Ngāti Toa Rangatira have gathered near the peak of their sacred maunga, Whitireia, to celebrate its historic return to iwi ownership.

Te Rūnanga o Toa Rangatira has purchased 53 ha of land at Whitireia — just north of Tītahi Bay — from Radio New Zealand (RNZ) for just under $5 million — adjoining an earlier settlement acquisition on the peninsula.

Ngāti Toa have waited 177 years to get the whenua back. In 1848, the iwi gifted around 202 ha to the Anglican Church in exchange for the promise of a school to be built for Ngāti Toa tamariki.

• READ MORE: Other RNZ Te Ao Māori reports

The school was never built, but the land remained in church ownership.

That prompted Wiremu Te Kakakura Parata, a Ngāti Toa rangatira and MP, to take court action against the Bishop of Wellington who argued the whenua “ought to be given back to the donors” because the promise of a school was never fulfilled.

In his 1877 judgement, Chief Justice James Prendergast ruled that the Treaty of Waitangi was a “simple nullity” signed by “primitive barbarians”. It denied Ngāti Toa ownership of their maunga for decades and set a damaging precedent for other Māori seeking the return of their land.

Ngāti Toa kuia Karanga Wineera, 96, remembers listening to her elders discuss how her people had fought to reclaim Whitireia over the decades.

She told RNZ seeing the maunga finally returned was “wonderful”.

‘Wonderful gift’
“It’s a most wonderful, wonderful gift to Ngati Toa to have Whitireia come home after so many years of fighting for Whitireia and not getting anywhere, but today, oh, it’s wonderful,” she said.

In the early 1900s, Whitireia was vested in the Porirua College Trust Board, allowing the whenua to be sold. In 1935, the New Zealand Broadcasting Service purchased 40 ha for what would become Radio 2YA, now RNZ.

Iwi members, rūnanga chiefs and representatives from police, the Anglican Church and RNZ attended a formal ceremony to commemorate the sale.

In his speech, Ngāti Toa chair Callum Katene said the deal showed what a “Te Tiriti-centric” New Zealand could look like.

“The birds still sing here at dawn, the same winds sweep the hills and carry the scent of the sea. Beneath us, the earth remembers every footprint, every prayer — Whitireia holds these memories… in this morning, as the first light spills across the harbour, we are reminded that history is not carved in stone, it is living breath,” he said.

“As we look ahead, Whitireia can shine as a beacon of hope, a reminder that reconciliation is not about reclaiming the past so much, but about realising the future envisaged in 1848 — education, faith, unity, and enduring partnership.”

The rūnanga say all existing leases, easements, and public access agreements have been transferred to them as part of the acquisition and day-to-day operations for tenants, recreational users, and visitors will not change.

Lease back for AM
They will lease back 12 ha to RNZ to continue AM transmission operations.

Ngāti Toa Rangatira had a first right of refusal on the property under the Ngāti Toa Rangatira Claims Settlement Act 2014 and Public Works Act.

Speaking to media after the ceremony, Katene said he could not speak highly enough of how “accommodating” RNZ had been during the negotiation process, but admitted there were a few “hiccups”.

“There were a few hiccups when it came to the technical details of the exchanges, there always are in these sorts of things.

“The important distinction for us is this isn’t a financial transaction, it’s not economic for us — it’s returning the land,” he said.

Asked why the land could not be gifted back free of charge, RNZ chair Jim Mather said the possibility of gifting the land back was raised during negotiations.

“The return of the land recognised that Ngāti Toa Rangatira had been compensated previously as part of the settlement and were now in a position to actually effect that transaction,” he said.

“If it was up to us as a board we would have handed it over, but we have responsibilities as governors of assets held in the interest of the public of Aotearoa.”

Breach of the Treaty
Rūnanga chief executive Helmut Modlik said while the negotiations were “principled”, there was still a “conversation” worth “revisiting” at some time.

“As everybody has admitted, the loss of this land was as a result of a breach of the Treaty, and as everybody knows, Treaty settlement processes are a take it or leave it exercise, and we weren’t able to have this whenua returned at that point,” he said.

“To me, that’s a matter of principle that’s worth a future conversation.”

Ngā uri o Wi Parata spokesperson Kahu Ropata said because Wiremu Te Kakakura Parata had had the audacity to take the case up he was discriminated against by the “Pākehā propaganda machine”.

The whānau have had to grow up with that hara (offence) against their tūpuna, he said.

“We grew up with the kōrero that it cost him his health and his wealth fighting this case.

“And so for many years, we grew up in that, I suppose, for some of my uncles and aunties, in that trauma of a loss of mana, I suppose you could say, and for a rangatira of his ilk, it would have been quite damaging knowing that he was to go to the grave and the case actually not settled in his name.”

Ropata said RNZ returning the whenua was a “great step” towards reconciliation.

“We’re still in discussions with the Anglican Church in terms of the whānau and the iwi about reconciliation and moving forward.

“Fifty-three-odd hectares, there’s still another . . .  450-odd acres that we still need to reconcile [and we’re] looking at discussions around how we can accomplish that.”

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

The recent internal report on RNZ’s performance, variously described as “scathing” and “blunt” in news coverage, caused considerable debate about the state broadcaster’s performance and priorities — not all of it fair or well informed.

The report makes several operational recommendations, including addressing RNZ National’s declining audience share by targeting the 50+ age demographic and moving key programme productions from Wellington to Auckland.

But RNZ’s diminishing linear radio audience has to be understood in the context of its overall expansion of audience reach online, and audience trends across the radio sector in general.

• READ MORE: RNZ National may have the circuit breaker it sorely needs — Gavin Ellis
• Media Insider: Scathing RNZ National radio review highlights cultural issues, recommends hiring presenters and on-air voices aligned to audience
• Other RNZ institutional reports

Total audience engagement with RNZ content on third-party platforms (including social media, YouTube and content-sharing partners who are permitted to republish RNZ material) now exceeds the reach of its radio audience.

There has also been a steady but significant decline in the daily reach of linear radio overall. NZ On Air audience research shows that in 2014, 67 percent of New Zealanders listened to linear broadcast radio every day. A decade later, this had dropped to 42 percent.

RNZ National’s share of the total 15+ audience peaked at 12 percent in 2021, following the initial pandemic period. By 2024, this had declined to 7 percent, having been overtaken by Newstalk ZB on 8 percent (also down from 9 percent in 2021).

But using comparative audience reach and ratings data to gauge the performance of a public service media operator does not capture the quality or diversity of audience engagement, or the extent to which its charter obligations are being met.

Nor do audience data reflect the positive structural role RNZ plays in supporting other media through its content-sharing model, the Local Democracy Reporting scheme or its RNZ Pacific service.

Clashing priorities
Data provided by RNZ show the decline in RNZ National’s audience to be primarily in the 60+ age groups. How much that reflects recent efforts to appeal to a more diverse demographic through changed programming formats is unclear.

The RNZ report also suggests staff are uncertain about what audiences their programmes are aiming at. If so, this could explain the departure of some older listeners.

But that doesn’t necessarily support the report’s conclusion that RNZ National should stick to its radio knitting and double down on the 50+ audience, especially in Auckland, to compete with Newstalk ZB.

In fact, prioritising the 50+ audience at the expense of a broader appeal might reinforce RNZ’s brand image as a legacy service for older listeners — a prospect its commercial rivals would doubtless welcome.

Between 2007 and 2017, RNZ was subject to a funding freeze and was pressured by successive National-led governments to justify any claim for future increases with evidence of improved performance. Its Queenstown, Tauranga and Palmerston North offices all closed during this period of austerity.

In the 2017 budget, RNZ eventually received an extra NZ$11.4 million over four years. Its statement of intent that year acknowledged funding increases were premised on achieving a wider audience and that budgets needed to make “operational expenditure available for new online initiatives and updated technology”.

Given that expanding the online arm of RNZ would affect investment in its radio service, it would be surprising if operational priorities didn’t sometimes clash. While commercial broadcasters prioritise their most lucrative demographics, public service operators have the perennial challenge of providing something for everyone.

The risk of pleasing no one
The online reach of RNZ’s website and app is now comparable to the reach of its linear broadcasts. Critics might frame that as under-performance on the radio side, but it also shows audience reach has grown beyond the older-skewing linear radio demographic.

According to RNZ’s 2024 audience research, 80 percent of New Zealanders engage with its content every month. Meanwhile, amid growing concern about declining trust in news, RNZ ranked top in the 2025 JMAD survey on trust in media.

None of this supports the narrative of a failing legacy operator that has lost its way.

Some of the issues raised in the RNZ report may simply reflect the reality of modern media management: maintaining the character, quality and demographic appeal of existing radio services while trying to reach broader demographics on new platforms.

Meeting that challenge was perhaps made more realistic when the previous Labour government increased RNZ’s baseline funding by $25.7 million in 2023. So the current government’s recent decision to cut RNZ’s budget by $18 million over the next four years represents a real setback.

RNZ’s charter obliges it to serve a diverse range of audiences, something the data show it achieves with a broad cross-section across all platforms.

If it were to now prioritise the 50+ or even 60+ radio audience at the expense of expanding online services and audience diversification, there would likely be more criticism and calls for further defunding from the broadcaster’s political and commercial enemies.

Rather like the moral of Aesop’s fable about the man, the boy and the donkey, if RNZ is expected to please everyone, it runs the risk of pleasing no one.

Dr Peter Thompson is associate professor in media and communication, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence. Read the original article.

Emotions are running high as the Hīkoi mō te Tiriti has been welcomed to Laurie Hill Park in Whangārei by mana whenua.

Thousands have arrived to support the kaupapa — young and old, tangata whenua and tangata tiriti, all to make a stand for the rights of Māori.

The crowd have joined in waiata before being addressed by rangatira.

• READ MORE: Hīkoi mō te Tiriti day one: ‘Lets make this hīkoi build a nation’
• RNZ live hīkoi news feed

An RNZ reporter at the scene says among the crowd, emotions are high and tears can be seen in some people’s eyes.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

New Zealand’s Labour Party is demanding Winston Peters be stood down as Foreign Minister for opening up the government to legal action over his “totally unacceptable” attack on a prominent AUKUS critic.

In an interview on RNZ’s Morning Report today, Peters criticised the former Australian senator Bob Carr’s views on the security partnership between Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States.

RNZ has removed the comments from the interview online after Carr, who was Australia’s foreign minister from 2012 to 2013, told RNZ he considered the remarks to be “entirely defamatory” and would commence legal action.

• READ MORE: Helen Clark on why AUKUS isn’t in New Zealand’s national interest
• Other AUKUS reports

A spokesperson for Peters told RNZ the minister would respond if he received formal notification of any such action. The Prime Minister’s Office has been contacted for comment.

Speaking to media in Auckland, opposition Labour leader Chris Hipkins said Peters’ allegations were “totally unacceptable” and “well outside his brief”.

“He’s embarrassed the country. He’s created legal risk to the New Zealand government.”

Hipkins said Prime Minister Christopher Luxon must show some leadership and stand Peters down from the role immediately.

‘Abused his office’
“Winston Peters has abused his office as minister of foreign affairs, and this now becomes a problem for the prime minister,” he said.

“Winston Peters cannot execute his duties as foreign affairs minister while he has this hanging over him.”

Labour leader Chris Hipkins on AUKUS and the legal threat.  Video: RNZ

Peters was being interviewed on Morning Report about a major foreign policy speech he delivered in Wellington last night where he laid out New Zealand’s position on AUKUS.

Hipkins told reporters he was pleased with the “overall thrust” of Peters’ speech compared to recent comments he made while visiting the US.

“I welcome him stepping back a little bit from his previous ‘rush-headlong-into-signing-up-for-AUKUS’,” Hipkins said. “That is a good thing.”

Hipkins said the government needed to be very clear with New Zealanders about what AUKUS Pillar 2 involved.

Luxon praises Peters
Speaking to media in Auckland on Thursday afternoon, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon, when asked about Peters’ comments, said as an experienced politician Carr should understand the “rough and tumble of politics”.

Luxon said he would not make the comments Peters made, and had not spoken to him about them.

Peters was doing an “exceptionally good job” as foreign minister and his comments posed no diplomatic risk, Luxon said.

Last month, Carr travelled to New Zealand to take part in a panel discussion on AUKUS, after Labour’s foreign affairs spokesperson David Parker organised a debate at Parliament.

⁦@radionz⁩ has edited the tape of NZ Foreign Minister interview this morning to remove shocking and unwarranted comments made about former Australian Foreign Minister Bob Carr: https://t.co/6f1i1M4RSW

— Helen Clark (@HelenClarkNZ) May 1, 2024

Former Labour Prime Minister Helen Clark was also on the panel, and has been highly critical of AUKUS and what she believes is the coalition government moving closer to traditional allies, in particular the United States.

Clark told Morning Report today she had contacted Carr after she heard Peters’ comments, which she also described as defamatory.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

About 25 pro-Palestinian protesters picketed the Auckland headquarters of Radio New Zealand today in the second of two demonstrations claiming that media is providing biased coverage of Israeli’s war on Gaza that is now in its fifth month.

Last week protesters directed their criticism at Television New Zealand which never reported the picket.

Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa (PSNA) secretary Neil Scott called on RNZ and other media to “tell the full truth” about the Israeli genocide in Gaza that has so far killed 30,800 people, mostly women and children.

• READ MORE: NZ news media under fire for ‘bias, propaganda’ in Gaza coverage
• US push­es ‘un­re­al­is­tic’ port plan for aid de­liv­ery as Gaza death toll ris­es
• Israeli army detains female journalist, activist in West Bank raids

At least 20 people — mostly babies and children — have been reported by Palestinian health authorities as having starved to death in the past week.

Scott said news media were providing “one-sided propaganda” in their reportage.

The protest came amid mounting criticism around the world over Western media coverage of the war and growing reports by media monitoring and research agencies of bias.

Protesters also picketed several media offices in Australian cities today, condemning coverage by the public broadcaster ABC.

‘Selective’ news
In a street placard headlined “Silence is complicity”, the protesters said that New Zealand media “selectively chooses” what was reported and broadcast BBC news feeds that were ‘inaccurate and misleading”.

“The media sculpts information to create public perceptions rather than informing people of the facts,” Scott said.

He said that news media refused to tell New Zealanders about Palestinian rights such as the “right of the occupied to fight occupation”, and that the occupier — Israel — was obligated to provide for the needs of the people under occupation, such as food, water and health.

Scott also said Palestinians had the right not to be arrested and held without charge, trial or conviction — and a large number of Palestinian detainees were being held under “administrative detention”, effectively Israeli hostages.

Israel is holding more than 8200 Palestinian prisoners, more than 3000 of them without charge.

