Veteran journalist and editor Stanley Simpson has spoken about the enduring power of storytelling and its role in shaping Fiji’s identity.

Reflecting on his journey at the launch of FijiNikua, a magazine launched by Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka on Christmas Eve, Simpson shared personal anecdotes of growing up in Savusavu, a place he described as a hub of vibrant storytelling.

“I grew up listening to stories that were humorous, serious, tragic, and enlightening,” he said.

• READ MORE: A very difficult 2 years, says PM
• New magazine Fiji Nikua to bring back in-depth journalism and story telling

“These stories instilled values, kept the community together, and reminded us of our principles and identity.”

The launch of FijiNikua is the culmination of years of dedication to the craft of journalism and magazine production.

“This is the fifth magazine I’ve had the privilege of editing. I love the way magazines provide the space to tell stories, no matter how long they may be.”

His career in publishing began in 2006 when he left a secure position at UNDP to pursue a dream.

Storytelling dream ‘persisted’
Teaming up with journalist Imraz Iqbal, they launched Fiji Living magazine, driven by a passion for telling stories that mattered. However, their vision faced challenges during the political unrest later that year, resulting in attacks on their office and colleagues.

“Despite the pain and chaos, the dream of storytelling persisted.”

That resilience led him to helm Mai Life Magazine, producing award-winning journalism that uncovered corruption, celebrated community triumphs and addressed pressing social issues.

In his speech, he expressed gratitude to Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka and the coalition government for their role in repealing the MIDA Act, paving the way for greater media freedom.

“For 16 years, our media landscape was constrained. We cannot let this moment pass without leaving a strong legacy of free spirit and free speech for future generations.”

As general secretary of the Fiji Media Association, Simpson announced initiatives to establish a journalism institute and Press Club and revealed that Savusavu will host the Pacific Media Summit in 2026, inviting regional media to converge and celebrate the power of storytelling.

“FijiNikua is more than just a magazine; it’s a platform for meaningful stories.

“In an era dominated by social media and short-form content, this magazine offers a space for complete, in-depth narratives that inspire and connect us.”

The launch event closed with a call to action, inviting all Fijians to embrace and support FijiNikua as a platform for stories that define and reflect the heart of the nation.

Republished from The Fiji Times with permission.

Sorry Palestinian women and children. It seems Australia’s leading women’s media company has more pressing issues to cover than the seemingly endless human rights atrocities committed against you.

It’s been seven months of almost complete silence from Mamamia and their most popular writers and podcast hosts.

I’ve respected and appreciated their work in the past, which is why it’s truly disheartening to see.

• READ MORE: As Israel bombs Gaza, sirens echo in West Bank marking 76 years since Nakba
• Photo Gallery: From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free
• Fiji abstains from new UN vote on Palestinian membership bid
• 1000 protest in Auckland over Israel’s war on Gaza, honour Nakba victims
• Other War on Gaza reports

Mamamia Out Loud has found time and scope to speak about me personally in two recent episodes (both sadly devoid of context and riddled with inaccuracies) yet can’t seem to find the words to report on or reflect on the man made famine in Gaza.

The murdered and orphaned children. The women having c-sections with no anaesthesia. The haunting screams from mothers hugging their lifeless babies bodies for the last time.

Faux feminism? Or is it all still “too complex”? I can’t answer that, except to say it’s dispiriting and disappointing to witness given Mamamia’s tagline.

What we’re talking about
Because Gaza is what millions of Australian women “are actually talking about”. It’s what’s waking countless Australian women up at night. It’s what’s making Australian women tremble in tears watching children’s body parts dug out from beneath the rubble.

Mamamia’s audience is being let down, they deserve better.

As for the innocent women and girls of Palestine — tragically “let down” doesn’t even begin to describe it. They deserve so much more.

I’m utterly heartbroken witnessing such disregard for their lives.

So I fixed the Mamamia headline in the above photo.

Antoinette Lattouf is an Australian-Lebanese journalist, host, author and diversity advocate. She has worked with a range of mainstream media, and as a social commentator for various online and broadcast publications. This commentary was first published on her Facebook page.

When Bauer Media announced the closure of its New Zealand magazine operation just a week into level 4 lockdown in early April, things looked ominous for local media. Revenues and newsrooms were already contracting. It was hard to see things improving.

However, while the full picture is still unclear, it seems most of New Zealand’s TV, radio and print outlets have come through the covid-19 crisis bruised and battered — but alive. Sadly, an estimated 637 media jobs have disappeared in the process.

In short, 2020 has left the New Zealand media market profoundly restructured.

• READ MORE: The sociology of a pandemic: Countering a COVID ‘disinfodemic’ with a campus media initiative – Pacific Journalism Review
• Weathering the covid-19 media storm in NZ

Perhaps most significantly, as the 10th New Zealand Media Ownership Report shows, there are now more independent news outlets in the market than at any time in the past decade.

