividends.

Crucially, balancing public service and commercial expectations requires the organisational structure and funding arrangements to be in sync. But this is unlikely to happen if one is determined by a committee and the other is left to the uncertainties of the budget.

There are successful public service operators, such as RTE in Ireland or CBC in Canada, which have mixed commercial and public funding. In both cases, though, the public ratio is more than 50 percent. It would be wishful thinking to suppose cabinet would provide 50 percent public funding to align TVNZ’s services with a public charter remit.

That would cost at least $150 million per year — triple the current allocation to RNZ and TVNZ. When reliance on commercial revenue predominates, commissioning and scheduling decisions inevitably reflect the imperative to optimise eyeballs and advertising dollars.

Time is tight
Even with base-line funding assured for the non-commercial RNZ services, without any mechanism to ensure adequate ratios are maintained, there is a risk that future revenue increases will come to depend increasingly on developing commercial spin-offs online.

This would inevitably affect the new entity’s capacity to use the expansion of its online services to deliver more diverse content to a full range of audiences.

The minister has suggested the new entity will be established by 2023. Given the legislation has yet to be drafted, that time-line is already tight. Any further delays or announcements of bold intentions without concrete substance will risk pushing Labour’s public media plans further toward the 2023 election.

If the new entity has not been established before then, and with Labour slipping in the polls, all bets on the future of public media in Aotearoa New Zealand are off.

Dr Peter Thompson is associate professor of media studies, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence. Read the original article.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Hong Kong’s government-funded broadcaster, Radio Television Hong Kong (RTHK), is under fire again.

Last week, police arrested freelance TV producer Bao Choy Yuk-ling under allegations that she made a false statement to obtain information on car owners, claiming that she had violated the Hong Kong’s Road Traffic Ordinance.

Choy obtained the information during her reporting for the documentary 7.21: Who Owns the Truth?, aired on the programme Hong Kong Connection.

The documentary investigated individuals potentially involved in the Yuen Long attacks of 2019, in which a pro-Beijing mob of more than 100 men stormed the Yuen Long MTR station wielding steel rods and canes and attacked protesters returning home from an anti-extradition demonstration.

The incident left 45 people injured, including journalists and commuters, and became one of the most notorious events of Hong Kong’s year-long protests.

Using surveillance footage from the nearby area, the documentary producers were able to track down the legal owners of the cars who took the rod-wielding men to Yuen Long.

Hong Kong reporters have for years used car plate records in their reporting for media outlets of different political camps, most commonly by crime, traffic, and entertainment beat reporters.

First to be arrested for car plates probe
Choy is the first to be arrested for the practice. If convicted, she could face a HK$5,000 (US$645) fine and six months’ imprisonment.

Choy – who appeared in court on November 10 – told reporters her case was no longer a personal matter but involved the public interest and press freedom. Dozens of members of the media gathered outside the court to show support.

Choy’s documentary 7.21: Who Owns The Truth?

Her case was adjourned to January and she remains free on bail.

But this was not the first time the government appeared to have cracked down on RTHK, which in theory enjoys editorial independence despite receiving public funding and has traditionally been allowed to cover politically sensitive topics.

Hong Kong journalists get approval for protest march against producer’s arrest after police objections overturned https://t.co/hcJPO0259p pic.twitter.com/50H1rYMXl7

— Hong Kong Free Press HKFP (@hkfp) November 13, 2020

Amid the political turmoil since the pro-democracy movement erupted last year and the national security law was enacted in July, the public broadcaster has been under fire from various quarters as the government appears to tighten its grip.

Below is a list of some of the recent developments:

RTHK staff required to pledge loyalty
Most of RTHK staff is employed on civil service terms. The government has decided that all those who joined the civil service on or after July 1, when the national security law came into force, should pledge allegiance to the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region and promise to uphold its constitution known as the Basic Law.

In addition to newcomers, the requirement also applies to existing staff members whose employment is confirmed after completing probation, when contracts are renewed, or when they are up for promotion.

Questions arise as to whether the public broadcaster can stay impartial in its reporting after staff have been compelled to pledge allegiance to the government.

Acting deputy steps down, citing health reasons
The public also raised eyebrows when the Deputy Director of Broadcasting Kirindi Chan resigned in June after serving less than a year in the position. She cited health and personal reasons.

At that time, the broadcaster was criticised for airing a 20-episode programme about the national security law that was perceived to be sympathetic to Beijing.

The programme attended a direct request by RTKH’s government-appointed advisory board, who instructed the broadcaster to ease public concerns about the then-looming law.

Chan served more than 30 years at the broadcaster and had overseen numerous current affairs shows, but in her latest position, she was not directly involved in the production of the controversial programmes.

