The political art of trying to save the media (or not)
The Government is treading a fine line as it remains largely silent on what it plans to do with media reform. Appearing too quick to run to the rescue risks the same accusations of wielding too much influence on the Fourth Estate that the previous Labour government faced. But its lack of a largely meaningful response to the closure of Newshub has revealed cracks in the coalition partnership and accusations of incompetence, which have distracted from announcements that would appeal to its supporter base, like tenancy notice rollbacks.
With the lack of visible action from Minister for Media and Communications Melissa Lee this week, the vacuum was quickly filled by media commentators and a particularly bitter attack from the Opposition, with the former responsible minister and current portfolio spokesperson for Labour, Willie Jackson, blunt in his potshots at Lee, labelling her stupid and ineffective.
But name-calling aside, his observation that Lee appears to be “at sea”, to use the oft-repeated phrase this week, is not off base – it echoes the feeling among academics, media leaders and observers that Lee fundamentally doesn’t seem to understand media or have any clue about what to do next.
Since she was criticised in February for appearing particularly unfeeling when responding to Newshub’s impending closure, Lee has been at pains to extend her sympathies to affected staff, but her missives are beginning to sound robotic. By now, expected to articulate her thinking in this space in front of cameras, she consistently appears bafflingly unprepared, at times deliberately infuriatingly for media - coy.
Luxon was not particularly believable when he said yesterday he was happy to keep Lee in her media portfolio, possibly misspeaking when he said, “no, not at this point” when asked if he’d considered taking her portfolio off her, quickly adding: “no, not at all”.
While Lee was silent on what she has taken to Cabinet, Luxon wasn’t exactly coming to her rescue either, unable to say what action his Government had taken since Newshub’s demise appeared on its radar. For questioning media, conversations about market trends, as mentioned by Luxon, do not equal action. If you asked those running newsrooms what they wanted from the Government, many would say that they are looking simply for leadership and some certainty, none of which it has been able to show.
It’s widely speculated that NZ First leader Winston Peters is holding up Lee’s work on a now infamous paper (for how much it is shrouded in secrecy) that she had planned to take to Cabinet, and that Lee’s unwillingness to say where her work is at is necessarily obsequious. Peters was in the US this week.
Unsurprisingly, the Government is mum on whether there is a fundamental disagreement between the three parties about the right approach, but there is certainly robust discussion happening behind closed doors.
The likelihood of ACT leader David Seymour, with Peters, agreeing to ride to the media’s rescue is almost exactly zero, but PM Luxon should have the business sense, and political intelligence, to know that allowing the wider media and broadcasting sector, a cohort at least 25,000 strong, to fail, is not something he wants on his track record. And widespread failure has been clearly signalled.
By now the accusations that the media is responsible for its own downfall are a loud minority and simply becoming a bad faith argument that Luxon will be mindful not to engage in. In a small case study of the difficulty of operating, it’s notable that Reality Check Radio, which rose out of the ashes of the Covid-19 pandemic and promised to be “the long-awaited voice of reason in an age of cancel culture, censorship and false narratives” has run out of money.
This week a Taxpayers’ Union-Curia poll that flew under the radar showed, unsurprisingly, that 55% of Kiwis were opposed to taxpayer money being used to fund struggling media.
But it’s notable that nearly a third were in support of that measure and 15% were unsure.
Commenting on the poll, Taxpayers’ Union campaigns manager Connor Molloy said a taxpayer “bail-out” would undermine the media’s own ability to innovate or self-rescue: “If the Government stumps up with taxpayer money there is no incentive for these companies to change their business model into something consumers trust and value more.”
But that fundamentally ignores that globally, trust in media has been trending down for many years, the reality of which goes far beyond the media’s control. It also ignores that the media has innovated for many years – there are success stories to be found in Newsroom, The Spinoff, and more recent subscription models which are apparently now sustaining newsrooms at NZME and used by leading newspapers The Post, Waikato Times, The Press and Sunday Star-Times.
Stuff committed to making trust a metric of its success, and recent restructures at the company are despite the establishment of several investigative units there, including its correspondents’ team as well as Stuff Circuit, and hugely successful, award-winning projects like The Whole Truth.
Job cutbacks across the entire sector are despite audiences turning to media, particularly broadcast media, in record numbers during Cyclone Gabrielle and the pandemic.
In the case of the former, it was sometimes only radio that cut-off communities could access while internet and phones were down.
The poll did show that Labour voters were more likely to support taxpayer funding for media. But media knows that the previous iteration of a direct support like the Public Interest Journalism Fund, as spearheaded by Labour, simply became a poisoned chalice, and did nothing to either further trust or keep newsrooms sustainable.
It’s also worth noting that inaction on media stretches across all parties, despite Labour’s attacks this week. When Bauer pulled out of New Zealand at the beginning of the pandemic, when magazines were unable to print, the Labour-led government of the day did little, with then PM Jacinda Ardern denying its Covid rules had led to the closure of a stable of magazines carrying hundreds of jobs.
There was no rescue package or relaxing of the rules.
Now, Luxon will be wary of being seen to be propping up one business interest over other struggling sectors (most notably while the axe falls on public servants), but he also needs to be wary of turning too blind an eye.
To have no political will, to keep repeating tired phrases about market trends and commercial realities too blithely, risks looking inept, like the cat that got the cream.
And more importantly, unless it can show otherwise, it will continue to look like NZ First and Winston Peters are calling the shots, hand-braking National’s progress and in the process hanging another minister out to dry.
For productivity-minded former CEO Luxon, who has only just announced his nine-point gameplan, that’s about the worst impression a business leader wants to leave.