That trend was underscored by Australian Nine Entertainment selling (for NZ$1) its New Zealand subsidiary Stuff to CEO Sinead Boucher. The sale returned the country’s largest digital news platform and 12 national and regional newspapers to local ownership.

The magazine massacre
Many of these structural changes in the country’s media might have happened anyway, but the pandemic certainly accelerated some decisions.

A case in point was Bauer. The company blamed its closure on “the severe economic impact of covid-19”, but it had been facing declining advertising revenue well before the pandemic hit. This was made worse when magazines were not included among essential goods and services during the lockdown in March and April.

Bauer also closed titles in Australia, but in June the company’s Australasian magazines were sold to Australian private equity group Mercury Capital. The new owner resumed publication of Woman’s Day, New Zealand Woman’s Weekly, Australian Women’s Weekly NZ, Your Home & Garden, NZ Listener and Kia Ora.

Later, flagship current affairs titles North & South and Metro were sold to independent publishers and relaunched in November.

#BREAKING Bauer Media is set to close —the publisher of the Listener, Woman’s Day, NZ Woman’s Weekly, North & South is closing its doors permanently.https://t.co/wxDykUxLB5

— nzherald (@nzherald) April 1, 2020

A government lifeline
You might say the country’s media survived the pandemic with a little help from friends — and even frenemies: the government, readers and Google.

In April, the government announced a $50 million media crisis support package — the lion’s share went to broadcasting.

• READ MORE: Funding public interest journalism requires creative solutions. A tax rebate for news media could work
  
• Courting the chameleon: how the US election reveals Rupert Murdoch’s political colours
• Misinformation on social media fuels vaccine hesitancy: a global study shows the link
  

But most of the country’s news outlets received support from the government’s wage subsidy scheme, including NZ Media and Entertainment (NZME) and Stuff, the two largest print and online news publishers.

Without that government support it’s clear many news outlets would have been more severely affected. The NZ Herald received $8.6 million in wage subsidy and Stuff $6.2 million. State-owned broadcaster TVNZ received $5.9 million and the private equity-owned MediaWorks $3.6 million.

The scheme also kept many smaller digital news outlets afloat, and some even expanded.

The Google factor
Some news outlets received additional funding from Google’s Journalism Emergency Relief Fund — slightly ironic, given the impact of the digital giant on traditional media advertising revenues (hence the “frenemy” tag).

A total of 76 news organisations across the Pacific benefited from Google’s “short-term relief”. While smaller publishers welcomed it, the money spent per outlet was unlikely to make any serious dent in Google’s budget — it was more a gesture of goodwill.

For example, Queenstown-based non-profit media outlet Crux received $5000. To put that in context, in the first half of 2020 search engines — mainly Google — received $361 million in digital advertising revenue in New Zealand, along with the social media platforms gobbling up 72 percent of the country’s total digital advertising spend.

For its part, Google says it has done more for the country’s journalism than providing financial aid, and has “trained almost 600 journalists in dozens of newsrooms across the country”.

Higher traffic and increased donations
News companies also got by with a little help from their readers during the pandemic. The NZ Herald reported “overall print-digital readership […] at record levels and newspaper readership [at] its highest in almost a decade”.

Independent digital news outlets Newsroom and The Spinoff also reported spikes in readership and donations or subscriptions. Web analytics confirm overall news site traffic increased quite substantially during the pandemic.

According to data analysts SimilarWeb, total visits to the NZ Herald website grew from 36.5 million in May to 46.4 million in August. Similarly, total visits to the Stuff site went from 39.7 million in May to 43 million in August, while The Spinoff grew from 2.4 million in May to 2.9 million in July.

These positive developments were offset by plenty of negatives, however. Many commercial newsrooms shrank substantially, with hundreds of jobs lost. The full effects of the pandemic will not be known for some time, and what the industry will look like in 12 months is hard to predict.

What is clear, though, is that more government support will be needed in the coming years if New Zealand wants a healthy media system as part of its democracy.

Dr Merja Myllylahti is co-director of JMAD Research Centre, Auckland University of Technology. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence. Read the original article.

A new Fiji magazine published by a New Zealand-based media collective made its debut this weekend to mark Fiji’s 50th Independence Day anniversary.

The first monthly edition of Fiji Dynamics was launched yesterday, 10th October 2020 – Fiji Day.

The editorial team is made up of senior Fiji journalists and media personalities who now live and work in Aotearoa-New Zealand.

• READ MORE: Children recreate the Deed of Cession to mark 50 years of freedom – The Fiji Times
• Graham Davis: Happy 5oth Independence Day, Fiji

Fiji Dynamics aims to help inspire and further enhance the rich diversity of New Zealand’s multicultural communities.

One of the organisers, Rachael Mario, from the Whānau Community Centre, is delighted at having a place for community groups to share their stories.

