OPEN LETTER: By Martyn Bradbury, editor and publisher of The Daily Blog
NZME directors ‘have concerns’ about businessman Jim Grenon taking editorial control
NZME’s directors have fired their own shots in the war for control of the media company, saying they have concerns about a takeover bid including the risk of businessman Jim Grenon taking editorial control.
In a statement to the NZX, the board said it was delaying its annual shareholders meeting until June and opening up nominations of other directors.
Grenon, a New Zealand resident since 2012, bought a 9.3 percent stake in NZME for just over $9 million early in March.
NZME is publisher of a number of newspapers, including The New Zealand Herald, as well as operating radio stations and property platform OneRoof.
Within days of taking the stake, Grenon had written to the company’s board proposing that most of its current directors be replaced with new ones, including himself, and said the performance of the company had been disappointing and he was wanted to improve the editorial content.
NZME has now told the stockmarket it had concerns whether Grenon’s proposals were in the best interests of the company and shareholders. — RNZ News
Dear NZME Board,
I was once a columnist for The New Zealand Herald, but I’m too left wing for your stable of acceptable opinions and now just run award-winning political podcasts instead.
Normally as board members of a financialised media company in late stage capitalism with collapsing revenue thanks to social media, you don’t generally have to consider the actual well being of our democracy.
Let me be as clear as I can to you all.
You hold in your hands the fate of Fourth Estate journalism and ultimately the democracy of New Zealand itself.
As the largest Fourth Estate platforms in the country, your obligations go well beyond just shareholder profit.
Alt-right billionaire Jim Grenon has in my view been extremely disingenuous.
The manner in which NZME has been sold as underperforming so that the promise of a quick buck from OneRoof seems the focus point is made more questionable because I suspect Grenon’s true desire here is editorial control of NZME.
His relationship with a far-right culture war hate blog that promotes anti-Māori, anti-trans, anti-vaccine, climate denial editorial copy alongside his support for culture war influencers suggest a radicalised view of the world which he intends to implement if he gains control.
Look.
NZME is right wing enough, your first editorial in The New Zealand Herald was calling for white people to start war with Māori, Mike Hosking is the epitome of right wing commentary and the less said about Heather Du Plessis Allan, the better, but all of you acknowledge that 2 + 2 = 4.
Alt-Right billionaires don’t admit that.
Alt-right billionaires tend to lean into divisive culture war rhetoric and are happy to promote 2 + 2 = whatever I say it is.
You cannot allow alt-right billionaires with radicalised culture war beliefs take over the largest media platforms in the country.
This moment demands more than dollars and cents, it requires a strong defence of independent editorial content, even when that editorial content is right wing.
The NZ Herald, Heather and Mike are without doubt right wingers, but they are right wingers who pitch their argument within the realms of the real and factual.
Alt-right billionaires do not do that.
If NZME is taken over and the editorial direction takes a hard right culture war turn, you will be dooming NZ democracy and planing us on a highway to hell.
You must, you must, you must stand against this attack on editorial independence.
Republished from The Daily Blog with permission.
