Dear Minister,

Congratulations on assuming the Broadcasting and Media role.

The announcement of your new portfolio put me in mind of Hercules as King Eurystheus told him there were a dozen small jobs he would like done.

Like Hercules, you will find that the tasks ahead are challenging. Some will seem insurmountable. Yet, the underlying message of that particular piece of Greek mythology is that nothing is impossible.

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I would hesitate to suggest that success will lead to immortality, but you will certainly make an enduring name for yourself if you are able to ensure that New Zealand’s media ecosystem is fit for purpose.

In order for that to happen you must undertake, if I may be so bold, the Twelve Labours of Willie Jackson.

Here are the tasks you should address:

1. The new public media entity — ensure it is an entirely new approach to a digital future and not merely a TVNZ/RNZ merger, and enshrine independent governance.
2. Media content review – act as the coordinator for a project to determine how we should address harmful media content, which spans a multitude of issues and ministries.
3. Social media platforms — make them pay for plundering our media and our audiences, and make them accountable for content.
4. Public Interest Journalism Fund – restore public confidence in the fund (by removing requirements seen as linked to government policy) and continue to fund the scheme.
5. Regulatory structures – facilitate the replacement of the Media Council and the Broadcasting Standards Authority by a single, demonstrably independent, body.
6. Private sector survival — investigate alternative mechanisms that replace declining revenue, and incentivise plurality.
7. Māori media — Have a stern talk with yourself, as the Minister for Māori Development, to finally bring something concrete out of the Māori Media Sector Shift that has already been three years in the making.
8. Ethnic media — recognise and support media that directly address often hard to reach communities.
9. Media law — review statutes that were predicated on media structures and methodologies that have long been superseded.
10. Media training — resurrect the Journalism Training Organisation with a mandate to devise curricula standards and assess their implementation by tertiary institutions.
11. Policy balance – work to ensure that the legitimate Te Tiriti initiatives being pursued by the Labour Government do not inadvertently ignore the broader needs of the media sector and its audiences (plural).
12. Technology watch — set up a monitoring group to alert government to technological changes (in areas such as artificial intelligence) that will affect media production, impact and oversight.

I realise that it is no more than 18 months to the next election and, even if you expect another term in government, you will need to prioritise.

Three broad rubrics
The tasks fall under three broad rubrics that are inter-related: Media sustainability, media governance, and social cohesion. Admittedly, they involve some activities that currently sit outside your portfolio but there is a crying need for a coordinator. That can, and should, be you.

The most pressing task is the New Public Media Entity, which both Television New Zealand and RNZ openly call “the merger”. You have inherited a project in the second of its three phases, and I am sure the easiest approach would be to leave it to take its (predetermined) course.

That would be both a lost opportunity and, I respectfully suggest, an abrogation of your responsibility to oversee the establishment of an organisation that is truly fit for purpose.

Your predecessor, Kris Faafoi, is admirably well-meaning and I have no doubt the initiative started under his watch had sound core purposes. However, he tended to lead from behind and the outcomes to date suggest the results will be less than the sum of their parts.

There is a golden opportunity to establish an entirely new organisation, born for a digital future that can accommodate but not be led by its legacy technologies and cultures. Its impact on the overall media landscape will be so significant that it must have a unique multi-tiered independent governance structure to insulate it from government control and to contain its own power.

I see neither of these imperatives in any of the material that has so far entered the public domain and I fear the introduction of draft legislation in the next week or two will confirm my misgivings on both fronts. My hope is that you will intervene to ensure the final form of the bill addresses both opportunities and threats, and your discussions with the Establishment Board gives it the courage to think a significant distance beyond the square.

The Content Review, led by the Ministry of Internal Affairs, also demands your attention. While extremely useful work has already been undertaken on harmful content in various forms of media, there is a real need for strong coordination with your portfolio. My fear is that mainstream media could suffer because, when it comes to policing content, they are low hanging fruit. The real danger with harmful content lies with digital platforms.

Absence of strong government direction
Those social media platforms also demand your attention in other ways. The absence of strong government direction (the antithesis of what is evident in Australia and the European Union) has allowed them to apply a cynical cherry-picking approach to compensating New Zealand media for the material they appropriate.

Unless they are forced to act responsibly, they will continue to serve only their own pecuniary interests and to minimise their responsibilities for content. You have an opportunity to align New Zealand internationally.

Your predecessor performed a real service to media and the public in setting up the Public Interest Journalism Fund. I have to declare an interest here: I have been involved in evaluating applications for PIJF on behalf of NZ on Air. That involvement has allowed me to witness at first hand the determination to pursue journalism that is squarely in the public interest and to see successful applications for projects that hold government — and other forms of power — to account.

Blackened the name
However, oppositions forces (both political and more malign) have blackened the name of the fund. It has been characterised as a bribe that has muted criticism of the Labour government.

It may be a hard ask, given that you represent the very people accused of doing the bribing, but you need to restore the fund’s reputation…and commit to its continuation.