“By promoting our views, identity and culture, ths magazine will unite our communities, and help inspire our youth,” she said.

“The new magazine reflects and defines the Fiji community. With this being Fiji’s 50th anniversary of independence, and also Fijian Language week, it makes this even more special.”

One of the articles published in this inaugural edition, was this reflection below by Professor Steven Ratuva, director of the Macmillan Brown Pacific Centre for Pacific Studies at the University of Canterbury:

REFLECTIONS FOR THE PAST 50 YEARS: FIJI’S CHALLENGES AND HOPES

By Professor Steven Ratuva

I vividly remember that memorable day, 10 October 2970, as a young village boy attending Yale Dustrict School in Kadavu, when the British flag was lowered for the last time and the new sky blue Fijian flag with its colourful design was hoisted amid the cheers and tears.

It was a moment of youthful hope and optimism, and now 50 years later, I am reminiscing and reflecting on a journey so full of intrigue and challenges as well as resilience and hope.

Governments and constitutions have come and gone, either through democratic elections or illegal use of force, but Fiji as a collective of ordinary people living their ordinary lives, remain the cornerstone of hope in a country scarred by ethno-political tension, economic inequality, contestation of power by competing groups and abuse of authority by leaders.

Since independence, Fiji underwent a multicultural experiment under Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara, which saw two main contending forces, communal nationalism (ethnic and cultural groups demanding attention) and civic nationalism (unity and common identity) competing for supremacy in syncretic and complex ways.

There were moments of contractions and accommodation taking place simultaneously and by and large there was a sense of equilibrium until the first coup in 1987 when communal nationalism expressed itself in a seriously violent way with the help of the military.

This was repeated in 2000. While the 2006 coup was meant to reverse the trend using the fallacious “clean-up” narrative, it merely entrenched an ethno-business and political patronage under the tutelage of an all-powerful despotic clique.

The neoliberal reforms which followed have led to the dysfunction of the civil service, accumulation of crippling debt, nepotism and the formation of an ethnic clique system operating under the guise of “merit” and “de-ethnicisation”, which undermines the spirit of multiculturalism, equity and diversity.

Despite these setbacks, the sense of shared resilience and collective benevolence of the people is a reason why we have not had an ethnic civil war as we have seen in Rwanda, Solomon Islands, Bosnia and Sudan.

• Read the full article at Fiji Dynamics

Iconic New Zealand magazine titles NZ Woman’s Weekly and the NZ Listener will resume publication immediately, with Bauer Media’s titles officially sold to an Australian investment company.

The magazine titles have been officially taken over by Mercury Capital.

The Sydney-based company has taken ownership of magazine titles Woman’s Day, New Zealand Woman’s Weekly, The Australian Women’s Weekly NZ, Your Home & Garden, the NZ Listener and Air New Zealand’s magazine Kia Ora.

READ MORE: Media suffer ‘devastating’ blows on both sides of the Tasman

Mercury Capital has sold North and South and Metro to independent publishers, which will resume publication “as soon as possible”.

North & South is going to independent publishers Konstantin Richter and Verena Friederike Hasel, while Metro has been sold to Simon Chesterman.

In April, Bauer Media announced it was shutting its New Zealand operations at a loss of 237 jobs.

The future of the remaining titles, NEXT, Taste, Fashion Quarterly, HOME and Simply You are being assessed.

40 editorial jobs
Mercury Capital said it would resume publishing immediately and about 40 local editorial and advertising jobs will be created.

Bauer ANZ chief executive Brendon Hill said: “I am delighted to see the return of some of New Zealand’s most loved titles and thrilled that this allows us to bring back a talented group of editorial and advertising staff to resume the publishing of these brands.

“The return of our New Zealand operation is a green shoot during a challenging time and hopefully a sign of more positive news to come in the local media industry. We had always remained hopeful that we would be able to resume operations – the easing of Covid-19 restrictions and a more promising advertising market has allowed us to do that.

“As conditions improve, we hope to continue to expand our NZ operations.

“I’d like to thank our loyal readers, staff, clients and the broader industry for their support during this period.”

The business will continue to trade under the Bauer name in New Zealand and Australia while a rebrand is underway, with the new brand and strategy set to be announced in the coming months.

Subscribers that have missed issues of the titles that are resuming will have these added to their subscriptions. Delivery of magazines will resume in early September.

This article is republished by the Pacific Media Centre under a partnership agreement with RNZ.

