One of the greatest things about working for 3 News, later Newshub, was the way that somehow the boss, Mark Jennings, kept us on air despite the receivers moving in - or threatening to - on a number of occasions. He kept his frontline reporters busy and largely clear of company politics, the funding rows, the lack of finance, and all the worries and complaints. If we were the ones targeted, he’d put himself in harm’s way, take the hit, and let us get on with the job of journalism.
We proudly celebrated journalism and our wins and laughed loudly and breathed sighs of relief about our near misses. Let’s be honest, we had our fair share of those.
Jennings had standards and he expected us to deliver consistently and constantly. He had good contacts and skin in the game. I never knew National ministers were in his office during the 2011 campaign asking him to pull Paddy Gower and I off our relentless pursuit of the “tea tapes” story and what John Key said to John Banks during that private cafe meeting in Newmarket.
I found Jennings incredibly motivating as a boss. He knew what he wanted, he knew what each of us was capable of and he carefully built newsrooms around the country that were designed to win. Somehow, he also managed to afford to hire the best journalists, producers and heavy hitters.
Back then we did all we could to bring viewers the story, but we were also aware the banks were knocking at the door. It was a constant. But the “can-do” culture was stronger than anything - never say never and never say die. If it needed some creative solutions to stay on air we found a way. It was an addictive place to be. I like to think the risks we took were innovative and set high standards. People watched; the culture was electric.
We fought to stay afloat
I’m sure we went under two or three times during my time there. It must have been the year we stopped the $50 Christmas food voucher and replaced it with a ruthlessly impersonal e-card.
But we didn’t need perks, we just wanted the platform and I suppose we wanted it to never change. Maybe we were too slow to transition. Maybe we thought it would never affect us. Maybe we were too attached to TV and hadn’t thought too much about the alternatives.
TV is a bubble and it’s easy to stay on the inside of it, rarely entering the world of struggle on the outside. I was also working in radio, and the transition to new ways of doing things was well underway. We started to break stories in real time on Facebook and later Twitter and then Insta, online and, much more recently, TikTok. Traditional media was being challenged.
The message was move – fast – or die. TV programmes started to be cancelled, big names were shown the door, the rot was underway and who could stop it?
When Jennings left – the pressure had taken its toll – suddenly we were about to led by someone else who was wholly digital focussed in a TV obsessed newsroom. We were vulnerable.
The changes rolled on and we were suddenly for sale. And remarkably, Discovery showed up and purchased the free-to-air channel including the news service, Newshub. No one was doing that. Audiences were in freefall, and news was expensive. And besides, they were not news people.
But our bosses and board were stoked and suggested Discovery had stepped in and saved us from the waiting hearse. No changes to see here folks, was the message. It was a relief to get back to work.
Maybe they did give us three more years when this could have ended years earlier. Then it started to happen. The Dunedin office was shut, and one by one more people were being let go - but not in any big group, so no one said much.
Was there ever a plan?
In 2022, Discover merged with WarnerMedia to become Warner Bros. Discovery.
Did this new entity exhaust every avenue to keep Newshub open?
Short answer is no. I believe they signed up to news for three years as part of the purchase. Then they were never going to continue. Clearly the operation was burning cash. It was losing $35 million a year. It had to cut and run – after three years, Warner Bros. Discovery had run out of patience and money.
But here’s where I am critical. It appeared clueless about a plan to save it. Was there ever a plan – or at least thought given to one? It begs the question, why didn’t Warner Bros. Discovery attempt a rescue or at least see what the mood was for a salvage job? Why didn’t – or hasn’t – Warner Bros. Discovery put a team of people together to save the news?
I would have hired Jennings, widely respected and with contacts across media, advertising, business and politics, and tasked him with putting together a high-powered, high-profile group of current and former news bosses, businesspeople, funders, advertisers and the like to slap the Government across the face.
Someone needs to wake the Government up to the news that the news is going. We’ll all be worse off for Newshub’s demise, and once it’s gone it won’t be back. But look at the PM’s reaction – light and useless ¬– or Broadcasting Minister Melissa Lee – even more flaky. She suggested we watch Sky News. I suggest she goes looking for that before she makes her next comment.
3 has a history of staying in the fight, but it’s hard to see any of the courage and enterprise needed to do that now. People are broken, and the “real world” is a hard one. Just look at the consequences of this decision. For starters, 300 highly skilled and talented people will lose their jobs. For some, it will be their first taste of job failure and it’s worse than brutal. It’s a very public failure and there’s nowhere to hide.
For me, it’s the complete eradication of everything we have done. As with the closure of MediaWorks-owned Today FM while I was on air a year ago, it’s hard to take. And while I don’t work for 3 now, I did for two decades.
I am proud of my time there; I thank them for the wonderful opportunity (and I’m sorry for sending the $77 I once owed after I overspent on a trip to Singapore to the company in 10c pieces. I was angry about that; I acted in haste, and it cost me $26 to send as a result).
Many of my mates still work there. 3 discovered talent: Paddy Gower, Tova O’Brien, Jenna Lynch, Ryan Bridge, Lloyd Burr … I had a lot to do with all those journalists; some of them I hired directly. Others I supported and cheered on – even if they replaced me. They’re all incredible talents and we are worse off not having them on TV.
We need another talkback radio station, and we need competition in TV news. And I come back to this – what did anyone at the highest level do to try to save it? It would be easier to accept if every angle had been exhausted. Tears don’t work for me - unless they come with blood and sweat because that’s what is needed to save this. That’s what people gave over 35 years, only now to go out with a whimper, leaving no sign of life anywhere. That’s not the Kiwi way.