Amen Ng, director of corporate communications and standards at RTHK, said Chan’s main duty was administration and the decision was not political.

Nabela Qoser probation extended
RTHK has also come under pressure to rein in reporters who ask “disrespectful” questions of senior officials.

In September, the public broadcaster reopened an investigation into Nabela Qoser, an assistant programme officer who had provoked complaints from the public when she confronted the city’s leader Carrie Lam at a press conference after the July 21 Yuen Long mob attack on MTR travellers.

Lam was asked: “Did you learn about it only this morning? Were you able to sleep well last night?” and Qoser also asked her to “speak like a human.”

An initial investigation found that Qoser had done nothing wrong, but shortly before completing her three-year probation period, she was informed that it would be extended for another 120 days for further inquiries.

Union chair Gladys Chiu slammed the decision and said asking difficult questions should not hinder a reporter’s prospects of promotion or confirmation of employment. Lam refused to comment on the case, which she described as a human resources issue.

Interview with WHO top adviser criticised
In March, RTHK News programme The Pulse was criticised by the Hong Kong government for allegedly breaching the One China policy after its producer Yvonne Tong asked questions about Taiwan’s efforts to join the World Health Organisation.

In a video call, Tong asked the WHO’s Dr Bruce Aylward to comment on the Taiwan government’s performance in containing the covid-19 pandemic, and whether the organisation would reconsider the island’s membership.

Dr Aylward appeared to have hung up the call and evaded the question after reconnection.

Secretary for Commerce and Economic Development Edward Yau said the programme breached the principle that there is only one sovereign China. The Director of Broadcasting Leung Ka-wing should be held responsible for RTHK‘s deviation from its charter, Yau added, and RTHK should educate the public about One Country, Two Systems.

Review team set up, pressure by advisory board
In July, the Commerce and Economic Development Bureau set up a team to review RTHK’s governance and management, following the Communications Authority’s findings of bias, inaccuracy and hostility to the police force.

The review aimed to ensure the broadcaster complied with the service charter and codes of practice on programming standards issued by the authority. Charles Mok, the lawmaker representing the IT sector, said he feared the review would compromise the station’s editorial and creative freedom.

In May, the satirical show Headliner received a warning from the Communications Authority after the authority ruled as “substantiated” complaints that an episode aired in February had denigrated and insulted the police force.

The episode implied that police had more protective gear than healthcare staff when the covid-19 pandemic first emerged.

Eventually, the 31-year-old show suspended production after airing the final episode in June.

Personal view programme suspended
In April, the Communications Authority warned the broadcaster over its personal view programme Pentaprism, after it substantiated complaints that an episode contained inaccuracy, incitement of hatred to the police and unfairness. It featured a guest host who criticised the police handling of unrest around the Hong Kong Polytechnic University in November last year.

Complaints about four other episodes which featured guest hosts commenting on police anti-protest operations were also substantiated in September. RTHK decided to suspend the programme in early August, before it received the warnings.
National anthem to be aired every morning

The latest development is that starting from November 16, 2020, the Chinese national anthem – March of the Volunteers – will be aired at 8am every day ahead of news reports on all RTHK radio channels.

Spokesperson Amen Ng said that according to its charter, the public broadcaster should enhance citizens’ understanding of One Country, Two Systems and nurture their civic and national identity. The new arrangement is necessary, she said.

This article was originally published on Hong Kong Free Press (HKFP) on 11 November  2020. This edited version is published by Global Voices and the Pacific Media Centre under a content partnership agreement.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

ANALYSIS: By Colin Peacock of RNZ’s Mediawatch

The allocation of $15 million for public broadcasting will be split between RNZ, New Zealand on Air and a new fund targeting “under-served audiences”. It’s the biggest single boost for public broadcasting for a decade, but will it make a big difference?

“It’s the beginning of a new era,” said Broadcasting and Digital Media Minister Claire Curran, announcing the new funding arrangements.

She flourished a graph from a report showing how spending on public broadcasting in other countries dwarfs our own.

It was “shameful and embarrassing,” she said.

“This increase … is just the beginning.”

Labour went into the last election talking a good game too.

-Partners-

It pledged $38 million a year more for RNZ and public broadcasting funding agency New Zealand On Air to deliver “quality New Zealand programming and journalism modeled on the ABC in Australia”.

Multimedia platform
Curran said the bulk of the money would create a new multimedia platform called RNZ+ and a TV channel on Freeview was part of the plan.

But once in government, Labour earmarked only $15 million more for public media in the Budget in May. Plans for a TV channel were talked down and are now spoken of as merely “an aspiration” for the future.

The new money will now be split four ways.