After 81 years of publication, The NZ Listener, one of the Bauer Media stable of publications, closed last month when the Germany-based publisher shut down its New Zealand operation. In this article, Jeremy Rees reflects on the report of a Commission of Inquiry that investigated a decision by the Board of the New Zealand Broadcasting Corporation on 25 July 1972 to terminate the editorship of Alexander MacLeod with three months’ pay, effective immediately. The Listener had only had three editors since its launch as a broadcasting guide in 1939. Its founder Oliver Duff and successor Monty Holcroft, the revered editor of 18 years, built it up as a magazine of culture, arts and current events on top of its monopoly of listings of radio and television programmes. Both men managed to establish a sturdy independence for the magazine which was still the official journal of the New Zealand Broadcasting Service, later to become the New Zealand Broadcasting Corporation.

Five years ago, when I left The New Zealand Herald after 15 years employment, I decided I would leave carrying my belongings packed in a brown cardboard box.

It is not quite as odd as it sounds now. One of the most common images after the Global Financial Crisis was employees leaving the office with their belongings packed in a distinctive box. You can search it now.

Enron? There are the employees leaving with cardboard boxes. Lehman Brothers? The same cardboard box. Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae? Same thing. Every time I looked at press agency photos of people leaving work, I looked for the cardboard box.

So, when I left the Herald for another job in 2015, I bought myself the cardboard box and packed up my few things. I said goodbye to colleagues, had a drink or two and then picked up the box, took it home and stored it in the attic.

Some years later, I found it. It didn’t look how I remembered. On the outside was written in felt pen, “Library, bin”. I had picked up the wrong one. Inside were dozens of unwanted and browning reports from the 1960 and 1970s. My box was long gone to the landfill. I had the reports even the Herald Library didn’t want.

During the Covid-19 lockdown, I climbed into the attic to toss it out. But, curious and with a bit of time to kill, I decided to pick one report to see if it was interesting. I picked out the 1972 Report of the Commission of Inquiry into the Dismissal of the Editor of the New Zealand Listener.

On 25 July 1972, the Board of the New Zealand Broadcasting Corporation decided to terminate the editorship of Alexander MacLeod, with three months’ pay, effective immediately. The Listener had only had three editors since its launch as a broadcasting guide in 1939. Its founder Oliver Duff and successor Monty Holcroft, the revered editor of 18 years, built it up as a magazine of culture, arts and current events on top of its monopoly of listings of radio and television programmes. Both men managed to establish a sturdy independence for the magazine which was still the official journal of the New Zealand Broadcasting Service, later to become the New Zealand Broadcasting Corporation.

So, the dismissal of the editor was a sizable event.

Straight away, news reports raised the possibility of political interference.

Turbulent year
The year 1972 was a turbulent one. It was the year of Nixon in China, anti-Vietnam War protests. In New Zealand, the Holyoake years were ending, the electorate tired of National after 12 years; there were protests about the impending 1973 Springbok tour. On all these issues, MacLeod was a liberal. His editorials would later be characterised as “idealistic liberalism”.

Some of his editorials worried the board. They thought they lacked “balance”.

By all accounts, MacLeod was a good journalist, but Te Ara Encyclopedia of New Zealand  describes him as “erratic”. He had been recruited from England to replace Holcroft and immediately increased The Listener’s foreign coverage. Witnesses praised his literary ability. He took his weekly editorial very seriously as a public figure.

At the same time, the board had been warned of some troubling dealings with staff. The Public Service Association forwarded staff complaints about him. There was a falling out with a “sub-editor in Auckland”. In another incident, MacLeod objected to the choice of the “Listener Appointments Committee” (one of three Listener committees cited in the report) of a new “Listener Secretary/Typiste”. He threatened to give her no work if she was hired. She didn’t stay long.

Into this volatile mix was thrown a magazine redesign. The “Listener Sales Committee” (another committee) wanted change to arrest circulation declines, maybe even a change of direction. It had discussed the possibility of running a little less culture and current events and a bit more entertainment and listings, like the BBC’s Radio Times. It proposed a “popular magazine of good quality and not subject to criticism over controversial editorials”. Did it really need an editorial? The board said it would consider it.

In early July, the NZBC Board formally asked its editor for his thoughts on the editorials. It invited him to the meeting of July 25 to discuss the matter.

The result was unexpected and fateful.

Oddly rambling missive
A week before the meeting, MacLeod sent the board a letter. Ostensibly setting out his views on editorials, it is an oddly rambling missive, setting out a series of complaints, among them that the Director-General of Broadcasting had not acted properly according to the Listener Staff Manual in a staff dispute.

MacLeod goes on to say that he does not wish to speak to the board about editorials; he only wants to be heard if the board decides to drop them. The later commission report pointed out it was not quite clear if he was coming to the July 25 meeting or not.

Certainly, the board thought he was. It was one of the first items of business. The board duly convened at 11 am, on the floor above The Listener editor’s office.