Scott said that there had been more than 20 weeks of rallies and vigils against the war in New Zealand, “averaging 25 rallies and events per week”, but they had been barely covered by media.

In Sydney, high profile Australian-Lebanese broadcaster Antoinette Lattouf, who has publicly challenged the ABC over its coverage and was ousted for perceived sympathy for the Palestinian plight, said she was “incredibly humbled and moved” by the demonstrations in front of ABC studios.

She has taken legal action against the ABC and the Federal Court on Thursday ordered mediation between her and the ABC management.

Incredibly humbled and moved to see many demonstrations of support today. Outside of FWC in Sydney but also in front of ABC studios across various cities and regions in Australia.
This legal process has been incredibly hard, and the support means more than I can express pic.twitter.com/lOcXz3kmf1

— Antoinette Lattouf (@antoinette_news) March 8, 2024

Former broadcasting minister Willie Jackson has defended Aotearoa New Zealand’s public interest journalism fund that his government started during the covid-19 pandemic, after the new deputy prime minister characterised it as “bribery”.

Speaking to media on Monday after his swearing in, Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters accused state-funded media organisations of a lack of independence from the previous Labour government.

Peters was asked how quickly he expected government departments to take action on removing te reo Māori from their names.

• LISTEN TO RNZ MORNING REPORT: Journalism fund for media outlets all around the country – Willie Jackson
• Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters attacks state-funded media independence

“Well, we’ll see the speed at which TVNZ and RNZ — which are taxpayer owned — understand this new message. We’ll see whether these people, both the media and journalists — are they independent?,” he said.

“Well, isn’t that fascinating, I’ve never seen evidence of that in the last three years.” he said.

He then laughed, and said “you can’t defend $55 million of bribery, cannot defend $55 million of bribery. Get it very clear”.

That last remark was a reference to the Public Interest Journalism Fund, a three-year $55m contestable fund for journalists initially set up to shore up public interest media during the covid-19 pandemic, which was wound up in July.

Media jobs, development funded
This included funding for 219 jobs and 22 industry development projects. Political coverage was exempted from eligibility to benefit from it. The fund was administered by NZ On Air.

Jackson, who became broadcasting minister in the Labour government two years after the fund was set up, said it was for media around the country, not just state-funded organisations.

“It was introduced during covid because it was a disastrous time in terms of media and we were pressured by good people out there to say, ‘hey, you support financial institutions so how about supporting local media that’s struggling’.”

It was aimed at supporting New Zealand media to keep producing public interest stories, he said and was “not just for RNZ and for TVNZ”.

“What you saw was a great investment in support of media outlets, Māori, Pasifika, regional [outlets] … Gisborne Herald, Otago Daily Times, Asburton Guardian, they got support and an opportunity to rebuild, reset.

“I’m very proud of what we did.”

Influence denied
He denied the then Labour government had any influence over the media as a result.

“The rules are very clear, we can’t interfere, we can’t intervene . . .  You guys have to have your own independence.”

RNZ’s charter requires the broadcaster to be independent, including providing “reliable, independent, and freely accessible news and information”.

While the organisation is funded by the government, by law no ministers of the Crown or person acting on their behalf may give direction to RNZ relating to programming, newsgathering or presentation, or standards, and cannot have staff removed.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

After 21 years, Radio New Zealand’s Kim Hill has hosted Saturday Morning for the final time.

In the final hour of the show on Saturday, the beloved broadcaster chatted to long-time colleague Bryan Crump about some of her favourite songs.

Like many former Saturday Morning guests, Kim found it difficult to select just a handful of songs for the regular segment “Playing Favourites”.

“Because I love so much music,” she told Bryan.

• WATCH: Kim Hill’s final Saturday Morning show

Born Fiona Anderson Hill in Shropshire, UK, the broadcaster who was to become known as Kim Hill moved with her family to Ōtorohanga at 15.

“I was a posh white kid and I didnt know one end of a basketball from the other.”

As a teenager in the North Island town, she enjoyed sunbathing in a mixture of olive oil and vinegar, eating feijoas and sneaking out with her new friend Colleen Mcleod who happened to live downstairs.

“I would go out my door, having said goodnight to my parents, and I would go down to Colleen’s house and we would go out on the town. We’d go round with boys in V8s, around the Tron.”

‘Mad Men’ parenting
In those days, the parenting on offer was “very sort of Mad Men“, Kim says.

“My father had a shotgun that he once greeted me at the door with when a boy dropped me off. That was his idea of humour. Honestly, I’ve never seen anybody go so white.”

While picking raspberries with Colleen in Tapawera one summer, Fiona decided to change her name to ‘Kim’ and Colleen changed hers to ‘Lee’.

Yet after Kim’s family moved to another town, she lost touch with the “staunch” friend she describes as “my protector and my coming-of-age facilitator”.

“If she’s out there and anybody knows Colleen Mcleod, born Ōtorohanga, brother called ‘Sniggs’, she needs to be told how important she was to me, she was massive.”

After high school, Kim worked at various jobs including a Christchurch massage lounge, which she knows sounds “very dodgy” but wasn’t.

“They had little curtained cubicles and I would have known if something untoward was going on. Nothing untoward ever went on, strange as that sounds.”

Key programmes
After completing a post-grad journalism course at Canterbury University, Kim first joined RNZ in 1985, later presenting key programmes, including Nine to Noon and Morning Report.

Her punchy and penetrating interviewing style has not been without critics, she says.

The British writer Tony Parsons, who hung up on Kim during an interview before saying “You’ve got your head up your arse”, and New Zealand journalist Karl du Fresne, who once called her “dominatrix”, come to mind.

“[du Fresne] hated me because I hadn’t given a very nice interview with [former Australian prime minister] John Howard and also I say ‘filum’ [an Irish pronunciation of the ‘film’] … Because he criticised me saying ‘filum’, I’ve never been able to stop in case he thinks he’s won.

“So I do it all the time now.”

Her favourite interviewees include the late New Zealand scientist Paul Callaghan who she describes as a “genius”. (Kim spoke to Paul Callaghan in 2009 and 2014.)

“He knew so much but he was still awestruck by it . . . He was not fazed by not understanding. It fascinated him that things were so complex and he was able to make them so simple.”

North Carolina musician and author John Darnielle of the indie rock band Mountain Goats is another of her favourites: “He’s so clever and a very good writer … I love him.”

Kim Hill: The Jim Mora interview
“There is nobody who fails to be interesting”https://t.co/HhIBsSYZWO

— RNZ Sunday Morning with Jim Mora (@RNZSunday) November 25, 2023

More RNZ work
In 2024, Kim Hill will continue to do some work for RNZ, chief executive Paul Thompson recently told Checkpoint.

She concluded her final Saturday Morning show with the following message:

“I am very very grateful to Radio New Zealand and to the producers and to the listeners. I have been privileged and enriched by doing this programme. It’s been absolutely wonderful.

“This is my happy place — Saturday mornings in the studio, hearing from people who are enjoying it. And I’m not dying. I’ll be around doing something in the future. Thank you all so much. Thank you.”

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

The integration of RNZ’s digital team with the wider news team was meant to take place during the merger with TVNZ that never eventuated, the organisation’s board says.

It comes after an investigation into the inappropriate edits being written into news stories blamed differences between news teams, a lack of supervision and inconsistent editorial standards.

However, a report released on Wednesday also accused RNZ’s leadership of over-reacting, saying it “contributed to public alarm and reputational damage” while the journalist “genuinely believed he was acting appropriately”.

• LISTEN TO RNZ MORNING REPORT: Dr Jim Mather on RNZ’s ‘integrity and trust’
• READ MORE: The RNZ audit reports
• The Independent External Review of RNZ Editorial Processes

The independent panel was established by the RNZ board after it was revealed in June that some foreign news stories from wire services such as Reuters and the BBC were inappropriately edited.

The panel made 22 recommendations, including merging the radio and digital news teams, a review of staffing levels and workloads, refresher training for journalists, and hiring a new senior editor responsible for editorial integrity and standards. It stressed the creation of a single news team “cannot happen soon enough”.

RNZ has agreed to implement all the panel’s recommendations.

Speaking to RNZ Morning Report, RNZ board chairperson Dr Jim Mather said the recommendations would be initiated as “promptly as possible”.

Dr Mather accepted RNZ had been slower than other public media entities to integrate its digital team with the wider news team — but it had been endeavouring to do so.

“The potential merger of RNZ and TVNZ that was being considered for a number of years was going to be the catalyst for that occurring. That didn’t go ahead so that issue came directly back onto the board table and it has been a priority.

“I wouldn’t say we took our eye off internal issues, it was in anticipation of that potential merger moving forward and recognising that that would incorporate this, so when that didn’t happen, we as a board and the executive team through the chief executive reverted directly back to that plan and that is a priority.”

An area of improvement
Dr Mather said it had been identified as an area of improvement as RNZ “did want a unified leadership” over its news operation.

Dr Mather accepted the panel’s finding that a lack of access to training had contributed to the editorial breach — and said RNZ needed to create a culture where training was implemented and effective.

“The report did highlight that there was intense level of pressure on staff in the digital news content area and also the training needed to be more effective, ie provided on a regular basis, … noted and there needed to be audit and follow-up on confirmation that the training had been effective.

“Once again, that’s another area of opportunity for the chief executive and our executive team to be looking at.”

Dr Mather said there was a “significant body of work” to be done.

“I think responsibility starts with the board, ultimately we are accountable for everything that occurs within the organisation and we accept that our level of responsibility of what’s occurred and with responsibility and leadership comes a requirement to make the necessary corrective actions.”

Publishing complaints
While Dr Mather said he believed RNZ to be a “very transparent organisation”, the report has indicated it could be more “robustly transparent”.

It had noted that other public media entities, such as TVNZ, publish the overall number of editorial complaints and the number they uphold in their annual reports.

“I expect that we will be following suit also,” Dr Mather said.

He said RNZ remained the most trusted media organisation in Aotearoa and it was his “emphatic” objective for that to remain the case.

“We will do whatever we are required to do to remain our country’s most trusted media entity.”

RNZ’s response to breach
Dr Mather accepted that RNZ’s trust was eroded to some extent — but the organisation responded very quickly to restore the public’s confidence and took the issue very seriously.

The panel was critical of chief executive Paul Thompson’s initial public response in calling the edits “pro-Kremlin garbage” and said it contributed to the story gaining international attention.

Dr Mather said he understood why Thompson made the comments he did.

“We are all committed to ensuring that the integrity and trust that is held in RNZ is maintained and that was obviously factored into the way we responded.”

The panel had said the issue was contained to a small section of RNZ and Dr Mather emphasised that the “vast majority” of its news output was of an “excellent standard” – which was reinforced by the panel in the report, he said.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

MEDIAWATCH: By Colin Peacock, RNZ Mediawatch presenter

The comedians on 7 Days had a few laughs at RNZ’s expense against a backdrop of the Kremlin on TV Three this week.

“A Radio New Zealand digital journalist has been stood down after it emerged they’d been editing news stories on the broadcaster’s website to give them a pro-Russian slant, which is kind of disgusting,” host Jeremy Corbett said.

“You’d never get infiltration like that on 7 Days. Our security is too strong. Strong like a bear. Strong like the glorious Russian state and its leader Putin,” he said.

• LISTEN TO RNZ MEDIAWATCH: The RNZ editing fallout
• RNZ appoints panel to investigate inappropriate editing of online stories
• ‘I think it’s really important that we preserve the editorial independence of an institution like RNZ’ – PM Chris Hipkins
• Prime Minister responds to questions on RNZ investigation into pro-Russian editing
• Other RNZ inquiry reports

“I love this Russian strategy: ‘First, we take New Zealand’s fourth best and fourth most popular news site — then the world!” said Melanie Bracewell, who said she had not kept up with the news.

Just a joke, obviously, but this week some people have been asking if Kremlin campaigns played a role in the inappropriate editing of online world news.

It was on June 9 that the revelation of it kicked off a media frenzy about propaganda, misinformation, Russia, Ukraine, truth, trust and editorial standards that has been no laughing matter at RNZ.

The story went up a notch last weekend when TVNZ’s Thomas Mead revealed Ukrainian New Zealander Michael Lidski — along with 20 others — had complained about a story written by the journalist in May 2022, which RNZ had re-edited on the day to add alternative perspectives after prompting from an RNZ journalist who considered it sub-standard.

The next day on RNZ’s Checkpoint, presenter Lisa Owen said the suspended RNZ web journalist had told her he edited reports “in that way for five years” — and nobody had ever queried it or told him to stop.

RNZ chief executive Paul Thompson, who is also editor-in-chief, then told Checkpoint he did not consider what he had called “pro-Kremlin garbage” a resignation-worthy issue.

“I think this is a time for us actually working together to fix the problem,” he said.

RNZ had already begun taking out the trash in public by listing the corrupted (and now corrected) stories on the RNZ.co.nz homepage as they are discovered.

Thompson said the problem was “confined to a small area of what RNZ does” but by the following day,  RNZ found six more stories — supplied originally by the reputable news agency Reuters — had also been edited in terms more favourable to the ruling regimes.

“RNZ has come out with a statement that said: ‘In our defence, we didn’t actually realise anyone was reading our stories’,” said 7 Days’ Jeremy Corbett.

That was just a gag — but it did actually explain just how it took so long for the dodgy edits to come to light and become newsworthy.

Where the problem lay
Last Wednesday’s cartoon in the Stuff papers — featuring an RNZ radio newsreader with a Pinocchio-length nose didn’t raise any laughs there either — because none of the slanted stories in question ever went out in the news on the air.

They were only to be found online — and this was a significant distinction as it turned out, because the checks and balances are not quite the same or made by the same staff.

“In radio, a reporter writes a story and sends it to a sub-editor who will then check it. And then a news reader has to read it so there’s a couple of stages. Maybe even a chief reporter would have checked it as well,” Corin Dann told RNZ Morning Report listeners last Monday.

“What I’m trying to establish is what sort of checks and balances were there to ensure that that world story was properly vetted,” he said.

That question — and others — will now be asked by the external experts appointed this week to run the rule of RNZ’s online publishing procedures for a review that will be made public.

On Thursday a former RNZer Brent Edwards made a similar point in the National Business Review where he’ is now the political editor.

“For a couple of years, I was the director of news gathering. I had a large responsibility for RNZ’s news coverage but technically I had no responsibility whatsoever for what went on the web,” he said.

“Done properly the RNZ review panel could do all news media a favour by providing a template for how online news should be curated. It should reinforce the importance of quality, ethical journalism,” Edwards added.

His NBR colleague Dita di Boni said “there but for the grace of God go other outlets” which have “gone digital” in news.

“I worked at TVNZ and there was a rush to digital as well with lots of resources going in but little oversight from the main newsroom.”