You may feel those tasks will be more than sufficient to keep you occupied for the rest of the current term, but you cannot ignore the other Labours of Willie Jackson. I suggest you coalesce them into a single project: Futureproofing New Zealand Media. It could provide the blueprint for your next term as Minister of Communication and Media.

It may also embrace the idea of my long-advocated Bretton Woods #2 and bring together the many elements that make up our media and their audiences to map a collective future. That would make this old man very happy.

I wish you well with your new portfolio. You bring to the role many years of media experience. Complete these 12 labours and, like Hercules, you will be a hero.

Dr Gavin Ellis ONZM MA PhD

Dr Gavin Ellis holds a PhD in political studies. He is a media consultant and researcher. A former editor-in-chief of The New Zealand Herald, he has a background in journalism and communications — covering both editorial and management roles — that spans more than half a century. Dr Ellis publishes a website called Knightly Views where this commentary was first published and it is republished by Asia Pacific Report with permission.

Pacific Media Watch

The founder and chief executive of New Zealand’s leading Indian radio network, Tarana, has today been named a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit in Queen Elizabeth II’s 91st Birthday Honours List.

Fiji-born Robert Khan has been acknowledged for his service to broadcasting and the Indian community after more than two decades at the helm of Radio Tarana.

From humble beginnings as New Zealand’s first commercial Indian radio network, Khan has led Tarana to become one of the largest independent brands in New Zealand radio.

Among its successes, Tarana was the first ethnic radio broadcaster to sign a joint venture with MediaWorks radio, and in 2014 became the first ethnic radio network to partner with NZME, on their iHeartRadio platform.

Khan’s success with the Tarana model has paved the way for ethnic radio in New Zealand and has been used to champion the cause of ethnic media.

Outside of his day job, Khan serves on a number of advisory and governance boards including the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment’s Small Business Advisory Group, and as an elected member of the New Zealand Radio Broadcasters Association. He also acts as an adviser for numerous businesses and broadcast organisations in Fiji, India and across Asia.

In a letter to Khan from Prime Minister Bill English, he was congratulated for his service to his community and country.

‘Outstanding contribution’
“We are very fortunate that so many of our citizens are able and willing to strive to selflessly serve our community and their country. New Zealand’s success is built on such efforts. You have made an outstanding contribution to that success,” the Prime Minister wrote.

Khan said he was humbled by the Order of Merit acknowledgement, but added the award represented the hard work of his whole Tarana team.

“I’m humbled to receive this award. I’m very honoured, but this award is not about me. It reflects all the work done by people during this Tarana journey,” he said.

“I’m motivated by the people I work with and the people I work for. They motivate me to get up and come to work every morning, and are my inspiration for making radio a success, and Tarana a brand to be reckoned with.

“Radio Tarana is the pulse of the Indian community. It acts as the connection for the Indian diaspora here to their culture, entertainment, music and information,” Khan said.

“It is more than just a radio brand; it engages with the New Zealand Indian community and not only provides a service, but has a role in growing and showcasing Indian culture in New Zealand.”

• Radio Tarana
• Full 2017 honours list

Both deputy mayor Penny Hulse and Race Relations Commissioner Dame Susan Devoy were critical in the opening session about communities that were rendered “invisible” and challenged the media to give a more balanced reflection of the diversity in New Zealand.

Various speakers also described most mainstream media as being biased in its representations of Māori communities and failure to live up to the obligations of the 1840 Treaty of Waitangi partnership.

Several speakers were critical of the “whiteness” of the country’s major newsrooms, saying they did not “represent the face of Auckland today”.

But the strongest criticisms came in a panel addressing the theme “ethnic communities and their representation by mainstream and ethnic media” facilitated by broadcaster Wallace Chapman and featuring both mainstream journalists and community commentators.

Agricultural researcher Dr Mustafa Farouk, chairman of the Federations of Islamic Associations of New Zealand (FIANZ), cited research in both Britain and New Zealand that indicated news media coverage about Islam and Muslims was overwhelmingly negative (ranging between 90 percent and 70 percent).

Asked by a member of the audience how long had this gone on for, he replied: “Ever since 9/11”, in reference to the September 11, 2001, attack on New York’s Twin Towers by jihadists.

Muslim diversity
Dr Farouk stressed the diversity of New Zealand’s Muslim population at just over 46,000, noting that a quarter of them were born in this country. Of the overseas Muslims, 21 percent were from the Pacific, 27 percent Asian and 23 percent African or Middle East origin, with the balance being Māori or European.

New Zealand Herald’s social issues reporter Simon Collins and diversity, ethnic affairs and immigration reporter Lincoln Tan commented on how mainstream media could improve the quality of their reporting with greater diversity among news teams.

Both journalists were complimented on their own contribution to reporting ethnic affairs.

Several speakers acknowledged that there had been an improvement in recent years but there was still a long way to go.

Jenny Rankine, co-founder of Kupu Taea: Media and the Tiriti research project, advised seminar participants to “ignore mainstream media” and “tell your own story through ethnic and social media”.

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