At 11.20 am, the board’s secretary rang MacLeod’s secretary and asked that he come up. The editor rang back to say he was busy. He said he had indicated he couldn’t come. At 11.35 am, the chairman asked the secretary to ring again. He got through and asked him to come up. MacLeod again said no. He had had no notice of the meeting, he had no wish to speak, he couldn’t leave his desk as The Listener was going to press in two hours. At 11.45 am, the editor wrote a note to the chairman. “I am short of staff and my presence here is absolutely required. No disrespect is intended, it is merely for professional reasons I cannot leave.” He went on to say that he had had his say in his letter and only needed to talk to the board if it “did certain things”.

At 12.55 pm the board wrote a note to the editor directing him to come at 2.30 pm. MacLeod did not see it at first; he had gone to a lunch meeting of the New Zealand Institute of International Affairs to hear the speaker. When he found it, he wrote another letter to the board upstairs. “I regret that for reasons I have already explained—namely that this is a press day and my chief sub-editor and chief reporter are both absent—it will not be possible to attend.”

(The chief Subeditor gave evidence to the commission that the editor had given him the rest of the day off and said he could handle the magazine himself.)

At 2.50 pm, the board secretary rang the editor and, in effect, told him to get up to the board now. The secretary said he told the editor to “drop everything” and “come right up”. In the language of the commission he was told that the direction to attend was “absolute and unqualified”. MacLeod replied, he couldn’t right now but he could come at 4 pm.

Telephoned their lawyers
At some point in all these to-ings and fro-ings, Mrs MacLeod came to the office for two hours and she and her husband telephoned their lawyers.

By mid-afternoon, the board had had enough.

At that point the board passed a motion: “the employment of Mr A J MacLeod, editor, New Zealand Listener, be terminated on three months’ notice.”

And it resolved he be relieved of his duties forthwith.

Into this fraught moment, dropped one last letter from MacLeod downstairs. He said his editorial duties should have passed by 4 pm: “This is to confirm my availability.”

Such a dramatic action was always going to make headlines and raise questions. A few weeks later, the National Government of “Gentleman Jack” Marshall ordered a Commission of Inquiry under Ernest Albert Lee, OBE, a retired Christchurch judge, perhaps best known for his work in getting the Totalisator Agency Board (TAB) established. He was to determine if the board had acted properly and if was there any political interference.

One by one, the board members gave evidence to the inquiry that they had lost confidence in MacLeod. In different ways, they felt he was challenging their authority and had to go. One felt that there would only be ‘chaos’ if officers could ignore the board.

Letters, notes respectful
MacLeod’s lawyers claimed the editor’s letters and notes to the board were at all times respectful. And anyway, they asked, why couldn’t the Director-General of Broadcasting, who was at the meeting, just walk downstairs and talk to MacLeod, rather than summoning him repeatedly?

Commissioner Lee found that the editor’s behaviour was “completely inexcusable”.

“He obviously had made up his mind…. he would go in his own time.”

Lee found that MacLeod had enough time to go to a lunch meeting, have his wife in the office for two hours, write notes to the board, ring his solicitor and give his chief sub half a day off, but couldn’t walk up the stairs to talk about editorials.

“It seems to me that it was not the editor’s privilege to decide if he would go or not.” And as for the board going down to see the editor, there was no reason at all for them to “go cap-in-hand” to an employee.

But was the board influenced by politics?

Commissioner Lee was attracted to the somewhat tortured argument that the board could not have been political because if it was it wouldn’t have done something as stupid as sacking a liberal editor just months before the 1972 General Election.

Political affiliations snapshot
Interestingly, he does provide a snapshot of the political affiliations of the NZBC Board.
First up its chair, Major-General Walter McKinnon, who had just retired as the NZ Military’s Chief of General Staff. He was also the father of the McKinnon siblings who have been prominent in politics, diplomacy and public life. Don McKinnon was the Deputy Prime Minister under Jim Bolger and a former Secretary-General of the Commonwealth.

Commissioner Lee finds that the chairman bent over backwards on July 25 to ask the editor to attend but as to politics, he had little interest. “He made a small annual payment to an electorate branch of the National Party but had never participated in any political activity.”

Another member, Mrs McNab, had been active for National for 20 years and was a Dominion Councillor. Melville Tronson had been a National Party member for “8 or 9” years and had once been asked to be a candidate but declined. B E Brill was a National Dominion Councillor and became the National MP for Kapiti as Barry Brill.

Set against that was James Collins who was non-political; his interest lay in sales marketing. The inquiry report drily points out that Collins had made just one reference to The Listener in his time on the board, when he had suggested it explore every avenue to get more radio ads. “That was the sole reference he ever made to The Listener.”

Lastly, Reverend K Ihaka had once been asked to stand for Labour in Northern Māori but said no and pointed out that he dealt with all sorts of people from different parties.

So, was the decision to sack the editor political? Definitely not, concludes Commissioner Lee. His investigation finds the board felt it was dealing with a turbulent editor, who was challenging their authority by refusing to appear. He finds no direct evidence of interference.