Calls for political action
Prime Minister Chris Hipkins has made it clear he doesn’t want the government involved in RNZ’s editorial affairs.

David Seymour of the ACT party wanted an inquiry — and NZ First leader Winston Peters called for a Royal Commission into the media bias and manipulation.

Former National MP Nathan Guy told Newshub Nation this weekend “heads need to roll” at RNZ.

“If I was the broadcasting minister, I would want the chair in my office and to hold RNZ to account. I want timeframes. I want accountability because we just can’t afford to have our public broadcaster tell unfortunate mistruths to the public,” he said.

In the same discussion, Newsroom’s co-editor Mark Jennings reminded Guy that RNZ’s low-budget digital news transition happened under his National-led government which froze RNZ’s funding for almost a decade.

“This is what happens when you underfund an organisation for so long,” he said.

Jennings also said “trust in RNZ has been hammered by this” — and criticised RNZ chairman Dr Jim Mather for declining to be interviewed on Newshub Nation.

Earlier — under the headline Media shooting itself in the foot — Jennings said surveys have picked up a decline and trust and news media here.

“And the road back for the media just had a major speed bump,” he concluded.

How deep is the damage to trust?

While the breach of editorial standards is clear, has there been an over-reaction to what may be the actions of just one employee, which took years to come to light?

Last week the think-tank Koi Tū: The Centre for Informed Futures at Auckland University hosted a timely “disinformation and media manipulation” workshop attended by executives and editors from most major media outlets.

It was arranged long before RNZs problems arose — but those ended up dominating discussion on this theme.

Among the participants was media consultant and commentator Peter Bale, who has previously worked overseas for Reuters, as well as The Financial Times and CNN.

“I really feel for RNZ in this, for the chief executive and everybody else there who does generally a great job. The issue of trust here is in this person’s relationship with their employer and their relationship with the facts.”

Bale is also the newsroom initiative leader at the International News Media Association, which promotes best practice in news and journalism publishing.

The exposure of the “inappropriate editing” undetected for so long has created the impression a lot of content is published online with no checking. That is sometimes the case when speed is a priority, but the vast majority of stuff does go past at least two eyes before publication.

“I think it is true also that editing has been diminished as a skill. But I don’t think it’s necessarily a failure of editing here but a failure of this person’s understanding of what their job is,” Bale told Mediawatch.

“You shouldn’t necessarily need to have a second or third pair of eyes when processing a Reuters story that’s already gone through multiple editors. The critical issue for RNZ is whether they took the initial complaints seriously enough,” he said.

‘Pro-Kremlin garbage’?

There have been many reports in recent years about Russia seeding misinformation and disinformation abroad.

Last Tuesday, security and technology consultant Paul Buchanan told Morning Report that RNZ should be better prepared for authoritarian states seeking to mess with its news.

“This incident that prompted this investigation may or may not be just one individual who has certain opinions about the war between Russia and Ukraine. But it is possible that . . . stories were manipulated from abroad,” he said.

Back in March the acting Director-General of the SIS told Parliament: “States are trying, in a coercive disruptive and a covert way, to influence the behaviors of people in New Zealand and influencing their decision making”.

John Mackey named no nations at the time, but his GCSB counterpart Andrew Hampton told MPs research had shown Russia was the source of misinformation many Kiwis were consuming.

Is it really likely the Kremlin or its proxies are pushing propaganda into the news here? And if so, to what end?

“I think there’s been a little bit of ‘too florid’ language used about this. This person has inserted what are in some people’s views genuine talking points from those who . . . want to have expressed what the Russian view is. But it was very ham-fisted,” said Bale.

“There are ways to do this. You could have inserted the Russian perspective to highlight the fact that there is a different view about things like the Orange Revolution when the pro-Kremlin leader in Kyiv was overthrown,” he said.

Not necessarily ‘propaganda’
“I don’t think it is necessarily ‘Kremlin propaganda’ as it’s been described. It was just a misguided attempt to bring another perspective, I suspect, but it still represents a tremendous breach of trust,” he said.

“I write a weekly newsletter for The Spinoff about international news, and I try sometimes to show . . . there are other perspectives on these stories. Those things are legitimate to address — but not just surreptitiously squeeze into a story in some sort of perceived balance.

“I don’t think in this particular case that it is to do with the spread of disinformation or misinformation by Russia. I think this is a different set of problems. But I agree (there’s a) threat from the kind of chaos-driving techniques that Russia is particularly brilliant at. They’re very skilled at twisting stories . . . and I think we need to be ready for it,” he said.

The guest speaker at that Koi Tū event last Wednesday was Dr Joan Donovan, the research director of the Shorenstein center on Media and Politics at Harvard University in the US, where she researches and tracks the sources of misrepresentation and misinformation in the media, and the impact they have on public trust in media — and also how media can prepare for it.

At the point where 15 supplied news stories had been found to be “inappropriately edited” by RNZ, she took to Twitter to say: “This is wild. Fake news has reached new heights.”

Set against what we’ve seen in US politics — and about Russia and Ukraine — is it really that bad?

“Usually what you see is the spoofing of a website or a URL in order to look like you’re a certain outlet and distribute disinformation that way. It’s very unlikely that someone would go in and work a job and be editing articles without proper oversight,” said Donovan  — who is also the co-author of recently published book, Meme Wars, The Untold Story of the Online Battles Upending Democracy. 

“I think when it comes to one country, wanting to insert their views into another country — even though New Zealand is very small — it does track that this would be a way to influence a large group of people.

“But I don’t think if any of us know the degree to which this could be an international operation or not,” she told Mediawatch.

“What you learn is that their pattern is that they happen over and over and over again until a news agency or platform company figures out a mitigation tactic, whether it’s removing that link from search or writing critical press or debunking those stories.

“When I think about the fallout of it . . . using the legitimacy of RNZ in a parasitical kind of way and that legitimacy to spread propaganda is one of the most important pieces of this puzzle that we would need to explore more,” she said.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

The RNZ board is meeting tonight to begin setting up an independent review on how pro-Russian sentiment was inserted into a number of its online stories.

An RNZ digital journalist has been placed on leave after it came to light he had changed copy from news agency Reuters on the war in Ukraine to include pro-Russian views.

Since Friday, hundreds of stories published by RNZ have been audited, and 16 Reuters stories and one BBC item had to be corrected, with chief executive Paul Thompson saying more would be checked “with a fine-tooth comb”.

• LISTEN TO RNZ MORNING REPORT: ‘I think it’s really important that we preserve the editorial independence of an institution like RNZ’ – PM Chris Hipkins
• LISTEN TO RNZ NINE TO NOON: ‘I am gutted. It’s painful,’ says RNZ chief executive
• Prime Minister responds to questions on RNZ investigation into pro-Russian editing
• Other RNZ inquiry reports

The journalist told RNZ’s Checkpoint he had subbed stories that way for a number of years and nobody had queried it. Thompson said those comments appeared to be about the staffer’s overall role as a sub-editor.

Board chairperson Dr Jim Mather said the public’s trust had been eroded by revelations and it was going to take a lot of work to come back from what had happened.

“We see ourselves as guardians of a taonga and that taonga being the 98 years of history that RNZ has in terms of trusted public media and high standards of excellent journalism and so it is fair to say we are extremely disappointed,” he told RNZ’s Checkpoint on Monday.

“We need to demonstrate that we are prepared to review every aspect of what has occurred to actually start the restoration process in terms of confidence in RNZ.”

The board would discuss who will run the investigation and its terms of reference, and would make a decision “very soon”.

Currency is trust
“The role the board is going to take is we are going to appoint the panel of trusted individuals, experienced journalists, those that do have editorial experience to undertake the review. This is going to be done completely separate from the other work being undertaken by management,” he said.

Dr Mather said the currency of the public broadcaster was trust, and the revelations had impacted the organisation’s journalists.

“I know that we pride ourselves as having the highest standards of journalistic quality so I can just say that it’s had a significant impact also on our journalism team.”

Reuters said it had “addressed the issue” with RNZ, noting in a statement that RNZ had initiated an investigation.

“As stated in our terms and conditions, Reuters content cannot be altered without prior written consent,” the spokesperson’s statement said.

“Reuters is fully committed to covering the war in Ukraine impartially and accurately, in keeping with the Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.”

‘Important that politicians don’t interfere’ – Hipkins
Prime Minister Chris Hipkins said while he would never rule out a cross-party parliamentary inquiry, he had not seen anything so far to suggest the need for an wider action.

Hipkins told RNZ’s Morning Report he was not sure a cross-party parliamentary inquiry on issues around editorial decisions would be a good way of protecting the editorial independence of an institution like RNZ.

“Having said that, we always monitor these kinds of things to see how they are being handled, it’s really important that politicians don’t interfere in that,” he said.

“I think if it reached a point where public confidence in the institution was so badly tarnished that some degree of independent review was required, I’d never take that off the table.”

But in the first instance, it was important to allow RNZ’s management and board to deal with it with the processes that they had in place, Hipkins said.

“I haven’t seen anything in the last few days that would suggest that there’s any case for us to trigger something that’s more significant than what’s being done at the moment.”

Hipkins said he had not sought, nor had, any briefings from New Zealand’s security services in relation to the incident because it was a matter of editorial independence and it was important that politicians did not get involved in that.

“RNZ, while it’s a publicly-funded institution, must operate independently of politicians.”

Not an issue for politicians – Willis
National Party deputy leader Nicola Willis agreed that it was not an issue for politicians to be involved in.

She said it was important the investigation was carried out, and the concern was about editorial standards that let the situation go unnoticed for such a long time.

Trust in media was important and people reading mainstream media expected stories to go through a fact-checking process and reflect appropriate editorial independence, she told RNZ’s First Up.

“I think it will be a watch for newsrooms around the country, and I hope that it’s a thorough investigation that comes out with robust recommendations.”

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

RNZ chief executive Paul Thompson says the New Zealand public has been let down after pro-Russian sentiment was added to a number of its online stories without senior management realising.

It comes after readers noticed the text of a Reuters story about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine published on RNZ was changed.

It has since come to light that a staff member altered the text, and Russian propaganda has been found on more than a dozen other stories.

• LISTEN TO RNZ NINE TO NOON: ‘I am gutted. It’s painful,’ says RNZ chief executive
• Prime Minister responds to questions on RNZ investigation into pro-Russian editing
• LISTEN TO RNZ MORNING REPORT:  The Michael Lidski interview
• LISTEN TO RNZ MEDIAWATCH: Probe into RNZ’s Russian invasion of Ukraine edits
• RNZ investigation into editorial editing

So far, 250 stories published by RNZ have been audited, with chief executive Paul Thompson saying thousands more would be checked “with a fine-tooth comb”.

Fifteen of the 16 altered articles were from the Reuters wire service, and one was from BBC.

An independent review of the editing of online stories has been commissioned by RNZ.

On Monday, Thompson told RNZ’s Nine to Noon it was a “serious breach” of the organisation’s editorial standards and “really, really disappointing”.

One area of operation
It was one area of the company’s operation and one staff member was under an employment investigation for alleged breaches to RNZ’s policy, he said.

Thompson apologised to RNZ’s audience, the New Zealand public and the Ukrainian community.

“It’s so disappointing that this pro-Kremlin garbage has ended up in our stories,” Thompson said, labelling the act inexcusable.

Thompson said it raised issues with RNZ’s editing process of online news, and showed they were not as robust as they needed to be.

When asked how it happened and no one noticed, Thompson simply said: “I don’t know.”

Most wire copy was only edited by one person, Thompson said, and most of the stories found to have issues only had one or two words changed, making it “very hard” to detect.

However, all added material was “really, really serious”.

‘We have to get to the bottom of what happened’
“I am gutted. It’s painful, it’s shocking and we have to get to the bottom of how it happened,” he said.

Since the weekend, Thompson said a new policy had been put in place where all wire copy needed to be checked twice before publishing, as RNZ required for any other stories being published on its website.

Thompson said he expected to be able to give further information about the external review in the coming days.

He confirmed it would be entirely independent to the organisation and the finding of the review would go straight to RNZ’s board – not him.

Findings would then be released to the public to keep everything fully transparent – as RNZ was doing with its current audit.

Thompson said the situation was a “blow” to RNZ’s reputation.

“We are responding as well as we can and as openly as we can. The really sad thing is how much great work that we do.

‘Fierceness’ of RNZ editorial standards
“The best part of working in RNZ is the fierceness with which we defend our editorial standards and it’s galling that the activity in a very small area of the organisation can affect us all.”

Thompson confirmed RNZ received the complaint from Michael Lidski in October last year, but the email was directed at Broadcasting Minister Willie Jackson. The company was cced in, as well as other media organisations.

He confirmed RNZ does not typically respond to complaints directed at the minister.

In hindsight, Thompson said the organisation could have done something about it at the time.

Thompson said he had contacted both Reuters and BBC and was keeping the organisations updated as to its audit.

Neither had asked anything of him at this time.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

A Ukrainian man who complained about an RNZ story last year having Russian propaganda says his concerns are only now being noticed.

It comes after the revelation a staff member altered Reuters copy to include pro-Russian sentiment.

Since Friday, 250 articles published on RNZ back to January last year have been audited.

Of those articles, 15 are now known to have been altered, and an RNZ employee has been placed on leave. Fourteen of the articles were from the Reuters wire service, and one was from BBC.

An independent review of the editing of online stories has been commissioned by RNZ.

Michael Lidski, who wrote the complaint, signed by several Ukrainian and Russian-born New Zealanders said the article he complained about appeared not only on RNZ, but The New Zealand Herald and Newshub as well.

Lidski said it took some time after the article was published to send the complaint letter to RNZ to make sure everyone who signed it was happy with what it said.

It was received by RNZ on the evening of Labour Day, October 24.

Russian ‘behavior similar to Nazi Germany’
“Obviously Russia is the aggressor and behaving very similar to what the Nazi Germany did in the beginning of the Second World War,” Lidski said.

“Luckily”, he said, Russia was much less “efficient” and “successful on the front” but not so luckily, they were “very efficient” in their propaganda.

Lidski said he also sent the complaint to Broadcasting Minister Willie Jackson and other media outlets – but Jackson was the only one to provide any response.

Lidski said Jackson’s response essentially said the government could not interfere with the press and refrained from “taking sides”.

As part of the audit, RNZ reviewed the story published on rnz.co.nz on May 26, 2022 relating to the war in Ukraine, which it said was updated later that day to give further balance after an editorial process was followed.

When Lidski sent his letter, he said he received no response from RNZ.

Awaiting external review
He said he would be waiting to see what comes of the external review.

“I just want to stress that we are not dealing with a situation where someone just made a mistake.

