ANOTHER NAIL IN THE MEDIA COFFIN

How my personal consumption might offer some ideas for the future

The last bastion has cracked.

NZME, the only stock exchange listed news gathering operation in the country, has had to face reality and tell staff that jobs at the New Zealand Herald and Newstalk ZB will have to go.

Actually the company has been here before and the number of journalists and news gatherers has dropped significantly not only from its pre-internet heyday but in more recent times with, for instance, the closing down of a resource hungry Radio Sport just on five years ago.

But that pretty much completes the circle of media company redundancies in the last year.

From memory, which may be wrong, only the government funded RNZ hasn’t had to shed staff in recent times. Newshub has closed, TVNZ has reduced numbers, Stuff has cutback and now NZME has joined the trend.

We often listen and read the reasons put forward for the demise of the traditional or legacy media. While modern technology is the root of the problem, the real issue is why the companies now enduring staff layoffs haven’t been able to use technology to their advantage.

I write this after reflecting on my own media consumption over the holiday period.

For reasons associated with annual leave liability, all the big media companies put their main people on holiday for a month from just before Christmas. It used to happen to me a long time ago when I was a favoured son at TVNZ. You finished up around December 20 and started again on January 20. It was great. A month off on full pay and you only used three of your five weeks annual leave. They were great employment conditions but born of an age when the media industry printed money.

Being a conservative old bloke these days my main electronic media consumption is a combination of Newstalk ZB, The Platform and occasionally RCR. But all three of those outlets offered me nothing over the holidays. Two them had no new content at all and ZB replaced its usual hosts with a bunch of wannabes, many of whom - on the rare occasions I sampled them - I thought were ill-informed.

But I like to have a bit of conversation in my Air Pods as I go about daily life. Therefore I found myself attracted more and more, in fact almost exclusively, to the world of podcasts. And wow, is there some seriously great content out there for 70 year old men of a certain world view.

I devoured the work of Tucker Carlson. For example, his conversation with Teamster’s Union boss Sean O’Brien was an eye opener into just how arrogant the Karmala Harris campaign really was. Carlson posts a new long form interview every two or three days.

Megyn Kelly is an acquired taste. Frankly she’s a bit stroppy for my liking but her commentary around the Trump Administration confirmation hearings is fascinating.

Then there’s the man often called the biggest media star on the planet - Joe Rogan. I don’t go there that often because there are too many comedians and MMA fighters but his three hour conversation with Mark Zuckerberg was compulsive listening.

Across the pond, Brendan O’Neill has an informative weekly podcast which in recent times has featured free speech advocate Toby Young and London Times columnist Melanie Phillips positing that as Jews and Christians built the West only they can save it.

And of course if you want a lively bout of arrogance and interruption go no further than Piers Morgan Uncensored.

Yes I know there aren’t many views being expressed in that lot which might be construed as leaning centre left, but so what. At nearly 71 years of age, my political pendulum isn’t swinging back the other way.

But listening to those podcasts and some others of a similar ilk means I haven’t been consuming New Zealand media for the last four weeks – and I didn’t miss it a bit.

The question for those legacy or mainstream outlets is will they get me back? I have to be honest and say it will be a battle.

At ZB Mike Hosking, who I think has just turned 60, appears to have lost his appetite for hard subjects. Yes, he’s a brilliant broadcaster, one of the best this country has ever had along with Paul Holmes and Paul Henry, and certainly the most disciplined. But when has he ever really delved into the Treaty Principles Bill or any matter to do with race relations or Treaty issues? When has he ever seriously questioned the government Net Zero narrative? Or exposed the numerous reports now emerging about covid vaccine injuries?

Sean Plunket on The Platform at least tries to push the envelope out on Treaty and climate issues but still insults those with a view contrary to his own covid matters by calling them “cookers.” Not a great way, I would have thought, to attract the listeners and subscribers he says he needs to have a viable business model.

It goes without saying that our main print news websites Stuff and NZ Herald.co.nz will not report and publish views contrary to the approved narrative on those three issues, nor on transgender matters. In fact they won’t even accept paid advocacy advertising from the likes of the Taxpayers Union, Family First or Hobsons Pledge.

As for my local paper, the Otago Daily Times – well it’s published in the socialist republic of Dunedin. Say no more. But it does print my occasional letter to the editor.

So if I’ve been reading news commentary over the holidays it’s been on Breaking Views, BassetBrashandHide.com or various Substacks that come to my attention through subscription or referral.

Heck, I’ve even set up my own Substack and some readers pay me the greatest compliment of all by sending in a few dollars each month. I thank of all you most sincerely.

Get the picture? I don’t need the traditional New Zealand news media. I doubt I’ll ever have much consumer involvement with it again unless there’s some significant change in their editorial balance to offer what we used to call “both sides of the story.”

Why won’t Stuff or the Herald publish Michael Bassett on Treaty matters or Owen Jennings or Barry Brill on methane and climate subjects? Where was their common sense on the Elon Musk “Nazi salute” beat-up? Why weren’t Trump’s comments on splitting the atom put into some proper context?

The surveys say trust in the media is at an all-time low. Where is the self-awareness to do something about it? It may not get the New Zealand media industry back into profit but it might help attract this grumpy old right wing voter back to occasionally read and listen to it.

I’m pretty sure TVNZ is beyond redemption though.