But it’s hard not to escape MacLeod’s counter-argument in the commission report. The board may have acted with no political intent, but the editor believed his job was becoming politicised. MacLeod’s view seems to have been that great issues of war, racism and politics were being debated in the country and The New Zealand Listener had to be in the centre of them. The board said it never interfered in Listener editorials but it had also become concerned about “balance”.

Government ownership a problem
At least part of the problem seems to have stemmed from the government ownership of a magazine which dealt with current affairs. Throughout the commission, board members question how The Listener sat within the 1961 Broadcasting Act which demanded equitable, balanced reporting on radio and television. They were often exercised how their magazine could have opinionated editorials when radio and TV didn’t.

A year earlier, the “Listener Committee” (the third committee of The Listener mentioned to the inquiry) wrote a report to MacLeod saying The Listener had to maintain balance “along the same lines as the corporation is required by statute to follow in the its broadcast programmes”.

And just a month before the July board meeting, the Listener Committee had met (along with MacLeod) to discuss ways to make the paper more popular and to criticise “the controversial character of editorials”—it not being a broadcasting function to “express any particular point of view”. MacLeod said he remembered being told by a board member his editorials were “politically embarrassing” to the NZBC.

Board members told the inquiry they could recall conversations about some of MacLeod’s editorials. General McKinnnon remembered phoning MacLeod to offer information about the Vietnam War for which the editor he said was “grateful”. MacLeod, on the other hand, claimed McKinnon rang him after every anti-Vietnam War editorial, I “have no hesitation in saying…pressures were exerted”.

MacLeod remembered every discussion of an editorial; General McKinnon felt they were hardly discussed by the board all.

Things weren’t helped by a cover story on the impending Springbok tour showing some All Blacks with the headline, “No tour”. MacLeod said the Director-General of Broadcasting objected to it as “politically slanted journalism”.

Furthermore, MacLeod had angered the NZBC by suggesting in an editorial it had caved in to political pressure to “balance” a news report on losses in Vietnam. His editorial was thought disloyal to colleagues in the NZBC.

A sensitive time
All of this came at a sensitive time when the government was discussing whether to allow a second TV channel.

Perhaps, a different man may have handled all this differently. In his writings presented to the Commission of Inquiry, MacLeod comes across as a prickly and difficult cove. And the pressure seems to have crystallised in his mind around his editorial freedom. Commissioner Lee rather harshly calls it his “blind jealousy of his editorial role”.

So how independent could an editor be, especially the editor of a publicly funded magazine? The commission sort several views. One of its oddities is that MacLeod seemed to find his greatest support from experts outside the media, particularly a Victoria University business professor with the wonderful name of Stewart Wilfred Nivison Ransom. His argument appears to be that editors are likely to be single-minded, ambitious and aggressive, so harmonious relations with boards are unlikely. If there was conflict with the Broadcasting Act then maybe the act should be changed—or ignored.

At this point, Commissioner Lee grants Ransom his own exclamation mark of disapproval, the only one in the report!

Much more to his liking was the evidence of former New Zealand Herald editor, Orton Sutherland Hintz. He quotes him approvingly at length (although with a Christchurch judge’s knowledge of the media north of the Waimakariri he refers to Hintz’s paper as the “Auckland Herald”). Hintz argued that editorial independence was not absolute, that it is set by the direction of the proprietor or the board. And that editorials are not the view of the editor alone; they represent the view of the journal. In other words, the editor and an editorial are subject to the board’s policies.

If an editor received a directive from the board, they had three options; put it into effect, resign, or refuse and be dismissed. Hintz was firm; the board had the absolute right to keep an eye on the content of The Listener.

He did not believe the number of times the board sought to speak to MacLeod about his editorials was excessive.

The commissioner’s verdict
In the end, the Commission of Inquiry found completely in favour of the board.
Sitting on a box in my attic marked “Library. Bin”, I read the conclusions. They have the rhythm of a tumbril drumbeat.

Did the New Zealand Broadcasting Corporation act properly in dismissing Alexander Joseph MacLeod as editor? The answer, said Commissioner Lee, was Yes.

Was any political interference or influence brought to bear on the corporation in making its decision? The answer was No.

Was the corporation influenced by any political consideration? The answer again No.

The report was delivered to His Excellency Sir Edward Denis Blundell, Knight Grand Cross of the Most Distinguished Order of Saint Michael and Saint Gorge, Knight Commander of the most Excellent Order of the British Empire, Governor-General and Commander-in-Chief in and over New Zealand on the 13th day of October 1972. And that was largely that.

The country was in the midst of an election; six weeks later National’s long reign was ended by Norman Kirk’s Labour. Within a few months Kirk withdrew New Zealand troops from Vietnam, recognised China and ended the proposed 1973 Springbok tour.