RNZ chief executive Paul Thompson described the $4.5 million added to RNZ’s $35 million annual public funding as “a dose of steroids”.

“We’ll make you proud, Minister” said NZOA’s chair Dr Ruth Harley, welcoming a $4 million boost to its $100 million-a-year budget for local TV shows and digital content.

The minister said a further $6 million will go into a new “Innovation Fund” to create “more public media content for under-served audiences such as Māori and Pacific Peoples, children and regional New Zealand.”

Both RNZ and NZOA jointly suggested this idea, but suggested only $2 million for the new fund, leaving $8.5m for “stage one of the RNZ+ plan”.

Independent producers
The content will appear on RNZ platforms but it will be made by independent producers commissioned by NZ On Air, the minister said.

Other media companies had opposed the funding increase and TV and film production companies jointly called for $20 million extra for New Zealand on Air instead.

Last year, MediaWorks chief executive Michael Anderson claimed RNZ+ could wipe out his business and hired a lobbyist to talk the minister out of it. New Zealand on Air funding is a significance source of finance for some of its local programmes on TV channel Three.

He was happy with this week’s announcement.

“It targets the right communities and gives RNZ support and extra funding for NZ On Air makes sense,” he told Mediawatch.

The minister’s advisory group – after many weeks chewing over the issues – appear to have tried to keep RNZ, NZOA and independent programme-makers happy with a roughly even split of the fresh funds.

“Keeping our entities happy is not how I would describe it but I don’t see that as being a bad thing,” Curran told Mediawatch.

Better collaboration
“This is stage one. We are working on how to make better collaboration happen across the other public media such as Māori TV, Pacific media and state-owned TVNZ,” she said.

Clearly more money is welcome for organisations that have not had a substantial boost for years and it could go a long way. (Certainly further than the 200 hours of content local TV producers say they could generate with $20 million more funding).

The minister’s instance that there will be more money for media in future is also a comfort for them.

But in the end this is an incremental change which puts more money into the existing system – not a transformative one.

The remaining $500,000 of the new funding will be spent on researching how “Crown-funded media agencies can use their assets more efficiently.”

Perhaps it would be better if that had been done before the new funding arrangements were made. State-owned TVNZ for example has substantial assets – and big audiences – but no public mandate at all any more.

It has no role in the funding revealed this week.

Australian comparison
“Compared with Australia, the $216 million spent on broadcasting in 2017/18 is clearly inadequate,” Curran said at the announcement.

Her chart – from a PWC report commission by the Ministry for Culture and Heritage – showed Australia spends $1.6 billion on public broadcasting.

That is about $67 per person a year as opposed to just under $50 a head here. But Australians get a lot more public broadcasting for their money. They get commercial-free ABC TV channels, on-demand video and local and national radio as well ethnic-focused SBS radio and TV and indigenous channel NITV.

The ABC – the model for Labour’s policy according to its pre-election manfesto – is entirely funded directly by the government and is accountable for all of it.

How much you spend isn’t always the issue, but how you spend it.

The Pacific Media Centre has a content sharing partnership with RNZ Pacific.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

David Beatson, broadcaster, editor, journalist, public intellectual and media visionary, proposed a new, or renewed, role for New Zealand public broadcasting in anticipating and managing risk – such as natural disasters and technological crises, says an academic in his public tribute.

Speaking at an inaugural memorial lecture in Ponsonby today celebrating the life of Beatson, Associate Professor Geoff Lealand of Waikato University said that when he died last year New Zealand had “lost a champion for public media and he will continue to be missed”.

The inaugural lecture to a packed Leys Institute library hall was organised by the Better Public Media Trust and preceded a panel debate by Broadcasting and Communications Minister Clare Curran and Radio New Zealand chief executive Paul Thompson about the planned “evolution” of RNZ into RNZ+.

Dr Lealand’s full address:

Tena koto, tena kotu tena toku katoa

I do feel privileged in being asked to deliver this inaugural David Beatson lecture today, and in such auspicious company. It will be a short speech and I will try not to meander (even though my opening remarks may seem a little oblique).

Others have lauded David’s contributions to the intellectual life of New Zealand—and to public media in this country, in particular. My role really is to remind us of his legacy, and how we need to keep steadfast in our advocacy (even though things are looking a little rosier than this time last year).

My first encounter with David was in the mid-1980s when he was the editor of the New Zealand Listener, working out of the Bowen State Building in Wellington (in the days when it was a publication less obsessed with house prices and health scares). I was working in the same building, in the Audience Research Unit of BCNZ; my first job in NZ after returning from studies in the United States and a position at the British Film Institute.