“We are in the war, the enemy is attacking us, it’s very important that, you know, we take it seriously.”

RNZ chief executive Paul Thompson declined to speak with Morning Report today, describing the breaches of editorial standards as extremely serious.

In a statement, Thompson said it was a “very challenging time for RNZ and the organisations focus is on getting to the bottom of what happened and being open and transparent”.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

RNZ is investigating how online stories about the war in Ukraine, supplied by an international news agency, were edited to align with the Russian view of events.

A staff member has been stood down while other stories are audited. It has also prompted an external review of RNZ’s online news publishing.

The alarm was raised after a story was published by RNZ on Friday about the escalation of the Russia-Ukraine conflict which contained significant amendments to the original copy by the international wire service Reuters.

• LISTEN TO RNZ MEDIAWATCH: Probe into RNZ’s Russian invasion of Ukraine edits
• RNZ investigation into editorial editing

The alarm was raised after a story was published by RNZ on Friday about the escalation of the Russia-Ukraine conflict which contained significant amendments to the original copy by the international wire service Reuters.

The original story by its Moscow bureau chief Guy Faulconbridge said:

“The conflict in eastern Ukraine began in 2014 after a pro-Russian president was toppled in Ukraine’s Maidan Revolution and Russia annexed Crimea, with Russian-backed separatist forces fighting Ukraine’s armed forces.”

But when republished on RNZ.co.nz, that passage adopted a more “Kremlin-friendly” framing.

“The conflict in Ukraine began in 2014 after a pro-Russian elected government was toppled during Ukraine’s violent Maidan colour revolution. Russia annexed Crimea after a referendum, as the new pro-Western government suppressed ethnic Russians in eastern and southern Ukraine, sending in its armed forces to the Donbas.”

‘False account of events’
RNZ’s 4pm news bulletin on Friday said the version published by RNZ “included a false account of events” and RNZ was investigating how the story was “changed to reflect a pro-Russian view”.

RNZ corrected the story online, adding a footnote which said it was “taking the issue extremely seriously.”

Late on Friday, RNZ said an investigation was under way into “the alleged conduct of one employee” who had been “placed on leave while we look into these matters”.

“We are auditing other articles to check whether there are further problems,” the statement said.

RNZ chief executive Paul Thompson said the inappropriate editing of the stories to reflect a pro-Moscow perspective was deeply concerning and would be addressed accordingly.

Other stories in the spotlight
Another RNZ.co.nz story on the destruction of the Nova Kakhovka dam described the 2014 Maidan Revolution as a “coup” — pro-Russian language which did not appear in the original Reuters text.

These stories repeat false claims that Russia’s annexation of Crimea happened after a referendum on the move. The invasion was underway before the vote was held.

“Colour revolution” is sometimes used to describe protest movements backed by foreign powers with the intention of regime change.

Describing the 2014 revolution in those terms or as a “coup” aligns with the official Russian perspectives, but contradicts the Ukrainian view.

The assertion that ethnic Russian citizens were suppressed by the Ukrainian government has also been used by Russia to justify the invasion of Ukraine, but there is scant evidence for his claim. The BBC’s Kyiv correspondent called it “demonstrably false” in 2014.

An RNZ News footnote now says the story was “edited inappropriately and has been corrected” and “we are investigating.”

Other Reuters stories on rnz.co.nz with similar editorial alterations came to light on Friday. RNZ added footnotes explaining they had been “edited inappropriately and had been corrected.”

One about the first large-scale air strikes in nearly two months had said “Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine claiming that a US-backed coup in 2014 with the help of neo-Nazis had created a threat to its borders — and had ignited a civil war that saw Russian-speaking minorities persecuted.”

That example was from late-April — and it is surprising no-one noticed the inflammatory additions to it until Friday’s revelations prompted a look-back.

RNZ confirmed late on Friday night “the alleged conduct of one employee” was under investigation. Mediawatch understands this is a member of RNZ’s digital team.

The statement said the staffer had been “placed on leave while we look into these matters – and audit other articles to check for further problems”.

In a further statement in Saturday evening, RNZ said 15 inappropriately edited stories had been identified and corrected so far.

Chief executive Paul Thompson said an external review of RNZ’s online news publishing processes would now be carried out by experts “to ensure these are robust”. The results of the review would be made public, he said.

Outside sources
Reuters is aware of the issue but has not responded to a request for comment.

An online user in the US who noted “Russian propaganda . . . on the Reuters wire today under the byline of its Moscow bureau chief” said a Reuters representative told them language appearing on RNZ’s site “was not written by Reuters or Guy Faulconbridge.”

Reuters’ website terms and conditions warns: “You may not remove, alter, forward, scrape, frame, in-line link, copy, sell, distribute, retransmit, create derivative works . . . without our prior written consent.”

Mediawatch also asked RNZ if it was permitted to alter copy supplied by Reuters.

“There will be no comment until that investigation is completed and any appropriate action taken,” RNZ replied.

International news agencies such as Reuters supply news on a commercial basis to clients.

The terms of agreements with media organisations vary, but commonly allow media customers to edit text for length and to permit the addition of relevant details specific to the territory in question.

Significant changes not permitted
Passages of text can usually be included in or added to stories published by client media companies, but significant editorial changes are generally not permitted where the published story is attributed to the agency.

RNZ’s editorial policy contains a section on material from “external sources” but doesn’t specify news agency suppliers.

“Staff may not ‘lift’ material from other news organisations with which we have no supply contract without independently authenticating the information before use,” it says.

“We should be aware of the dangers involved, particularly if the material is controversial.”

RNZ’s editorial policies also say audiences “should not be able to detect a presenter or journalist’s personal views”

“Staff will have opinions of their own, but they must not yield to bias or prejudice. To be professional is not to be without opinions, but to be aware of those opinions and make allowances for them, so that reporting is judicious and fair.”

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

ANALYSIS: By Mark Jennings

Until weeks ago, the future of Aotearoa New Zealand’s public media organisations was looking so grim the government was prepared to spend $370 million over four years to merge TVNZ and RNZ and future proof the new entity it was calling ANZPM.

Last December, when the merger plan was under intense scrutiny, then Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern said RNZ “could collapse” if the merger did not go ahead.

Last week, Labour unveiled a very modest plan to strengthen public media. The old, very expensive one, had been thrown on the policy bonfire back in February.

• READ MORE: Other NZ public media reports

The “burn it” decision had been widely anticipated after new PM Chris Hipkins’ started dumping unpopular policies to focus on cost of living issues.

Broadcasting Minister Willie Jackson stayed on message when he released the new public media plan last week. “We have listened to New Zealanders and now is not the right time to restructure our public media.”

Under the new plan RNZ will get $25 million more a year, NZ On Air will get a one-off boost of $10m for 2023/24 and TVNZ will get nothing.

Jackson claims the extra money will “deliver world class public media for all New Zealanders.” This seems improbable given the earlier dire predictions.

The additional $25 million a year for RNZ represents a 60 percent increase in its funding. It sounds a lot but the broadcaster has been under resourced for the past 15 years.

Coping with pandemic
When National came to power in 2008 it froze RNZ funding for 9 years. The state broadcaster did get an increase from the Ardern government but it has had to contend with the additional costs of reporting on and coping with the covid-19 pandemic.

Lately, the demands of covering the Auckland floods and cyclone Gabrielle have stretched it further. Newsroom understands RNZ is currently running a deficit of close to $5 million.

The lack of funding is illustrated by the rundown premises RNZ occupies nationwide, its ageing equipment and out-of-date IT systems. Under constant financial pressure it has struggled to attract and keep top journalists.

Some of its best and brightest have been lured away to TVNZ, Newshub, Newsroom and Stuff.

Jackson’s media release said $12 million of the extra funding was for current services and $12 million for a new digital platform. $1.7 million is to support AM transmission so people can access information during civil emergencies.

Stuff, the NZ Herald and RNZ itself all reported (presumably from the media release) on the funding for the new multimedia digital platform. But there is no new platform. This was either clumsy language or a clumsy attempt at spin from Jackson and his comms people.

RNZ’s chief executive Paul Thompson told Newsroom the money would be used to make improvements to RNZ’s existing web platform and mobile app.

‘Fixing things’
“It is kind of fixing things that should have been fixed a long time ago. Our website and app are serviceable and do a good job but if we are going to be relevant in the future we need to be better than that.”

Thompson says the increase in the amount of baseline funding was calculated to restore RNZ to its former state, more than anything else.

“How much would it take us to stabilise our current operations and get them to where they need to be, so that’s well overdue. It is everything from our premises through to our content management systems, to our rostering — just having enough staff to do the job we do. It’s sufficient but we are going to have to spend every penny very wisely.”

A big part of the government’s reasoning for the merger was that minority audiences are under-served by the media.

Jackson now seems to expect RNZ to do the heavy lifting in this area. His media release quoted him saying the funding would allow RNZ to expand regional coverage and establish a new initiative to prioritise Māori and Pacific coverage.

Asked how he planned to do this, Thompson was circumspect. “It has got to be worked out . . . we are going to have to prioritise, we can’t do it all at once.”

Jackson wants other media to play an (unspecified) role in reaching these audiences. He has restored $42 million of funding to NZ On Air. Under the merger plan this money, which was the amount NZOA spent funding TVNZ programmes (mainly drama, comedy and off-peak minority programmes), was being handed to ANZPM to decide how it should be spent.

Production community upset
The local TV production community was upset by this as it far preferred NZ On Air to be the gatekeeper and not TVNZ executives who would likely end up working for the merged organisation.

Jackson has also given NZOA a one-off boost of $10 million for 2023/2024.

“The funding will support the creation of high-quality content that better represents and connects with audiences such as Māori, Pasifika, Asian, disabled people and our rangatahi and tamariki. It is vital that all New Zealanders are seeing and hearing themselves in our public media,” he said in his media release.

One-off funding can be of limited benefit. It usually has to be project-based rather than supporting ongoing programming and the staff that go with it. It is possible Jackson is hoping or expects NZ On Air to use more of its baseline funding to sustain new shows and programmes for minorities.

On the same day as Jackson’s announcement, but with less fanfare, NZOA released its own revised strategy.

The document says, above all, funded content must have a “clear cultural or social purpose.”

Priority will be given to songs and stories that contribute to rautaki (strategy for) Māori, support a range of voices and experiences, including those of people from varying ages, races, ethnicities, abilities, genders, religions, cultures, and sexual orientations.

Unclear about TVNZ
It is unclear where Jackson’s plan B leaves TVNZ. Throughout the merger discussions TVNZ executives, while saying they embraced the idea, were critical of the draft legislation, the level of independence the new entity would have and they often emphasised TVNZ’s commercial success.

Jackson has, on a number of occasions, linked TVNZ to the National Party which opposed the merger and was committed to rolling it back if elected in October.

When he became frustrated in an interview with TVNZ’s Jack Tame, before the merger was abandoned, Jackson used the line “your mates in National”.

During question time in Parliament last week, when asked what more he was doing to strengthen public media, Jackson said he was going to “sit down with Simon and the National Party mates over there.”

He was referring to TVNZ CEO, and former National Party minister, Simon Power.

Jackson said he wanted TVNZ to play a more active role in public broadcasting and, “we are going to traverse things with Simon in terms of a way forward.”

Power recently announced his resignation and will leave TVNZ in June. With many of the TVNZ board, including its influential chair Andy Coupe, likely to retire or be replaced in the next month, Jackson will, in reality, be sitting down with a new board and CEO to discuss his public media ambitions for TVNZ.

If he is interested in the job, RNZ’s Thompson must now be in with a real chance.

Thompson unequivocally endorsed the merger idea and was almost the only advocate able to clearly articulate its benefits. A new board, eager to take the company in a direction more sympathetic to its owner’s vision, might find that attractive.

Mark Jennings is co-editor of Newsroom. Republished with permission.

It has been a year since the violent end of the illegal occupation at Parliament in Aotearoa New Zealand. If you thought you had seen it all at the time, you should think again.

Boiling Point, a new documentary from RNZ, includes previously unseen footage of clashes at Parliament on 2 March 2022, when police broke up an illegal occupation of the area.

It is the first feature broadcast to provide a straightforward account of the final day of one of Aotearoa’s most infamous protests.

• READ MORE: Other NZ Parliament protest reports

The documentary, produced and presented by RNZ Morning Report host Corin Dann, was released today.

Previously unseen footage gives fresh insight into the rage that overtook some people. And eyewitness accounts take us back to the chaos, confusion and shock of it all.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

• Watch the trailer below and see the full documentary at rnz.co.nz/boilingpoint

The Boiling Point trailer.  Video: RNZ

Prime Minister Chris Hipkins has confirmed today what pundits have predicted for weeks: the plan for a public media entity has been scrapped — before they even settled on a name for it.

It is the second time in five years Labour has backed away from its public media policy, leaving RNZ and TVNZ in limbo again — along with less-heralded overhauls of the media.

The assumption the government would drop its plan for a new public media entity to be launched on March 1 was sparked by the then-Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern last December.

• READ MORE:  Policy purge: TVNZ/RNZ merger scrapped, income insurance and hate speech laws delayed
• Other NZ media policy reports

She signalled reforms diverting ministers from the cost of living and post-Covid recovery would be shelved. She told Newsroom the so-called RNZ/TVNZ was “not number one on the government agenda”.

Broadcasting Minister Willie Jackson had already made a mess of explaining the policy in a now-notorious TVNZ interview, which also amplified sideline concerns about possible political influence.

Earlier in the year on Mediawatch, Jackson dismissed criticism of the proposed legislation, some of it coming from strong supporters of public broadcasting.

That came back to bite him last month when the parliamentary committee scrutinising the Bill rewrote important parts of it. Recent opinion polls revealed both low levels of support for the merger and little understanding of it, while rival media lobbyists called the new entity “a monolithic monster bad for the country”.

‘Reprioritised spending’
The formerly non-committal opposition leader declared it, not just bad but mad, repeatedly labeling the policy “insane”.

This year Ardern’s successor, Prime Minister Chris Hipkins, also spoke of the urgent need to “reprioritise spending” while recent reporting has almost universally described the merger as “on Chippy’s chopping block”.

Today the axe fell, finally and formally, putting a policy five years in the making out of its misery after millions of dollars and years of effort.

He said RNZ’s funding would increase in the short term “around the $10 million mark” and this could be done before the next Budget process.

RNZ put out a statement welcoming the “clarity” and the prospect of more funding. TVNZ was also “pleased to now have clarity . . . and a clear path forward for TVNZ”.

MediaWorks CEO Cam Wallace said he was pleased but too much had been spent on this proposal “at a time when the industry was dealing with decreasing advertising revenues.”