Some 48 years later, reading a brown cardboard box of old reports, I haven’t been able to get one image out of my head. It’s like a film shot of a building with the outer wall removed to show the floors. On one floor, the Board of the New Zealand Broadcasting Corporation. One floor below, an editor, joined occasionally by his wife, putting The Listener to bed and steadfastly refusing to walk upstairs to defend editorials.

Jeremy Rees is a journalist of some 30 years experience. Currently an executive editor at Radio New Zealand, he has been a former editor of the Weekend Herald and editor of nzherald.co.nz This article has been published by the Pacific Media Centre’s Asia Pacific Report by arrangement with Pacific Journalism Review.

• Report of the Commission of Inquiry into the Dismissal of the Editor of the New Zealand Listener. (1972). Report by E A Lee. Wellington, NZ: Government Printer.
  
• The New Zealand Listener, 1939-2020

Media on both sides of the Tasman face apocalyptic times as the Covid-19 coronavirus pandemic decimates the industry with Bauer Media NZ closing its doors and host of regional – 23 at the moment – Australian papers being shut down.

Add to that, the imminent closure of the Australian Associated Press on June 26 – although that had nothing to do with the virus – and there is not much to be optimistic about in the industry.

READ MORE: Bauer Media closures – so many livelihoods, so much destruction

“NZ journalism must not be left to languish. The sudden closure of Bauer Media NZ is devastating for New Zealand journalism and for the publics which depend on it in this time of national crisis,” said Dr Greg Treadwell, president of the Journalism Education Association New Zealand (JEANZ) in a statement issued yesterday, which was co-signed by Dr Tara Ross, head of journalism at the University of Canterbury and Charles Riddle, principal academic staff member, journalism, at Wintec.

“Iconic magazine titles that have been household names, some for generations, were today shut down, with the Covid-19 crisis blamed for the closures.

“Among the pages consigned to history today was the work of some of the country’s pre-eminent journalists. The implications for New Zealand democracy are serious.”

He described it as numerous blows to the media industry.

Essential industry reeling
“These closures have impacted an essential industry already reeling with multiple structural and commercial failures.

“Redundancies are under way or reportedly mooted for other major media companies in New Zealand.

“The Journalism Education Association of New Zealand urges the New Zealand government to keep public-affairs journalism at the forefront of its thinking as it moves to support New Zealanders during the Covid-19 crisis,” Dr Treadwell said.

Meanwhile, in Australia the Journalism, Education and Research Association (JERAA) has joined the Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance (MEAA) in calling on the government to provide $40 million emergency funding from the Regional and Small Publishers Jobs and Innovation Package as a survival fund to keep regional and rural newspapers alive during the coronavirus crisis.

“I think that is a really important thing in Australia right now, New Zealand suffers from this as well,” Dr Treadwell said.

“But I completely understand our Australian colleagues calling on the government to support their community newspapers because they suffer from news deserts there, not just physical ones, but news deserts where whole communities have no local papers.

“This is happening in New Zealand as well, our community newspapers that are around here need to operate during the lockdown.

‘Dreadful state’
“I do think the New Zealand community newspaper scene is in a dreadful state.”

As, for Australia, in a statement JERAA said Saffron Howden’s evolving map of Australia showed 23 closed newspapers including the Sunraysia Daily, The Guardian – Swan Hill, Gannawarra Times, Loddon Times, Barrier Daily Truth, Yarram Standard, Great Southern Star, Latrobe Valley Express, Star News Group, Maryborough District Advertiser, Gulf Chronicle, North Central News, Shepparton News, New South Western Standard, Cape and Torres News, The Bunyip, Bairnsdale Advertiser, Warragul and Drouin Gazette.

In addition, JERAA also noted News Corp Australia’s decision to suspend the printing of 60 community titles in New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland and South Australia from April 9.

While these publications will continue to publish digital news, the loss of print products will be an accessibility issue in regions with aging populations or limited internet access, the JERAA statement said.

Dr Treadwell called on the government to support New Zealand’s community newspapers.
He expressed sympathy for the Kaiatia-based Northland Age and its editor Peter Jackson, which has closed after 116-years.

“The idea of the Northland Age no longer publishing is heart-breaking, the government needs to act, it’s not as if you can off a newspaper and turn it back on again,” he said.

In the JEANZ statement, he said: “While we commend the change that will allow community papers to publish during the national lockdown, the government should also make plans to ensure all New Zealanders continue to get high-quality information in the coming months.

“Not only will we need strong science and environment reporting, we will need in-depth, long-form and even creative journalism to tell the complex stories that will arise from this pandemic.

“A well-informed public will be essential. An adequately resourced news media, across both public and private sectors, is also critical in the current state of emergency, given the dramatically increased powers the state has at its disposal.”

Pacific facing crisis too
Pacific Media Centre director Professor David Robie, who is also deeply concerned about the impending crisis for many Pacific Islands media groups, said his response to the closures in Australia and New Zealand was “in a word – devastated”.

