The Post

RNZ’s hypocritic­al adverts

- Stuff editorial director Mark Stevens

Stuff recently campaigned on the value of journalism. It wasn’t only our journalism we campaigned on; we cited the importance of the craft, across our wider struggling industry. We certainly didn’t slate our competitor­s. This week, the privileged and taxpayer-funded Radio New Zealand seems to have done just that: ‘‘If it seems like you can’t avoid ads online, we’ve got news for you’’, read one advert.

‘‘If it seems quality journalism has disappeare­d, we’ve got news for you’’, Kiwis were assured in another. And, more pointedly: ‘‘If you think you have to pay for premium content, we’ve got news for you.’’

Billboards, bus backs, paid social posts – it was everywhere. RNZ drove its message so hard it even featured in a digital display in Stuff’s own lobby. Trolling maybe?

The message was right, but only in part. RNZ doesn’t run ads. RNZ doesn’t have paid subscripti­ons for its content. This, though, is only because it doesn’t need to.

You already pay for its content through your taxes, so its journalism doesn’t need to be either adfunded, like ours is, or supplement­ed through a paid content model like, say, the NZ Herald.

It’s simple: Commercial media make money through ads and subscripti­ons, which they then use to pay for public interest journalism. Public media are Government-funded to pay for public interest journalism.

But, like newsrooms the world over, the advertisin­g and subscripti­on revenues commercial media once thrived on no longer sustain the number of journalist­s we once could. As audiences have shifted from newspapers to websites, so have advertisin­g dollars. But the slice of the pie left for news organisati­ons is tiny after the giant global platforms like Google and Facebook take their share.

In short, funding journalism, especially in regional New Zealand, has become increasing­ly hard. The pursuit of a new, sustainabl­e business model to support journalism is something that is common across competitor­s; one galvanisin­g connection that brings us all together.

Until this week. Until RNZ campaigned against those efforts.

In fact, RNZ chief executive Paul Thompson has spoken about this shared worry himself in the past.

In 2018, he acknowledg­ed the public media was somewhat protected from the financial crises facing his commercial colleagues.

‘‘In this environmen­t, public service media have a unique responsibi­lity to help their commercial counterpar­ts survive’’.

Again, last year, in a column on our own site, he opined how the commercial media world was an increasing­ly tough business.

‘‘It is brutal, unless you are one of those formidably resourced global platforms – think Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix and Google – that utilise the scale of the internet to generate phenomenal wealth and power. They are called the FANGS for good reason – they rip the throat out of competitor­s’’.

Dial ahead to this week, when the supportive narrative shifted; when RNZ’s own advertisin­g campaign effectivel­y attacked the efforts of those ‘‘commercial counterpar­ts’’.

But for what? For running ads? For charging for premium content? For tireless efforts just to sustain journalism?

Smell like hypocrisy? Yep – reeks of it. Then came the double whammy: RNZ didn’t pay for its hypocritic­al advertisin­g on MediaWorks, NZME, The Spinoff, Newsroom, Stuff or any other organisati­on that actually invests in vital and valuable New Zealand journalism.

Instead, it spent its advertisin­g dollars – your dollars – on perhaps the mother of all the FANGS, Facebook.

Facebook is the same social platform that streamed the Christchur­ch terror attacks, which doesn’t create public interest journalism and which has a questionab­le moral compass. RNZ does create amazing journalism, journalism that holds a great place in my heart and the hearts of many other New Zealanders, including our nation’s journalist­s. And we work together to share content and to recruit and retain regional reporters.

So why, then, it chose to abandon its industry support and abuse its privileged position; to attack the efforts of its ‘‘commercial counterpar­ts’’ and poach audiences they so desperatel­y need is, definitely, hypocritic­al but also unfathomab­le.

RNZ’s own staff were embarrasse­d by their employer’s campaign. Is this RNZ’s second tonedeaf misstep of the year, after being asked by the Government to hit pause on proposed Concert radio changes but pressing ahead anyway?

Plurality of journalist­ic voices is deemed in the public interest. RNZ is chartered to serve that public interest. It is its purpose to serve an audience, not to compete for audiences; audiences which in one way or another are needed to fund the great journalism created by many organisati­ons and many companies across New Zealand each and every day.

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 ??  ?? One of the RNZ advertisem­ents on an electronic billboard in the lobby of the building housing Stuff’s Wellington newsroom.
One of the RNZ advertisem­ents on an electronic billboard in the lobby of the building housing Stuff’s Wellington newsroom.

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