Watch live: Prime Minister Chris Hipkins has confirmed the TVNZ/RNZ merger will be scrapped https://t.co/tgagvtE68v

— RNZ News (@rnz_news) February 8, 2023

What was the plan anyway – and what went wrong?
When Kris Faafoi took over as Broadcasting Minister in late 2018, Labour junked its previous policy (launched in 2017 by then opposition leader Jacinda Ardern) of boosting RNZ with $38 million a year to become a truly multimedia public media platform — and ignoring TVNZ.

The government — through the Ministry for Culture and Heritage — launched a Strong Public Media policy instead.

Consultants who kicked off the project in 2019 concluded “the status quo is not an option”.

They said TVNZ and RNZ in their current form were not sustainable, given rapid digitally-driven changes in the media.

Covid-19 stalled the policy’s progress, but Cabinet finally agreed in 2021, greenlighting the creation of a new public media entity to replace TVNZ and RNZ.

They insisted it was not merely a merger of the two, but the enabling legislation unveiled last year was effectively just that.

Budget 2022 allocated $109 million a year until 2026 to fund the new entity’s operations, but Kris Faafoi, Willie Jackson and the PM never gave any clarity about what new services the new entity might offer.

They said yet-to-be appointed executives and governors would decide that, not ministers.

Similarly, no-one in charge convincingly addressed the fear that a hyper-commercial culture at TVNZ would clash with the charter-driven, public service MO of RNZ.

The entire process was carried almost entirely behind closed doors — and without a proper business case — until the public and other media agencies got a fortnight to make submissions on the legislation late last year.

So what next?
Effectively it will be business as usual for RNZ and TVNZ — both of which can pause plans to launch things like admin and IT services as a single system less than a month from now.

RNZ will carry on as a fully-funded bonsai-scale (by international standards) public broadcaster operating on radio and online under its existing charter (which is currently under review) with a yet-to-be announced increase in funding.

TVNZ will carry on as a possibly the world’s only commercial state-owned TV company doing news and entertainment online, which dominates the free-to-air TV market, but makes no significant money for the nation.

At all stages of the merger proposal, TVNZ has reassured advertisers it would still be open for their business. (Last year Willie Jackson chided TVNZ for dragging the chain, a claim denied by chief executive Simon Power on Mediawatch).

RNZ’s board, its chair Jim Mather and chief executive Paul Thompson, strongly backed the plan for a new entity from the early stages.

New Zealand on Air was notified last year around $80 million of its budget would be re-allocated to the new entity, forcing it to urgently pull apart its own funding plans and priorities. Today the PM also announced NZoA could expect an increase in funding.

The long-term plan
There is no long-term plan yet — beyond the status quo, which consultants and Cabinet eventually agreed was “not an option”.

But the Broadcasting Minister — who retained his portfolio in the recent reshuffle — has much to confront.

The collapse of the so-called merger goes beyond RNZ and TVNZ into other overhauls that were supposed to run in parallel with the new media entity’s creation.

Willie Jackson is also Minister of Māori Development, overseeing Māori broadcasting. He secured $80m over the past two years in extra funding for programming. But this was tied to a twice-undertaken Māori media sector shift, which was held back for — and meshed-in with — the new public media entity plan.

Jackson is also in charge of the legislative backstop to ensure tech titans Google and Meta cough up for news media content they share, a significant stream of income for under-pressure news outlets for the future.

And then there is the ongoing overhaul of the oversight of the media designed to better “protect Kiwis from harm”.

The media and online content regulation review has been run by the Department of Internal Affairs under Jan Tinetti, recently promoted to other portfolios.

This is supposed to overhaul four separate overlapping pre-digital agencies regulating the media, but is also unlikely to be “bread and butter” business for Labour in 2023.

The public media entity policy has finally been put out of its misery, but there will be consequences for kicking the can down the road again in a public media system that is still operating on 30-year-old foundations and swallowing a sizable budget for limited public returns.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

How the RNZ/TVNZ merger went from its first reading in Parliament to the legislative extinction list is an example of why New Zealand actually needs more public media and not less. Let me explain.

It has been labelled a grenade, a dog and a monolithic, monopolistic monster. Yet it is actually a reasonable policy that would bring New Zealand public media in line with most other developed countries.

No other developed country has separate national television and radio networks. They have seen how it fails us and said, “no thanks”.

• READ MORE: Other RNZ/TVNZ merger reports

Most other developed countries spend quite a bit more on their public media platforms too. Brits pay $81 each, Norwegians $110, Germans $142, but Kiwis just $27 each year to fund RNZ, TVNZ and NZ On Air.

Even with the government’s funding increase over the next three years, we’ll still be spending less per person than Australia, Ireland or any other country we like to compare ourselves to.

A big part of our public media underspend is successive governments’ policy that TVNZ pay its own way and rely on advertising dollars.

Other countries subsidise their public media because they realise that a reliable source of news and information is too important to be left in the hands of marketers and advertising departments.

Other end of the spectrum
At the other end of the spectrum is the US spending just $3 per person on public media. You have to wonder how different US politics might be if it had fully-funded public media.

It is true that TVNZ does receive funding for programmes through NZ On Air but those shows still have to be simple and entertaining because TVNZ sells adverts around them. Only Sunday mornings have programmes for minorities or long-form political interviews, and of course, that is when there is no advertising.

That is the big difference between public media and commercial media. Public media doesn’t rely on advertising so it isn’t so desperate to get your attention and blast adverts at you.

Public media has time to examine public issues in-depth.

Commercial media needs to make money and with advertising dollars drifting to Google and Facebook, they work even harder to make content as eye-catching, entertaining and easy to understand as possible.

You may have noticed it on TVNZ, Newshub, Stuff or at the New Zealand Herald. These days there are more articles about crime, car crashes and weather bombs because they catch people’s attention.

Political reporting also wants to catch your attention. While public media can spend half an hour discussing a policy in-depth, commercial media want eyeballs so they go for the fun stuff — who’s up and who’s down in the pugilistic soap opera of daily politics. It is entertaining and it’s quick and easy to explain.

Complicated issues
Unlike this opinion piece I’m writing for you now — I’m already halfway through my allotted word count, yet I’ve spent all of them just explaining the background. Complicated issues take more time to explain. I had better get on with it.

It was in this commercial political reporting soap opera that the media merger lost its way. Like many politicians, opposition broadcasting spokesperson Melissa Lee exploited commercial media’s focus on simplification and pugilism to attack the government. She repeatedly claimed the government could not explain why we need the merger, but the government had tried to explain it, only the public hadn’t heard because it is too complicated to explain quickly and simply on commercial media (as I’m trying to do here).

Political reporting fixated on Willie Jackson’s various stumbles as though this reflected the policy, rather than analysing the policy itself.

National Party leader Christopher Luxon also exploited commercial media’s lack of examination. He criticised the merger for being “ideological”, claiming it would destroy TVNZ’s business model, and saying he would demerge it if National win the election.

But none of the interviewers asked Luxon to explain his figures or why the destruction of TVNZ’s business model would be a bad thing. None asked him if demerging would also be “ideological” and none asked if he would get a cost-benefit analysis done before demerging.

Lee and Luxon’s criticism worked. A Taxpayers Union poll in November claimed 54 percent opposed the merger and 22 percent supported it.

Different polling outcome
My organisation, Better Public Media Trust, also polled on the subject but we added some information about the merger, its costs and benefits. We got quite different results with just 29 percent opposing and 44 percent supporting the merger.

That shows what a little bit of information can do to public opinion. It also shows that reliance on commercial media for political discussion is prone to being style over substance, posturing over policy, soap operas over documentaries.

That is why the merger should go ahead. People would see it’s not a dog, grenade or monster, but intelligent, diverse and informative public media. Just in time for the election.

Myles Thomas is chair of the Better Public Media Trust (BPM). He is a television producer and director of various forms of “factual” programming, and in 2012 he established established the Save TVNZ 7 campaign. This article was first published in the New Zealand Herald and is republished here with the author’s permission.

The Aotearoa New Zealand Public Media Bill — introduced to Parliament this week — will have a long journey before it is fit for purpose.

The Bill gives effect to the government’s plan to replace TVNZ and RNZ with a new entity designed for the digital age, but the legislation as it stands does little more than cement the two public broadcasters together.

On first reading (mine, not Parliament’s), it looks like a legislative instrument to give effect to the merger, but its stated intent and functions are much wider. This is supposed to be the legal foundation upon which a new age of public media is to be built.

• READ MORE: Gavin Ellis: An open letter to the incoming media minister
• Public media: new name, new law, new minister, old questions
• The BBC Charter

The general policy statement accompanying the Bill says: “This Bill seeks to strengthen the delivery of public media services by establishing a new public media entity.” It may achieve the latter, but it falls far short of guaranteeing its objective.

The Bill falls short on many fronts: Matters that should be covered are omitted, others are dealt with in obtuse ways, boilerplate clauses are employed in place of purposeful creativity, and ironclad protection of the public interest is absent.

The Bill’s shortcomings are too numerous to set out all of them, but a few key failings give a sense of how much work must be done on the proposed law through its committee stages.

The Bill states the new organisation will be a Crown entity but does not stipulate the category under which it must fall. We need to go to Schedule 2 Part 1 to find that Schedule 2 of the Crown Entities Act is to be amended to make Aotearoa New Zealand Public Media an autonomous Crown entity.

Why the change?
Both TVNZ and RNZ are currently Crown companies. Why the change?

Was it because autonomous Crown entities “must have regard to government policy when directed by the responsible Minister”? While the new public media organisation will be protected against ministerial interference on matters relating content and news gathering, there are many ways to skin the cat.

Why was the new entity not designated an Independent Crown Entity which is “generally independent of government policy”?

The Bill states that, in accordance with provisions of the Crown Entities Act, the Minister of Broadcasting and Media will appoint the board of the new entity, but the new Bill stipulates at least two of those directors will be nominated by the Minister for Māori Development.

As things stand, that means Willie Jackson will appoint the entire board because he holds both portfolios. The proposed legislation does not anticipate that aggregation of power.

Ministers are writ large across the Bill. There is oversight of the new entity by no fewer than three, possibly four. Aside from the Minister of Broadcasting and Media, the finance minister has direct powers over financial issues and the Māori development minister has Te Tiriti oversight.

The Crown Entities Act provides for the broadcasting minister to appoint a monitor to act as his eyes and ears over the new entity. The Ministry for Culture and Heritage has been working behind the scenes to gear itself to take on that role – and an even wider role across all media if its current strategy framework draft is anything to go by. So, it is possible that its minister (currently Carmel Sepuloni) will also have a look-in.

Independence absolutely vital
I do not think that augers well for the independence that is absolutely vital if the new body is to gain and retain public trust and confidence.

Yes, the Bill does carry over the provisions in existing legislation that tells ministers to keep their hands off editorial matters. However, there are too many other mechanisms by which politicians can influence the direction of the new organisation.

There is a charter that should provide its own protections, given that the relevant minister’s actions must be consistent with it. However, the charter in the Bill consists largely of boilerplate generalities that are less aspirational than the existing RNZ charter.

It is in marked contrast to the BBC Charter, which is erudite, explicit, and carries more direct obligations.

Submissions on the Bill will, no doubt, focus on the charter and it may yet go through iterations that improve it. One necessary improvement relates to the digital environment that made all of this reorganisation necessary. Although there is passing reference to online services, the tenor of the Bill is rooted in the present, not the future.

The entity’s principal purpose is “broadcasting”. That would be fine if the term was defined in broad enough terms. However, it talks of “transmitting” and “reception by the New Zealand public by means of receiving apparatus”. That hardly conjures up pictures of very smart interactive devices and a community for whom one-way linear transmission is antiquated.

The charter does state that one of its principles is “innovating and taking creative risks” but that looks tame alongside the BBC Charter’s clause on technology that states it “must promote technological innovation, and maintain a leading role in research and development”.

Technologically aspirational requirements
I would have thought that, in order to set the stage for a future-oriented organisation built for the digital age, the Bill just might contain some technologically aspirational requirements.

It is not the only element of the new organisation that is absent from the proposed legislation.

Aside from a pressing need to provide far more robust independent governance, the Bill’s most glaring omissions relate to finance and internal structures.

The Bill contains an explicit requirement that RNZ’s commercial-free services will continue, and where a charge is applied to new services on first broadcast it will later be free. There is no reference in the Bill, however, to TVNZ’s current commercial status, nor to annual appropriations from government.

It takes a careful reading of the Bill’s schedules and amendments to those in other acts to determine whether the current practice of channelling RNZ’s funding through NZ on Air will continue. Reading between the lines it appears that a more direct funding stream is being contemplated, with some form of coordination with other bodies such as NZ on Air and Te Māngai Pāho.

The Bill itself makes no direct reference to future requirements for TVNZ to pay a dividend but a tick in a column in the Bill’s schedule suggests the new entity will not contribute to the Treasury coffers.

Beyond that, the finances of the new entity are a deep void. The new organisation faces real challenges in reconciling public funding and commercial revenue. It must also determine the division of expenditure associated with programming to meet the expectations created by both sources.

No legislative guidance
However, there is no legislative guidance on how these challenges should be met. There is total silence on commercial expectations, and on the mechanisms by which any continuity of government funding will be calculated or guaranteed. The Cabinet papers released to date suggest funding matters will be dealt with through the Ministry for Culture and Heritage. So why is that not explicit in the Bill?

Internal structures — which must address the cultural and funding process differences between commercial and non-commercial broadcasting — are apparently entirely in the hands of the Establishment board as there is nothing in the Bill that mandates the unique internal structure that will be needed to satisfy both imperatives. Does Parliament have no view, for example, on whether news and current affairs should be structurally separated from a commercial enterprise, say as a separate subsidiary with its own statutory independence?

Why is there no requirement to follow the Irish precedent whereby the state broadcaster RTÉ must adhere to a Fair Trading Policy that complies with EU rules on State aid? That policy requires RTÉ “to trade in a manner which ensures that public funds are not used to subsidise RTÉ’s commercial activities…[and] that ensures that RTÉ’s commercial activities are compatible with its public service objects.”

These questions, and more, will be raised during the Bill’s select committee hearings. My fear is that the timetable set out for the legislation — it must be passed and in force by the end of the year — will truncate the process to the point where the necessarily exhaustive examination of its provisions will not take place.

Last week I set 12 labours for the new Minister of Broadcasting and Media. This Bill, as it currently stands, will make Willie Jackson’s tasks even more Herculean.

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.

Draft legislation which would see state broadcasters RNZ and TVNZ subsumed into a new entity has been published ahead of its introduction to Parliament.

It would take effect from March 1 next year, setting up Aotearoa New Zealand Public Media as a not-for-profit autonomous Crown entity.

The two broadcasters would then become subsidiaries, with all staff transferring to the new organisation, under the leadership of a new board.

