‘‘Judging by social media commentary, no-one is riding to our rescue. So here it is: in defence of journalism, I sing for my supper.’’

There is an important rule in journalism: never become the story. We broke that rule last week, taking our cartoonish devotion to competing to extreme levels with a bitter battle over the future of Stuff.

Journalists are notoriously rubbish at business. The industry is also horribly bad at promoting its worth. We are despised, but despite the distrust, audiences are consuming record amounts of news. Just not paying for it.

Our viewers and readers have become as dark and jaded as we are. Judging by social media commentary (never a wise idea), no-one is riding to our rescue. So here it is: in defence of journalism, I sing for my supper.

I’ve wanted to be a reporter since I was nine. I grew up in Northern Ireland when people were doing terrible things to each other. Some of the time it was orchestrated by, or with the blessing, of the state.

The rest of the world knew about these atrocities because of the free press. Journalists risked their lives, and that of their families, to report the awful reality of conflict. They still do: Lyra McKee, 29, was shot dead during a riot last year.

That’s what we do. We report the bad stuff, whatever the consequences. You might curse us for being too negative but it is our duty to lift the rock.

Because, here’s the thing. Politicians and big corporates will only ever tell you the good stuff. They employ an army to shine up their messages. The negatives are either buried, or so sugar-coated you can’t taste the bitter reality.

New Zealand isn’t Northern Ireland, although it’s been a rough couple of months. But when things went really wrong – a shortage of PPE, flu vaccines, MPs passing wrong legislation – you didn’t hear it out of the mouths of politicians. You learned of it from news media.

Reporters gave a voice to those distressed about crowd limits on tangi and funerals and the Government backed down. Wealthy companies repaid the wage subsidy they’d claimed, because of uncomfortable questions from reporters. Journalism brought to light the sanctioning of warrantless searches in homes and marae.

It’s not all gloom, though. Throughout the pandemic, reporters churned out a boundless volume of essential information about life under Covid-19. Last week, they crunched the numbers and translated the Budget in a little less than four hours.

We have celebrated essential workers. And, for future generations, we have recorded the first draft of this strange chapter in our history.

We don’t always get it right. Often that’s a direct consequence of resourcing and cost-cutting. And our questions might seem inane or repetitive. Sometimes they are. But journalists – particularly political specialists – are trained to sense uncertainty or hesitancy from a politician. We will push because it usually means there is more to the story.

Don’t kid yourself that your ‘‘side’’ are better than the last lot. The tactics are learned and ingrained through decades of a spin culture. Politicians and CEOs have had hours of media training to make them adept at dodging and deflecting.

In the face of horrendous abuse, reporters, photographers, producers and camera operators have got up every day, left their families and the safety of their homes and gone to work.

There might be high-profile individuals that you can’t stomach, but the media industry is more than the sum of its parts. Many decry the explosion of opinion across all platforms – but secretly you love it because it rates extraordinarily well. It also costs very little to produce.

And for every opinionated jock, there are a half dozen diligent reporters digging away at important stories.

The remuneration isn’t great – most journalists could earn far more, and work less, in the pullulating public relations industry. Most of us have left – some through choice, others out of necessity.

About 500 of us have lost our jobs already, as recession bites our heels. Without a radical shake-up of how we pay for journalism, many more will follow.

Journalism is an essential public good. It costs money to produce but for the sake of democracy, it also needs to be freely, or at least cheaply, available to the public.

The industry is dying. Yes, it’s a failed business model, but then so is health and social services.

Ordinarily something critical to society would be propped up by state intervention – like rail or a utility.

None of us want a taxpayer hand-out. In our nature we are adversarial to powerful institutions. We’d prefer to remain independent than come crawling to political masters.

Despite the distrust, audiences are consuming record amounts of news.