Alan Cocker: No news is not good news when we need information

The claim that there has never been a better time to introduce mainstream non-commercial public television may strike many as bizarre. The recent announcement by the Government that Television New Zealand's Charter is being canned because it is not working and the public broadcaster announcing it is cutting a swathe through its daytime programming and axing 90 staff reinforces the impression that "market" criteria and solutions continue to dominate media policy.

Prime Minister John Key has stated that there has "been no discernible difference in the amount of local content that's been played because of the Charter". He was also of the view that TVNZ's job losses do not merely reflect weak advertising revenue because of the recession but also "the structural changes occurring in the industry [to internet and electronic media]".

On both counts I would be in agreement. However, the needs which were behind the Charter remain and new media do not provide for them.

In turbulent economic times there is an even greater need for the public to be informed, but our sources of information are themselves under economic pressure.

John Nichols and Robert McChesney, writing in the Nation about the current situation of the media in the United States, argue that journalism in that country "is collapsing".

Stalwarts of the press such as the New York Times, the San Francisco Chronicle and the Christian Science Monitor are in financial strife, while the major broadcasting networks continue to trim news staff. They quote Walter Isaacson of Time magazine who writes that "it is now possible to contemplate a time in the near future when major towns will no longer have a newspaper and when magazines and network news operations will employ no more than a handful of reporters".

It might be argued that the situation for New Zealand media is less critical or that it merely illustrates the shift that John Key outlines from old media to new media such as the internet. Yet thus far, no major news organisation has developed a business model to sustain digital journalism.

When we seek news information online most of us go to the sites provided by old media entities, supported by their newspapers or broadcasting services. Furthermore, the blogosphere and internet are almost completely reliant on "old media" to provide original stories. They simply do not have the resources to do it themselves.

Television news, as our television providers keep reminding us, is our major source of news. In recent months, governments around the globe have invested literally trillions of dollars in supporting an ailing financial sector. Public media's claims for support pale into insignificance when measured against this level of government intervention and without some assistance we will see a malnourished and crippled information sector. The democratic implications of this are profound.

Currently we have a public non-commercial service in radio which is strongly supported and appreciated by the public across the political spectrum. Public funding which has been channelled to New Zealand On Air and to support the now defunct TVNZ Charter would go a long way towards paying for a mainstream non-commercial public television channel.

There is also the option of the other commercial public channel assisting in funding the non-commercial service. For the private broadcasting sector, the non-commercial channel would free up much needed advertising revenue in a contracting market.

The public television station would also maintain a full online site and the specialised minority, largely repeat digital services such as TVNZ6 and TVNZ7, so that the audience is provided with a full "old" and "new" media public service. This would make use of the synergies and efficiencies available to a full service news organisation.

New Zealand has a lamentable public policy record when it comes to the media. The Charter was merely the last of a number of compromised solutions to the provision of public service broadcasting.

There has never been a more appropriate time to provide a universal, publicly funded, mainstream media service in this country as purely market media stumble in their duty to attend to not only their needs as viable businesses, but our political, cultural and social needs as citizens in a democracy.

* Dr Alan Cocker is the Head of the School of Communication Studies at AUT University.