• READ MORE: Gavin Ellis: Fundamental flaws in public media plans call for big fixes
• Other NZ public broacasting reports
• Media – a few simple myths

Under a commercial and government mixed-funding model, services which are advertising-free will remain so and any profit will be reinvested.

Services and programming that carry a fee must later also become freely available within a reasonable time, and the organisation will be required to ensure content overall remains “predominantly free of charge”.

Some $370 million over four years in operating expenditure and $306 million in capital funding was set aside in this year’s Budget for the new entity.

It will operate under a charter that sets out goals and responsibilities, with editorial independence enshrined in law.

Tikanga Māori knowledge
Board members must collectively have the financial and sector-specific skills and experience to meet the charter. At least two of them must also have good knowledge of te ao Māori and tikanga Māori, appointed in consultation with the Minister for Māori Development, and engage with Māori where relevant.

Many of the decisions about how ANZPM will run in practice have been left to the six-to-nine member board appointed by the government. This includes when RNZ and TVNZ will be dissolved, though this must be before 1 March 2028 with at least three months notice.

The entity is also required to collaborate with other media entities, including Māori media. Freeview; Ngā Taonga Sound Archives; and TVNZ’s international, investments, and free-to-air service arms are also listed as subsidiaries.

Kris Faafoi, who had spearheaded the project as broadcasting minister since 2018, officially announced the plan in March.

At the time, he signalled the organisation would be up and running by the middle of the year.

Faafoi is set to leave Parliament and gave his valedictory speech this evening.

His successor, Willie Jackson, will introduce the Bill on Tuesday.

Broadcaster charter
A summary of ANZPM’s objectives laid out in the Bill:

• Reflecting and representing a strong New Zealand identity and culture
• Ensuring te reo Māori and tikanga Māori are valued, visible and flourishing
• An inclusive, enriched and connected society, supporting children’s wellbeing and growth and New Zealand’s diverse languages, regions and cultures
• Fostering a healthy, informed and participative democracy

The legislation says ANZPM would achieve this through freely available, accessible, and high-quality content across all genres that informs, enlightens, and entertains.

News and information is required to be reliable and accurate, comprehensive, impartial and balanced, while the organisation must also reflect New Zealand’s history, and ensure Māori can access content by and about themselves.

Strong relationships with Pacific Island countries must also be recognised and supported.

The minister responsible is banned from giving direction over content, complaints, newsgathering, and compliance with broadcasting standards, and cannot remove people for making decisions over such matters.

ANZPM’s directors are also banned from receiving compensations for loss of office.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

A media bribe? More like the deal of the century.

Fifty-five million dollars does sound like a lot of money. It could buy you a fantastic jet-setting lifestyle, homes around the world and certainly the freedom to never work again.

But what it won’t buy you is influence over a near 200-year-old industry that costs billions to run every year.

• READ MORE: Local Democracy Reporting reports on Asia Pacific Report

Yet, as the government’s Public Interest Journalism Fund turns towards its home straight, there is the baffling suggestion that somehow editors around New Zealand have all been “bought” by the Labour government.

It is a false, dangerous and frankly lazy assumption.

One of the bigger recipients of the fund is the Local Democracy Reporting scheme. It takes about $1.5 million a year. It will likely always need public money because it was set up to fix a problem.

Regional news is struggling. Advertising revenue has been hoovered by tech giants.

Facebook versus the Akaroa Mail… who would you bet on?

Slashed to survive
So, local radio stations, community papers and even regional titles in place for more than a century have had to slash to survive.

Reporters could no more sit in council meetings, chase up the activities of ports or dig into what district health boards are up to. There wasn’t the time. There wasn’t the money.

Journalists, already earning scandalously small wages, got sacked and local news got smaller.

Private media did not step in to fill the gap as there was no profit to be had.

So local lawmakers were quietly left alone to manage ratepayer money. Some did better than others.

Addressing this information vacuum, RNZ and the News Publishers’ Association got creative.

In 2019, they set up a project known as Local Democracy Reporting. Based on similar schemes in Canada and the UK, it now manages 15 reporters around the country.

Seeking the truth
The journalists, funded by taxpayer money, are employed to go and seek truth from publicly elected people and organisations.

Stories they write can be accessed by rival media outlets at the same time as they go to print by the host newsroom. It is, at its core, a domestic wire service.

Last year, LDR reporters wrote more than 3000 local stories from around the country generating more than 9 million page views.

Stories from the top to bottom of New Zealand were shared for free to the 30 media partners who sign up to the scheme.

And since the project’s inception in 2019, how many stories have been questioned by the purse holders at NZ On Air? Not one. Not a single email, telephone call or meeting has questioned the editorial output of any one of the reporters.

Neither has there been a single suggestion of a news line that reporters might consider. And if there had been, you can take it as gospel that these reporters would chuck the suggestions straight in the bin.

Journalists value their independence.

LDR reporters not ‘newbies’
LDR reporters are not “newbies” to the game either. They are at least mid-career and know their patches well. Most are part of a newsroom they worked in before LDR existed and are well in tune with their audience.

They are Māori, Pākehā, female, male, old and young. But most importantly they are skilled reporters who spend their time searching for fact, inconsistency, lies and truth.

The idea that they and their editors are now craven to government paymasters that they have never met is both preposterous and insulting.

And the best way to see this is to look at the stories. They hardly paint the government of the day in a flattering light.

Covid-19 rules, new laws for farmers, racial inequity and management of water are just some of the topics given regional voice. In these stories, government ministers don’t get a look in.

Some who decry public funding of news are also quick to complain that the ‘metropolitan elite’ don’t pay enough attention to the smaller towns and communities.

They say the mainstream media has no clue about ‘real New Zealand, doing it tough’.

Stitching it all together
LDR is in place to address that very concern.

Up and down the country, the reporters go out and talk to iwi, business owners, parents, councillors and mayors. They stitch it all together and get it in the news.

If you want to judge the success and worth of a local democracy reporter, go talk to your local councillors. Ask if they enjoy having reporters present at meetings. If they are honest, they will tell you that they don’t.

They know public discussion of any rate increase, speed limit change or building project could be online to a big audience within minutes.

The LDR project constantly keeps its eye on the use of public cash all around the country. It costs every New Zealander about 30 cents a year. What a bargain.

David Reid is the Local Democracy Reporting manager. LD Reporting is funded by NZ On Air; Asia Pacific Report is an LDR partner.

The proposal for a new entity to replace Television New Zealand and RNZ has two fundamental flaws that must be fixed if it is to gain the public’s trust.

The first flaw is the assumption that an existing legal structure — the Autonomous Crown Entity — is an appropriate form of governance. The second is that it has provided inadequate protection from political interference. The two issues are related.

Let me say at the outset that I support the restructuring of public service media. It is an idea whose time has come. It is an opportunity to create, almost from the ground up, a public organisation designed to live up to a digital incarnation of BBC-founder Lord Reith’s dictum that public media should inform, educate and entertain (now, however, in a creative and clever mix).

• READ MORE: Other RNZ and TVNZ merger reports

My concern lies in the need for this new entity to demonstrate from the outset that it will be free-standing and free from influence. By treating its formation little differently from a stock-standard Autonomous Crown Entity (ACE) into which existing organisations are dropped, the government is sending the wrong signals. From Day One (i.e., right now) it needs to be treated very much as a special case.

Let’s not lose sight of what is possible here: The creation of a ground-breaking structure that can set new standards for public service media in the digital age – if it is born out of independent thinking, creativity, and wisdom.

And let’s not forget why it is vital that it succeed in that aim. Public trust in the institutions of democracy and a free society are being systematically undermined. We need to look no further than the darkly manipulated “protest” in front of Parliament.

Stirrers wanted the prime minister and journalists lynched and violent “protesters” set fires and threw paving bricks at police. They were supported throughout by a much wider social media narrative that neither politicians nor the media could be trusted.

Public trust in media eroding
Public trust in media is already on the way down. AUT’s Centre for Journalism, Media and Democracy polled trust in media last year and found it had declined across all four industry-wide metrics it had measured in 2020. RNZ and TVNZ remain the most trusted brands but both declined year-on-year. So, too, did all media included in the previous survey.

There is a real need for media institutions in which the public has trust and the JMaD studies point to public service media being at the pinnacle of that structure.

I have no doubt that the Minister of Broadcasting and Media, Kris Faafoi, is well-intentioned. As a former journalist he is only too well aware of the importance of trust and of the need to protect, nurture and champion media independence. Whether his cabinet colleagues have the same set of imperatives is harder to judge.

However, the restructuring requires a longer view than what might happen around the cabinet table over the next few months. We need to be concerned that the structure which emerges is not only fit for purpose now, but will endure for decades and be capable of withstanding winds of political change that on a global scale are showing more negative than positive signs.

In other words, it must be robust enough to survive not only known risks but also some conceivable unknowns: We had a Robert Muldoon, so could we have a Donald Trump?

Unfortunately, the announcement last week provides a less-than-reassuring beginning. The cabinet go-ahead was sparse on structural and operational detail. It did speak of a charter and proposed legislation that will contain a much-vaunted guarantee of editorial independence from ministerial control. However, that is undermined by other planned moves and much of the potential damage could be done even before the new structure is up and running.

Significantly, control of the governance of the implementation phase of the restructuring is one area of the cabinet paper and supporting documents in which there is real detail. Absence of detail elsewhere is explained away by saying these are matters for the Establishment Board to decide.

Seen as the architect
The draft terms of reference for the Establishment Board state it will be responsible for overseeing the detailed organisational design of the new entity and the transition to the new structure. In other words, it is to be seen as the architect. That was certainly the inference in Kris Faaoi’s announcement last week.

Yet the Establishment Board is precisely where the Minister (and his Cabinet colleagues) and the Ministry for Culture and Heritage have a potentially high level of influence.

The Establishment Board is expected to stay aligned to any cabinet decisions and is responsible for ensuring it “progresses government policy” and meets the minister’s objectives.

All members (up to nine) are to be appointed by the minister, who will also appoint the chair. The minister can terminate any member’s term before the expiry date and there is no requirement for him to state cause.

The board will not have its own staff but may ask the Ministry for Culture and Heritage – which will provide the secretariat — to appoint people to provide specialist or technical advice. MCH will also procure other services on the board’s behalf and its chief executive will decide what functions it will delegate to the board. Meanwhile MCH will continue to provide advice directly to the minister.

The Establishment Board will, according to the terms of reference, operate on a consensus basis — not a majority vote — and where it can’t reach consensus “the chair will advise the minister of the difference of opinion”. That begs the question: Does the minister effectively have a deciding vote?

He certainly has a tight hold on what the Establishment Board says in public. The section in the terms of reference relating to the Establishment Board’s relationship with the minister is devoted almost entirely to public statements. There can be “no surprises” (no surprise there) and the chair is the sole spokesperson.

The minister is to be informed of any public comment “either prior to, or as soon as possible after comment is made”, and all press releases must be sent to the minister in advance.

Multiple avenues for influence 
All of this suggests to me that both the minister and the ministry have multiple avenues through which they can influence the way the new structure is put together.

I freely admit there is good reason for liaison. For example, the early activity of the board will take place while the entity’s empowering Act and other law changes are working their way through the legislative process. The board’s thinking on the new entity should be reflected in that legislation and, if it isn’t, we might question why it is not.

However, there are equally good reasons why the Establishment Board should be seen to be independent. If the minister deflected questions on detail by saying they were matters for the Establishment Board, then let it be so.

The way it now stands, it looks (as my betting old dad would say) as though the government is trying to have a quid each way. Hedging bets is not a good way to begin the trust-building process.

Step one in that process should be an unequivocal statement from the minister that the Establishment Board does, in fact, have autonomy and, so long as its actions support the aims of the new entity, it will not be subject to ministerial or ministry direction. It should also have the power to appoint its own advisors.

Then there is the new entity itself. I was frankly surprised that work by a Chief Executives Working Party (to which I was an advisor), a Business Study group, and then a Business Case Governance Group did not produce a unique structure for what will be a unique organisation. Specifically, I expected to see the strongest recommendations for iron-clad protections, and I expected to see such protections accepted by cabinet. That hasn’t happened…yet.

Instead, cabinet has accepted the option of an Autonomous Crown Entity with a traditional minister-appointed board, with two board members appointed in consultation with the Minister for Māori Development. The only aspects that separate it from a stock-standard ACE is a charter (to which I’ll return) and a section that protects the entity’s editorial independence. As it stands, that section is less prescriptive that either the Television New Zealand Act or the Radio New Zealand Act.

Statement of good intentions
Cabinet has approved what is titled a “proposed basis for charter structure” that is little more than a statement of good intentions. Admittedly, no charter should be so detailed that it limits initiative or the ability to respond to changed circumstances.

However, what is missing from this document is an overarching statement that the organisation as a whole will be predicated on autonomy and independence. Instead there is a clause stating that the organisation itself should “demonstrate editorial independence”.

Also missing — or among the 12 redacted sections of the cabinet paper relating to financial implications — is how the new entity will be protected from the cudgel that governments here and elsewhere have used to bring recalcitrant public broadcasters to heel. That big stick is control of the purse-strings.

It is vital that there be some certainty of funding, both for operational reasons and to demonstrate to the public that the entity doesn’t kowtow to government in order to pay the bills.

We do not know what the core level of public funding will be, the term over which it will be paid, and who will set it. Funding, of course, is ultimately in Parliament’s hands and, as we’re talking taxpayer money, that is as it should be. However, it still needs protecting in some way from a vengeful ruling party – and here I want you to think forward to that Trump figure in our possible future. Multi-year funding, for example, is a pre-requisite.

There is still time to put right the governance shortfalls in the proposal.

The first step should be for the government to accept the need for an additional tier of governance that sits, effectively, above the board. Not to second-guess it, but to ensure that it meets the spirit of the charter under which the entity will operate, to review proposed budgets and Crown appropriations, and to act as a shield against external interference from government, the ministry or elsewhere.

Why Guardians are needed
The entity needs Guardians. RNZ’s board is described as guardians but they are effectively the equivalent of company directors (even if they are absolved from the need to turn a profit). The new entity will need something more akin to the Guardians of Lakes Manapouri, Monowai, and Te Anau that were established by Norman Kirk to protect those waters against detrimental effects from the hydro power scheme.

The Guardians of Public Media should, however, differ from that precedent in several fundamental ways.

First, they should not be appointed by a minister but by Parliament. In fact, the board of the entity should be similarly appointed, as is the case with a number of European public service media.

Second, they should produce an annual report, made not to a minister but to Parliament. It should include a judgement on funding adequacy and a review of the entity’s relationship with the minister, the ministry, and government as a whole.