My role was to do qualitative audience research (the kind of research which investigates the motivations and responses to media content). It was also my first illuminating experience with ratings; quantitative measurements which claim to record “presence in a room where a TV set is on”. This experience led to a deep and abiding disbelief in the efficacy of this way of describing audience behaviour.

But that is a topic for another day. The reason why I sought out David was because I had started writing a regular column for the Listener about audience research, mainly working with David’s deputy editor Helen Paske. I wandered down the halls of the building one day, to suggest to David that I could also write an occasional book review, starting with a piece on a monograph by Massey University sociologist Brennon Wood, applying Marxist theory to an analysis of television news.

I still remember the look of complete disbelief on David’s face at the sheer audacity of anyone coupling Karl Marx with the production of television. At this point I realised that our politics didn’t match, for I was more receptive to the idea that news production embodied processes of power, reinforcement of political norms, and implied assent from viewers.

But this did not inhibit friendly conversations when we met again, in the ensuing years. One thing I always liked about David was his willingness to listen to and acknowledge that academics had something useful to add to debates about the role of the media in NZ life (the same cannot be said of some of his contemporaries!).

Generosity and open-mindedness
I am not the only one to know of David’s generosity and open-mindedness. For example, Roger Horrocks, who worked closely with David when they were both on the NZ On Air Board, sent me the following candid comments;

David had a rich life-time experience of broadcasting, which stood in strong contrast to the politicians and politically appointed members of various boards who fiddled around with broadcasting without really knowing what they doing (there were both Labour and National examples). David had a deep understanding of that territory.

He was a man of integrity. In my experience, a person with principles who didn’t play games. Those were not qualities you could take for granted in the fields of politics or broadcasting administration.

He had known NZ broadcasting when it still had a public service spirit, and he remained wonderfully loyal to that. The history of the last 30 years has been the gradual victory of commercialism and populism over public service. David kept the faith, and it mattered so much to him that he never stopped trying—trying to hold back the tide. Whenever I met him in his last years, he would talk of new initiatives, new possibilities. He never stopped campaigning.

Roger declares David as a great defender of the idea of public service at its best. In his own words, he grew up in a world where the communicator’s basic task was defined simply: inform, educate and entertain, ie not to pontificate, declare viewpoint nor share personal prejudices or judgements.

Furthermore, David believed that the core values of the news media should be fairness and equity—because it is in the common interest that public media delivers those important non-commercial values in ways that reflect the needs and interests of the diverse communities that must interact in our society.

Innovative thinker
He was also an innovative thinker. Even in the late months of his life, when he was wheelchair-bound, he was offering challenging and innovative ideas (his iMedia/Public Media Project) for ways of protecting and promoting public media spaces and voices, framed with an acute awareness that technology was bringing enormous changes in media production and delivery, and that things could never be the same again. But it was not a nostalgia for times past, but motivated by the need to preserve the best of media in the new environment, which in David’s words was eating the New Zealand mainstream media’s lunch…dinner…and breakfast.

The last time I heard a public presentation from David was the address he gave to the AGENDA 2020 seminar at Auckland University of Technology last year. He provided an overview of the challenges facing the media (both globally and locally), then revealed one of his new initiatives, new possibilities. He proposed a new (or renewed?) role for New Zealand broadcasting—television in particular—in anticipating and managing risk—most particularly, natural and technological crises, with their potential to disrupt life in both the short term and long term.

I think we have seen sufficient recent examples, both local and global, of the urgency for crisis management. David’s proposals to use very significant spare capacity for advertising-free, New Zealand ‘public goods’ local content, for periods of national or regional states of emergency, interaction, and local content neglected by mainstream broadcasters. I doubt that David had any time for a laissez-faire or a ‘she’ll be right’ attitude to all aspects of NZ life, and this also would have applied to the looming possibilities of disaster.

Coincidentally, I have friends in Helensville who were still waiting for reconnection of electricity a full week after the storms of two weeks ago. David would have pointed to this event as an example of risk realised (the lack of communication between Vector and customers was a recurrent complaint, together with suggestions of degraded infrastructure). This was an event of medium magnitude; we can longer dismiss the possibility of events of greater magnitude.

When David died, we lost a champion for public media and he will continue to be missed. Others will need to step up (and I think that BPM is one) to fill the space; space which too easily gets colonised by self-appointed, no-nothing commentators and simplistic thinkers (you know who I mean).

As Roger comments, many New Zealander’s alive today have grown up in a world of neoliberal thinking and lack any clear understanding of the principles of public service broadcasting. In remembering David, we need also to remember that concept and that tradition!

I roto i te mahara (In loving memory), David.

The inaugural David Beatson Memorial Lecture in Auckland, 22 April 2018, delivered by Associate Professor Geoff Lealand, research associate, Screen and Media Studies, University of Waikato.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz