Barrie Saunders: TV layoffs not a threat to democracy

A few weeks ago I joined some contemporaries by abandoning the near sixty year habit of watching nightly TV news. I dropped it because I felt it did not give me real information that I had not acquired from other media sources, including some I pay for – The Economist, the NZ Herald, The Atlantic and The Platform. Free media sources I look at online include Stuff, RNZ, Bassett Brash and Hide, PointOfOrder, Newsroom and the BBC’s Radio Four.

Neither TV news service I watched added any value except for floods and other disasters. Political coverage became increasingly partisan and I have zero confidence in their journalists ability to present complex issues in a balanced way. TV has great advantages over other media and massive disadvantages, which many do not recognise. It cannot do nuance. Everything gets presented as black and white and public policy issues are rarely like that. Democracy long predates TV news.

Democracy does indeed need an informed electorate but I do not see that coming from TV news. If both channels news services were shut I am not sure democracy would be any the poorer as those who actually want such news will find it elsewhere. If the Herald, the ODT or the Westport News were shut fewer people would be informed at a local level and also at a national level in the case of the Herald and ODT. Not so sure about the partisan Post in Wellington, where I live but don’t subscribe to, unlike the NZ Herald.

I was a current affairs journalist in NZ, Australia and the UK in my early years, working for the NZBC, the ABC and commercial TV and BBC radio in London. In the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s I watched current affairs programmes on TV including Fair Go in New Zealand. I think the TVNZ programmes Sunday and Fair Go have fallen victim to changing consumer preferences. There are just so many alternatives.

Even as a director of TVNZ (2011-2017) I rarely watched Sunday because to me the items were simply too predictable. I never watched Fair Go, even though I respected some of its journalists including Garth Bray.

Prior to writing this post I spoke to two very young baristas about TV news which neither watched. One didn’t even have access to a TV. Former radio owner and National Minister, Steven Joyce, says he gave up watching TV news a few years ago and, in an article, he mentioned an audience that did not watch either.

Media has been fragmented by many trends. In ten years time I expect it will have hopefully settled down with changed with new digital sources. Some such as BusinessDesk and Newsroom seem to be doing quite well but we don’t know for certain.

Radio may not be a lot different in say ten years time. It would be nice if taxpayer funded RNZ broke out of its left/liberal monoculture and actually provided programmes that centre/right people such as myself might like to hear. I will not hold my breath on that likelihood in my lifetime. Have completely given up listening to it apart from occasionally the news on road trips. I prefer the chattiness of commercial radio and the traffic information while on the road.

I might subscribe to The Post if it provided a totally different service – just the hard facts about national and local news, biz news and very little commentary. Would also want clearly non partisan writing, not the heavy left/green bias which gave us Tory Whanau as our fairly hopeless Mayor. (Luke Malpass excepted)

The future of TVNZ I have written about in earlier posts. The option I proposed included some direct funding for TVNZ and taking it out of the contestable NZ On Air fund. One advantage of this option is it would take away the NZ on Air monopoly when it comes to state funding of Kiwi content. Monopolies are usually bad and more so in the creative sector. It would also have some similarities with the Maori TV operation which has state funding and a little advertising. That is still a credible option but not the only one. The big questions for the Government to think about about are:

1. Does it continue with the contestable NZ On Air funding of many outlets – in other words follow the eyeballs?

2. Does it treat TVNZ as just another television/video operation with linear and on demand content, and if so why does the taxpayer own it?

3. Does it allow TVNZ to provide subscription video content as well as free to air?

4. Is there a need for a dedicated TV operation that produces NZ content whether linear or on demand and if so would that operation be TVNZ or say NZ On Air?

At present I cannot see the current government has a clear view of the issues. I also see nothing credible from the Opposition parties either. Their proposed merger between RNZ and TVNZ was about as confused as one could get. Former PM Helen Clark harks back to an era which will simply not return. The same goes for the leftish public broadcasting advocates who want a TV licence.

There is a bill at a Select Committee which aims to replicate what Australia and Canada have done to make the international digital giants, Google and Facebook, pay local media companies for the material they use. I have no view on this bill but note some have harshly criticised it and Facebook says it will end its agreements in Australia. Companies that create paywalls don’t really have a problem because they are protecting their copyright.

There is no reason for the Government to panic – democracy is not imperilled but it would be nice to have a nuanced discussion. I think the relentless hostility of most mainstream media (MSM) to the new Government may cloud its inclination to have such a discussion. That would be unfortunate but totally understandable because Ministers are human.

Barrie Saunders has a background in Government Relations and blogs at www.barriesaunders.wordpress.com. - where this article was sourced.