This annual report should replace the proposed yearly review by at least four government departments, but not annual reports to Parliament by the entity itself.

The cabinet paper proposes a five-yearly review of the charter by Parliament. That can be read as a review by the politicians in power. Therefore any parliamentary review should be preceded by a Guardian review of the charter’s fitness for purpose and it is that review that should go to the House. That way, if a ruling party wants to mess unilaterally with the charter, it will be seen for what it is. In addition, each year the guardians should review performance against charter objectives, separate from any assessment by the entity itself.

They should also act as a bulwark against interference in decisions relating to any content produced or disseminated, and that is not limited to news. A shiver still runs down the spines of old broadcasters at the mention of Robert Muldoon’s undoubted role in the decision in 1980 not to screen the drama Death of a Princess to avoid upsetting the Saudi government.

More protection for news
News and current affairs, however, require more protection and guarantees of autonomy than other forms of programming. That was not apparent in the documents released last week. There must be explicit prohibitions — in legislation and in the charter — on both external and internal interference in news operations. A minister is not the sole potential source of pressure. Officials, board members, commercial staff, and management of the entity must be held at arm’s length.

Legislation should also preclude the chief executive from also holding the position of editor-in-chief. Paul Thompson holds both positions at RNZ and has done so without controversy, but the new entity will be both much larger and will be a hybrid of commercial and non-commercial functions.

I believe all of the entity’s news and current affairs functions and decision-making, including the position of editor-in-chief, must be kept within that department if autonomy and independence are to be seen to be real.

Details missing from last week’s announcement and document release created frustration but there may be a brighter side. If the detail has yet to be worked out, there is still time for Kris Faafoi, his cabinet colleagues, his ministry, and the Establishment Board to get it right.

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 blog called Knightly Views where this commentary was first published and it is republished by Asia Pacific Report with permission.

• Read the full Gavin Ellis article here:

https://knightlyviews.com/2022/03/15/fundamental-flaws-in-public-media-plans-call-for-big-fixes/

The New Zealand government last week unveiled the creation of a new public media entity that will incorporate RNZ and TVNZ. It will pave the way for digital innovation as well as adding new capability and services.

This is a big shift and is a lot to get your head around.

In particular, the public media focus of the new entity is a watershed.

• READ MORE: RNZ and TVNZ to be folded into mega public media entity, says Faafoi
• Merging commercial TVNZ and non-commercial RNZ won’t be easy — and time is running out — Dr Peter Thompson
• Other RNZ and TVNZ merger reports

New Zealand has had various combinations of public and publicly-owned commercial media entities in the past, but this takes the public media remit to a new level.

The new entity is designed to ensure New Zealand has one well-resourced, comprehensive public media entity that can weather the ongoing disruptions caused by the almost unbridled power of the FANGS (Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix and Google).

Over recent years the media sector has been in flux, with commercial models under strain and audiences fragmenting and often favouring the products provided by the FANGS. This has contributed to increased misinformation and polarisation.

The government hopes the new entity will be strong and flexible enough to adapt to those challenges in a way a stand-alone RNZ and TVNZ would not be able to achieve.

Four key building blocks
To understand what the government is trying to do it is useful to focus on four key building blocks it is putting in place.

First, the new public media entity will be exactly that — an organisation that is centred on public media services that inform and connect the nation, celebrate our culture and identity and equip people to participate in our democracy.

Commercial activity will play an important role and will be required to support this public media focus.

Second, the entity will operate under a public media charter that will enshrine in law its editorial independence. The Charter will be the north star for the organisation, requiring it aspire to and deliver the best attributes of public media.

The draft charter that is proposed in the Cabinet paper looks promising. This, more than anything else this, will ultimately determine the direction of the new entity, its tone and culture and the services it provides.

Third, the policy places a strong emphasis on the new entity’s obligation to support and recognise the “Māori Crown relationship”. This is another big change. Indeed, the purpose of the new entity will require it to contribute to a “valued, visible, and flourishing te reo Māori me ngā tikanga Māori”.

This is vital as the new entity, from day one, needs to capture what makes Aotearoa New Zealand unique, including Te Tiriti. The new entity’s board will include at least two members with Te Ao Māori and tikanga Māori expertise.

And fourth, the new entity will be required to collaborate with other media and support the overall health of the wider media system. This recognises the critical importance of sustaining a plurality of media sources and perspectives in the years ahead.

Mediawatch: Can RNZ + TVNZ = new PME in 2023? https://t.co/6HDIgnY3L1

— RNZ News (@rnz_news) March 13, 2022

Trusted media underpin democracy
Trusted, independent news and current affairs underpin our democracy. The only way to ensure trust in the media is to ensure people have a range of sources and perspectives to choose from.

The new entity will need to support that diversity in meaningful ways, for example, by training the next generation of reporters, producers, presenters, and programme makers for the benefit of the wider industry.

Public media institutions around the world have been on the back foot recently.

In many countries publicly-owned and funded broadcasters have been reined-in, leaned on and co-opted to serve political ends.

This is happening to a shocking degree in Hong Kong, Turkey, Slovenia,and Hungary, and in southern Africa as authoritarian regimes flexed their muscles.

But even in Australia and the UK it has been tough for the ABC and BBC with attempts to question the pivotal role played by feisty, independent public media in a time of crisis and heightened polarisation.

This all points to the value of strong public media to our democratic processes. Both RNZ and TVNZ carry strong reputations internationally. The rebuilding of our public media mandate will enhance that.

Much is still to be determined, including funding levels, and no doubt there will be intense public debate when the draft legislation is opened for public submissions.

RNZ is up for the challenge and will work hard to contribute our valued services and our public media ethos and expertise to the new entity.

The bottom line will be ensuring all the people of New Zealand benefit.

Paul Thompson is chief executive and editor-in-chief of Radio New Zealand. He is also president of the international Public Media Alliance. This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ. It was first published on the Stuff website.

The announcement of the government’s decision to merge RNZ and TVNZ into a non-profit “public media entity” was long anticipated but, coming in the second year of Labour’s second term, underwhelming in its lack of detail.

Cabinet had discussed the proposal back in 2019, and yesterday’s announcement was expected to be the culmination of extensive planning, consulting, expert committees and corporate accounting reports.

The protracted process was intended to give shape to the broadcasting minister’s vision of a multi-platform public service provider capable of fulfilling its cultural and civil remit into the 21st century.

• READ MORE: BBC funding: licence fee debate risks overlooking value of UK’s public broadcasters
• Closures, cuts, revival and rebirth: how covid-19 reshaped the NZ media landscape in 2020
• Crisis, disintegration and hope: only urgent intervention can save New Zealand’s media

And while it’s significant that the government recognises the importance of strong public media across all platforms in New Zealand, and is committed to its strategic vision, in many respects the announcement raises more questions than it answers.

Video: NZ Herald

Commercial tension
Firstly, how will the organisational and governance structures across radio, television and online services function? Minister Kris Faafoi has indicated that these details will now be delegated to a new “establishment committee”, although the Strong Public Media governance group had delivered a business case to cabinet last year.

Complications arise because TVNZ is a commercial entity, which competes directly with other commercial media for (slowly declining) audiences and advertising revenues, while RNZ is a fully funded public service provider with a charter.

The minister has affirmed that the current non-commercial radio services will be retained. But aligning the commercial television arm and future online services — for example, the integration of the RNZ and TVNZ news operations — entails potentially contradictory priorities, even under the broad directives of a public charter.

Plans unveiled for #NZ‘s new mega public media –
it will operate under a #charter, with “trustworthy #news” as a core service #AsiaPacificReport #RNZnews #RNZPacific #publicmedia #publicbroadcasting #KrisFaafoi @shrek45 @EveningReportNZ #communitymediahttps://t.co/Wf6sLWKP7p pic.twitter.com/5dpefe2XCc

— David Robie (@DavidRobie) March 10, 2022

Secondly, what funding arrangements will support the new public media entity? The ratio of public to commercial revenues and the mechanisms for ensuring its adequacy across future changes of government are critical, but have not been specified — although some redacted figures in related cabinet papers suggest these have been estimated.

The minister suggests these will be determined through forthcoming budget deliberations. If this implies that the level of funding depends on annual budget wrangling with other cabinet portfolios, then there is little hope of gaining substantial and sustainable commitment over the demands of health, education, housing and other policy priorities.

NZME and Stuff voice unease over merger of TVNZ and RNZ, but TV3 owner says ‘so far, so good’. https://t.co/NV9ji1mMJ0

— Stuff (@NZStuff) March 10, 2022

Budget uncertainty
Faafoi’s predecessor, Clare Curran, ran into this problem in 2018. Having announced an anticipated investment of NZ$38 million to develop RNZ’s services, the budget delivered only $15 million.

Prior to that, Labour’s attempt to restructure TVNZ with a dual-remit charter was compromised by cabinet disagreements. The Ministry for Culture and Heritage allocated $95 million of public funding only for Treasury to extract $142 million in dividends.

Crucially, balancing public service and commercial expectations requires the organisational structure and funding arrangements to be in sync. But this is unlikely to happen if one is determined by a committee and the other is left to the uncertainties of the budget.

There are successful public service operators, such as RTE in Ireland or CBC in Canada, which have mixed commercial and public funding. In both cases, though, the public ratio is more than 50 percent. It would be wishful thinking to suppose cabinet would provide 50 percent public funding to align TVNZ’s services with a public charter remit.

That would cost at least $150 million per year — triple the current allocation to RNZ and TVNZ. When reliance on commercial revenue predominates, commissioning and scheduling decisions inevitably reflect the imperative to optimise eyeballs and advertising dollars.

Time is tight
Even with base-line funding assured for the non-commercial RNZ services, without any mechanism to ensure adequate ratios are maintained, there is a risk that future revenue increases will come to depend increasingly on developing commercial spin-offs online.

This would inevitably affect the new entity’s capacity to use the expansion of its online services to deliver more diverse content to a full range of audiences.

The minister has suggested the new entity will be established by 2023. Given the legislation has yet to be drafted, that time-line is already tight. Any further delays or announcements of bold intentions without concrete substance will risk pushing Labour’s public media plans further toward the 2023 election.

If the new entity has not been established before then, and with Labour slipping in the polls, all bets on the future of public media in Aotearoa New Zealand are off.

Dr Peter Thompson is associate professor of media studies, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence. Read the original article.

RNZ and TVNZ will be subsidiaries of a new mega public media organisation, Broadcasting Minister Kris Faafoi has confirmed.

Faafoi announced the long-awaited changes to public broadcasting today, outlining the government’s plans for RNZ and TVNZ and the creation of a new public media entity.

Faafoi, a former political journalist, said the government was aiming to have the new organisation up and running by the middle of next year.

• READ MORE:  Public media plan emerges from behind closed doors – Colin Peacock, Mediawatch
• RNZ, TVNZ’s future: Mega public media entity likely to be unveiled
• Other NZ public media reports

He said the government had accepted the recommendations of the business case working group, and agreed to establish the organisation as a new Autonomous Crown Entity.

It will operate under a charter, with “trustworthy news” as a core service. It will be funded by a mix of government funds and commercial revenue, with complete editorial independence. Advertising-free programming will be maintained.

An establishment board will be set up in the next month, with the aim of having the new entity operational by 1 July next year.

Decisions about how the new organisation would work in practice would be left for the board to make.

This could include whether to keep TVNZ and RNZ as subsidiaries, and while current programmes would be maintained there would also be the opportunity for new ones.

This could include the likes of advertising-free television, but again those decisions would be left for the board to make.

Watch the announcement

“Whether it be covid, national emergencies or Olympic Games, the last few years have shown how important a strong media environment is to reflect New Zealanders’ stories, dreams and aspirations and it is important we support public media to flourish,” Faafoi said.

“RNZ and TVNZ are each trying to adjust to the challenges, but our current public media system, and the legislation it’s based on, is focused on radio and television.

“New Zealanders are among some of the most adaptive audiences when it comes to accessing content in different ways; like their phones rather than television and radio, and from internet-based platforms.

“We must be sure our public media can adapt to those audience changes, as well as other challenges that media will face in the future.

“The new public media entity will be built on the best of both RNZ and TVNZ, which will initially become subsidiaries of the new organisation.

“It will continue to provide what existing audiences value, such as RNZ Concert, as well as better reaching those groups who aren’t currently well served; such as our various ethnic communities and cultures.”

He said funding decisions would be made as part of Budget processes, and the new organisation would have a focus on providing quality content to under-served or under-represented audiences.

Deliver on Te Tiriti obligations
It would be required to deliver on the Crown’s Te Tiriti obligations, and could collaborate with and support the wider media sector where appropriate.

Faafoi said the public would have a chance to give their views, including on the new charter, through the select committee process later in 2022.

Faafoi, who is unwell but has tested negative for covid-19, made the announcement from his home today.

Labour first announced intentions to boost public broadcasting through “RNZ Plus” at the 2017 election, but since then the proposal has gone through several iterations.

A working group was commissioned to look into a new public media entity in March last year.

Faafoi said he announced in-principle decisions in February 2020 to ensure public media could face the challenges of the future, to keep up with audience, technology and market trends.

“The world is a vastly different place compared to that time. There are new challenges, but still fundamentally the challenges that face audiences and media are the same and if anything they have intensified.”

He said when the government began looking at this issue, TV and radio were ranked one and two for the biggest daily audience in New Zealand, and now are ranked two and four, with video on demand like YouTube at number one, and subscription video on demand like Netflix at number three.

Process put on ice
The process was put on ice when the covid pandemic hit, but last year the government followed through and asked experts to develop a business case. They delivered their recommendations late last year, to create a modern public media entity.

They also stressed the importance of protecting and future-proofing the trust and strength that public media has built up over decades.

He said the case for change is there, so Cabinet had decided to create the new public media entity, but has committed that all current non-commercial programming and platforms will endure and the likes of RNZ National and Concert FM will continue.

“The establishment of the new entity will allow better use of a range of platforms including current radio and linear TV, and those of third parties, to reach audiences when, where and how audiences choose, and will operate under a public charter set out in legislation.”

He said there will be some areas where it will make sense to collaborate with others, but “there will also be areas where it will continue a long-standing tradition of excellence and fierce competition”.

The establishment board will have members from both RNZ and TVNZ, and Faafoi said he intended to ensure there will be “some representation of people on the shop floor. Someone who understands the media and the issues that are important to staff as we work through this transition”.

Budget announcements will come on Budget Day, he said, but some of the decisions are best left to the establishment board, “which is why that board will be up and running soon”.

A stronger foundation
He said this change will cause some unease, but the future under a new entity with the ability to respond to the challenges and opportunities of local media will give a stronger foundation “to do what public media has done for decades, and that is to tell our stories”.