“The media in many respects has been dying a slow death, certainly in print. And although we have a number of small yet successful start-up digital media ventures, we have witnessed the gradual decline of quality media overall in New Zealand,” he said.

“In one foul swoop, a foreign-owned corporate, Bauer Media, has been allowed to destroy the heart of New Zealand’s magazine industry. And there has been barely a whimper.

“We no longer even have a strong media union – such as Australia has with the MEAA to stage at least some semblance of a defence. I find it quite outrageous that a German company can do this, one that has just reported group profits back home – just dump a cluster of NZ cultural icons in publishing with such titles as Metro, the Listener and NZ Woman’s Weekly with their long and proud histories.

“Especially when we are led to believe that the government tried to intervene and offered substantial financial support to keep the company going. One suspects that Bauer were planning to scuttle the magazines anyway and the pandemic simply provided the pretext.”

Dr Robie said he believed all media in New Zealand should have been treated as “essential services” – especially in this “so-called post-truth era when we are faced with an avalanche on lies, disinformation and fake news”.

“Many among the general public don’t know what to believe any more. We need more quality media with a trusted pedigree, not less.

“And community publications identified closely with their neighbourhoods and ethnic and diasporic media are also vitally important in our democracy. Closing or silencing of media inevitably weakens the robustness of our democracy.”

Apart from Bauer Media, the Northland Age and Radio Sport, Mediaworks has asked staff to take a 15 percent pay cut, Television New Zealand has frozen payrates, NZME is calling redundancies and Stuff staff have been warned to expect a cull.

• Newscorp Australia warns of coronavirus job cuts

The publisher of some of New Zealand’s best known magazines has folded amid the economic fallout from the national coronavirus pandemic lockdown.

Bauer Media, which publishes The Listener, Woman’s Day, New Zealand Woman’s Weekly, Metro, North and South and Next, says it is no longer viable and has shut its doors today.

Chief executive Brendon Hill said the Covid-19 lockdown had stopped magazine production and put the business in an untenable position.

READ MORE: Al Jazeera coronavirus live updates – Global cases surpass 900,000

He said magazines depended on advertising and it was unlikely that would recover to pre-crisis levels.

Business advisory firm EY has been appointed to work on an orderly wind-down of the business, and buyers are being sought for the magazines.

New Zealand Bauer staff were told this morning of the closure.

Hill said local staff would get full redundancy and other entitlements.

‘Devastating blow’
“This is a devastating blow for our committed and talented team who have worked tirelessly to inform and entertain New Zealanders, through some of the country’s best-loved and most-read magazines.”

Bauer carried out an urgent review of its New Zealand operations and considered all options to keep part or all the business open, including engaging with the New Zealand government, Hill said.

“An active search is underway to find buyers for our New Zealand assets, including our many iconic titles, however, so far an alternative owner has not been found,” he said.

At her daily coronavirus briefing, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said she was “frankly gutted” to hear Bauer Media’s decision to close its doors today without seeking government assistance.

Describing the titles published by Bauer as part of New Zealand’s history, Ardern said the government actively sought to assist Bauer through this time.

She said Bauer rejected the government’s aid.

“Minister Kris Faafoi spoke to them and asked if they could take up the wage subsidy. They refused.

“In my view, from what I know of this situation, this appears to be a decision that has been made at the same time as Covid-19, but not because of it.”

This article is republished by the Pacific Media Centre under a partnership agreement with RNZ.

• If you have symptoms of the coronavirus, call the NZ Covid-19 Healthline on 0800 358 5453 (+64 9 358 5453 for international SIMs) or call your GP – don’t show up at a medical centre.
• Bauer Media closures: So many livelihoods, so much devastation – Opinion by Joanne Black

With just weeks to go, polls show Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders is edging ahead of front-runner Hillary Clinton in the primary season’s first two contests in the United States.

Numbers released this week give Sanders a five-point lead over Clinton in Iowa and a four-point lead in New Hampshire.

Sanders has also narrowed Clinton’s once commanding lead nationwide, pulling within seven points.

As the Democratic race tightens, The Nation magazine—the oldest continuously published weekly magazine in the United States—has issued a rare endorsement.

On Thursday, the magazine ran the editorial “Bernie Sanders for President,” saying: “[Sanders] has summoned the people to a “political revolution”, arguing that the changes our country so desperately needs can only happen when we wrest our democracy from the corrupt grip of Wall Street bankers and billionaires.

“We believe such a revolution is not only necessary but possible—and that’s why we’re endorsing Bernie Sanders for president.”

This marks only the third time in the magazine’s 150-year history that it has endorsed a candidate in the Democratic primary.

Katrina vanden Heuvel, editor and publisher of The Nation magazine, joins Democracy Now! to discuss.

Democracy Now! is an independent global television news hour that airs weekdays on the Public Broadcasting System in the US.

http://democracynow.org