Opinion: The news media has been the focus of attention recently. A report from the AUT’s Journalism, Media and Democracy Research Centre found that general trust in news media and media brands continued to erode in 2023-24, from 42% to 33% .
Merja Myllylahti, a co-author of the report, noted that journalism “has lost its authority as the main source of news and information. In general, people distrust the information they see and are increasingly checking their ‘facts’ themselves.”
Co-author Greg Treadwell noted that trust in news and news outlets “keeps declining and journalists and media companies need urgently to form relationships with their audiences and communities to rebuild that trust”.
Interestingly, the reasons for this decline in trust do not seem to have appeared in the mainstream media, although the report makes them very clear. They include biased, unbalanced or opinionated reporting, lack of transparency, poor journalism (especially during the pandemic), lack of trust in journalists to hold the government to account and allegations of bias and capture by corporate and commercial interests. The pandemic-related Public Interest Journalism Fund, rightly or wrongly, added to the perception that the mainstream media was captured by government funding.
On top of this are the seismic changes at Newshub and TVNZ. The since-sacked media and communications minister, Melissa Lee, was criticised for her lack of action over these troubles. But Newshub and Stuff have now come together – the market provided a solution, as indeed it should.
In an opinion piece in the NZ Herald on April 20, a former Labour broadcasting minister, Steve Maharey, considered the future of state-owned TVNZ and Radio New Zealand. But these are not the only media interests governed by the state. Broadcasters must obtain broadcasting spectrum licences from the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment and content quality is monitored by the Broadcasting Standards Authority (BSA).
Maharey’s suggestion is to sell the commercially based TVNZ and put the funds in a trust to expand RNZ into a 21st-century media organisation covering everything from broadcasting to social media and print. This organisation should also receive government funding via the trust. Independence is vital, but how that will be perceived given government funding is another matter. Consistent with the Left’s appetite for regulation, Maharey suggests local regulation of social media platforms.
I have another suggestion that incorporates aspects of Maharey’s proposal but gets the state right out of the media space. The state’s interest in broadcasting and online services should be restricted to the allocation of broadcasting spectrum – the present licensing scheme. If it were decided to retain the BSA complaints system (and the rationale for the continuation of that organisation is doubtful), a condition of the granting of a licence would be submission to the jurisdiction of the BSA. The bureaucratic support that is spread across a number of ministries would no longer be required and should be concluded.
TVNZ and RNZ should be sold. The funds realised from their sale should be placed into a specific trust tasked with establishing a public broadcasting system not unlike the PBS in the United States. Any further funding required by such an entity should be derived from public subscription rather than taxpayer funding. The organisation would be completely independent of state control. There would be no need for the continuation of organisations such as New Zealand On Air or similar entities, which should be disbanded.
David Harvey is a retired district court judge. [The Listener was no included in the JMAD research]