He disagreed with criticisms that the move would lead to dominance of the media sector by a publicly funded behemoth.

RNZ and TVNZ had a long history of editorial independence and Faafoi said he was pleased that would continue, with protections maintained in legislation.

He said the very heart of the proposal was to ensure the content the public media had provided over decades could continue to be delivered in whatever form audiences would consume it from in future.

“Audiences need to know that the government is moving with it.”

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

On 10 July 1985 the Greenpeace flagship, the Rainbow Warrior, was sunk at an Auckland wharf.

Two French secret agents planted two limpet mines on the ship while it was berthed at Marsden wharf. The second explosion killed Greenpeace photographer Fernando Pereira when he got trapped on board while retrieving his cameras.

Author and academic David Robie, a recently retired journalism professor at AUT University, spent more than 10 weeks on board the ship as a journalist shortly before it was attacked, and wrote about his experience in the 1986 book Eyes of Fire.

• READ MORE: The Auckland event on Sunday mirroring the Mā’ohi Lives Matter rally in Pape’ete on July 17
• LISTEN TO THE PODCAST: The bombing of the Rainbow Warrior
• Eyes of Fire, by David Robie – the 30th anniversary book edition

In the Crimes NZ series of RNZ podcasts, the bombing of the Rainbow Warrior is described as the first act of state terrorism against New Zealand.

RNZ’s Jesse Mulligan talks to Dr Robie about the Rainbow Warrior, the humanitarian voyage to Rongelap to help islanders suffering from the legacy of US nuclear tests and his 1986 book Eyes of Fire (Little Island Press Ltd).

The interview was in 2020 to mark the 10 July 1985 date and has just been re-released by RNZ as a podcast.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

• More information – microsite: Eyes of Fire – 30 Years On

Less than half the New Zealand public now professes “overall trust” in news media outlets, despite big rises in audience numbers during the covid-19 pandemic and economic crisis.

The 2021 Trust in News in New Zealand survey released yesterday found the level of overall trust falling from 53 percent in 2020 to 48 percent in 2021 and trust in the news sources used by respondents themselves falling by 7 points from 62 percent to 55 percent.

The drops in NZ mirrored international research findings in the Reuters Digital News Report 2020, which put trust in media at the lowest level since it began seeking such data in 2016.
But our overall trust figure at 48 percent remains high compared to the international average of 38 percent.

• READ MORE: Trust in News in New Zealand 2021

The local survey of 1200 people, run online nationwide by Horizon Research in March on behalf of AUT’s research centre for Journalism, Media and Democracy found all news brands experienced erosion in trust over the 12 months, with Newshub and Newstalk ZB suffering “statistically significant” falls.

Respondents were asked to rate 11 media brands out of 10 for trustworthiness (with 10 being completely trustworthy). Average scores out of 10 were calculated from those who knew of each source.

“In general, trust in the news has declined because the news media is seen as increasingly opinionated, biased, and politicised,” says JMAD co-director Dr Merja Myllylahti.

The survey shows New Zealanders want factual information and not opinion dressed up as news, the researchers say.

While news organisations reported fully on the covid outbreak and were rewarded with big rises in readership, viewership and even user donations, the ebbing away of trust will puzzle some newsrooms.

The JMAD report suggests reasons for mistrust in the media include:

• political bias, especially in talkback radio (“They’re pretty right-wing”)
• politicisation of media
• media pushing certain social/other agenda (including climate change)
• media offering opinions, not factual news and information
• not offering a full picture of events
• selective reporting
• poor standard of journalism, including poor sourcing, factual mistakes, poor grammar and low standard of writing

Readers’ trust in news encountered on social media is particularly low, at 14 percent (down 2) in New Zealand and 22 percent (down 1) internationally, and just 12 percent here would trust social media for good news and information on the pandemic.

Trust in news in New Zealand is clearly below Finland, Portugal and Turkey, but much higher than in countries such as Australia, the US and the UK.

The most trusted sources for news and information on the covid-19 virus and pandemic were RNZ and TVNZ, both state owned.

RNZ riding high in online audience
Not only is RNZ the country’s most trusted news source, it has also surged in the online readership stakes, overtaking TVNZ and now closing in on Newshub for third biggest website audience in the latest, March, Nielsen monthly ratings.

In first place, nzherald.co.nz has pushed back to its near record monthly unique audience at 1.95 million, with Stuff – at 1.77m – now around 300,000 down on its own highs of 2.1m due to removing its content from Facebook. Newshub recorded 890,000, just holding off RNZ at 860,000, with 1News some distance back among the second tier sites, at just 720,000.

The rnz.co.nz audience now is about 60 percent higher than before the Covid-19 pandemic hit a year ago, having spiked like those of many news outlets at the beginning of the outbreak in March and April 2020, but unlike some, holding on to much of its gain.

Stuff is no longer officially part of the Nielsen measurement, so its monthly unique number would be less reliable than others, but the Herald site went past it last year and has not been bested for months on end. When Stuff left Facebook, it was anticipated its total audience would drop as most sites receive major contributions to their readership from referrals from the social media giant.

If the government’s mooted merger of TVNZ and RNZ into a new public broadcaster comes to fruition, the joint public news website could be expected to be a serious challenger (even when the current, separate Nielsen audience numbers are unduplicated) to the Stuff and nzherald.co.nz pairing at the pinnacle of online audiences.

Newsroom is not part of the Nielsen survey.

Discovery discovers cost cutting
It was always going to be on the cards. Four months after taking over MediaWorks’ television arm, Discovery Inc is looking to make cost savings.

The process of talking to staff began last week and will play out over the next couple of months. The company is positioning the cuts as the integration of its Australasian businesses.

Discovery already owned the small free-to-air channels, Choice and HGTV when it bought Three, Bravo, and Edge TV off MediaWorks. Sales and back office functions are obvious areas for rationalisation, although the savings are likely to be minor.

In Australia, free-to-air channel, 9Rush is a joint venture between Discovery Inc and Nine entertainment. Discovery also supplies content to Aussie pay TV networks Foxtel and Fetch.

MediaWorks sold its TV arm because it had been losing millions year after year and dragging the profitable radio operation down. Discovery’s options to cut the loses seem limited unless it gives Three a supply of cheap reality programming, but this risks a ratings drop as TVNZ further ramps up its local production.

Three’s news operation is unlikely to escape the cost-cutters’ attention. Sources say Newshub is part of the cost review but staff are likely to be redeployed rather than axed.

Tim Murphy is co-editor of Newsroom. He writes about politics, Auckland, and media. Twitter: @tmurphynz
Mark Jennings is co-editor of Newsroom. This Newsroom article is republished with permission.

The local West Papua action group in Dunedin has met Taieri MP Ingrid Leary and raised human rights and militarisation issues that members believe the New Zealand government should be pursuing with Indonesia.

Leary has a strong track record on Pacific human rights issues having worked in Fiji as a television journalist and educator and as a NZ regional director of the British Council with a mandate for Pacific cultural projects.

She is also sits on the parliamentary select committees for Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade, and Finance and Expenditure.

• READ MORE: Military exports to Indonesia strain NZ’s human rights record

Leary met local coordinator Barbara Frame, retired Methodist pastor Ken Russell, and two doctoral candidates on West Papua research projects at Otago University’s National Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies (NCPCS), Ashley McMillan and Jeremy Simons, at her South Dunedin electorate office on Friday.

She also met Dr David Robie, publisher and editor of Asia Pacific Report that covers West Papuan issues, and Del Abcede of the Auckland-based Asia-Pacific Human Rights Coalition (APHRC).

New Zealand’s defence relationship with Indonesia was critiqued in an article for RNZ National at the weekend by Maire Leadbeater, author of See No Evil: New Zealand’s Betrayal of the People of West Papua.

‘Human rights illusion’
“The recent exposure of New Zealand’s military exports to Saudi Arabia and other countries with terrible human rights records is very important,” Leadbeater wrote.

“The illusion of New Zealand as a human rights upholder has been shattered, and we have work ahead to ensure that we can restore not only our reputation but the reality on which it is based.”

She cited Official Information Act documentation which demonstrated that since 2008 New Zealand had exported military aircraft parts to the Indonesian Air Force.

“In most years, including 2020, these parts are listed as ‘P3 Orion, C130 Hercules & CASA Military Aircraft:Engines, Propellers & Components including Casa Hubs and Actuators’, she wrote.

The documentation also showed that New Zealand exported other ‘strategic goods’ to Indonesia, including so-called small arms including rifles and pistols.

“New Zealand’s human rights advocacy for West Papua is decidedly low-key, despite claims by some academics that Indonesia is responsible for the alleged crime of genocide against the indigenous people,” Leadbeater wrote.

“Pursuing lucrative arms exports, and training of human rights violators, undermines any message our government sends. As more is known about this complicity the challenge to the government’s Indonesia-first setting must grow.”

Massive militarisation
Asia Pacific Report last month published an article by Suara Papua’s Arnold Belau which revealed that the Indonesian state had sent 21,369 troops to the “land of Papua” in the past three years.

Jakarta sends 21,000 troops to Papua over last three years, says KNPB

This figure demonstrating massive militarisation of Papua did not include Kopassus (special forces), reinforcements and a number of other regional units or the Polri (Indonesian police).

Victor Yeimo, international spokesperson for the West Papua National Committee (KNPB), was cited as saying that Papua was now a “military operation zone”.

“This meant [that] Papua had truly become a protectorate where life and death was controlled by military force,” Belau wrote.

The New Zealand government has appointed eight people to oversee a business case for a new public media entity to replace state-owned Television NZ and RNZ.

The Minister of Broadcasting and Media Kris Faafoi says he plans to present the business case – due to be completed by mid-year – to cabinet for approval by the end of the year.

The business case will consider what a new public media entity would cost to develop, implement and operate –  and how it would “collaborate with and complement the work of private media”.

• READ MORE: Work begins on business case of potential new public media entity
• New details revealed as cabinet agrees on RNZ, TVNZ public broadcasting decision

The business case for Strong Public Media is expected to be completed around the middle of the year – a tight timeframe.

The group will be chaired by former NZ First party deputy leader Tracey Martin.

Board appointees
The other appointees are:

• Broadcasting Standards Authority chair Glen Scanlon – a former head of news at RNZ
• Former MediaWorks chief executive Michael Anderson
• TV producer, former reporter  and member of Prime Minister’s Business Advisory Council Bailey Mackey
• Broadcasting and technology consultant William Earl
• Dr Trisha Dunleavy, Victoria University of Wellington media academic
• Producer Sandra Kailahi, former journalist at TVNZ’s Tagata Pasifika, Te Karere and Fair Go
• John Quirk, former chair and director of state-owner transmission company Kordia.

Media Minister Faafoi said the Minister for Māori Development, Willie Jackson, was also “leading work to enhance support for the Māori media sector”.

“The Governance Group will oversee the development of a business case . . . which will  look at how a potential new public media entity could meet the changing expectations of New Zealand audiences and support a strong, vibrant media sector,” Faafoi said in a statement

The minister also said the group would “lead work to gather input on a Charter for the potential new public media entity”.

The process has been heavily criticised by the National Party and its broadcasting spokesperson Melissa Lee.

She has said it has taken too long and effectively stalled progress on important projects at both broadcasters, including the review of RNZ’s Charter – which was due to begin next week – and RNZ’s plans for a new youth service, the subject of major controversy in 2020 when plans to reallocate RNZ Concert’s FM frequency and cut back the network were announced, and then scrapped.

The story so far
It was back in 2019 that Minister Faafoi first raised the prospect of a new state-owned public media entity under the banner Strengthening Public Media.

Thanks to a source spilling the beans to RNZ in January 2020, it was revealed the government had settled on that option to replace state-owned RNZ and TVNZ within three years.

But back then cabinet wanted to know more about precisely how it would work and ministers demanded a business case before giving it a green light.

It was even common knowledge that PwC had been hired for the task under the guidance of the Ministry of Culture and Heritage before the minister confirmed all that the following month.

He also said it would have revenue from both “Crown and non-Crown sources”  –  a mix of public funding then and commercial revenue in other words.

(This was re-stated by the minister today, but he has declined to discuss the balance of public and commercial funding until after the completion of the business case).

Those who called it a “merger” were corrected by the minister and officials.

Not just mashing together
They have insisted all along this was not just mashing together the public service non-commercial RNZ – whose foundation is radio – with a heavily-commercialised TVNZ founded on television broadcasting and advertising.

But how a completely new digital-age media organisation with a new charter could be created by 2023 out of the resources of two organisations with very different budgets, priorities and cultures remains an unanswered question.

When MPs asked about that in the annual reviews of TVNZ and RNZ last year, the answer was “wait for the business case”.

When covid-19 intervened in March 2020, Strengthening Public Media took a back seat to saving the media.

The business case was put on ice in April 2020.

But earlier this month, Minister Faafoi told the Parliamentary committee reviewing TVNZ and RNZ that work was back on,

TVNZ‘s chief executive Kevin Kenrick told the committee TVNZ was merely an “observer” in the process.

“This future public media entity is basically being progressed by officials at the Ministry of Culture and Heritage right now,” he said.

But RNZ chairman Jim Mather echoed the minister’s language on strengthening public media when he declared RNZ’s strong support.

“We believe, as a board and executive team, it is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to create a stronger public media system the would benefit all New Zealanders,” he told Parliament’s Social Services Committee.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Help with living costs while studying and extra support for mental health are two areas Pacific tertiary students want given more attention with the New Zealand general election.

Universities NZ figures show there were 10,000 full-time Pasifika students enrolled in May, an increase of 35 percent since 2010.

The last two national budgets have committed $107.6 million to help Pacific communities over the next 30 years, but tertiary students say there are urgent needs that must be addressed.

“The first one is mental health and well-being,” according to Leilani Vae’au, while for Ali Leota “one thing for sure is introducing a universal education income”.

Vae’au is at Wellington’s Victoria University working towards a bachelor degree in political science, international relations and religious studies.

She is also on the university’s Pasifika student council.

The 20-year-old is not eligible for student allowance to help with living expenses because her parents earn over the threshold. Student allowance begins to drop once parents earn beyond $56,888.52 a year before tax. If parents jointly earn $98,653.52 or more the student is ineligible.

‘Three younger siblings’
“But I have three younger siblings under me who depend on that and other family members who depend on my parents,” Vae’au explained.

“And I can’t get that aid so that I don’t have to work all the shifts I work to be able to study and focus on that because of the fact my parents make money to support my family.”

Instead, she meets her living costs working multiple office shifts, which she balances with full-time study, student council commitments and a busy home life.

During the Level 4 lockdown she was relieved to keep her job, but from home when her bedroom became her office, living room and study. The lines blurred between study, work and family life.

“Over covid, I didn’t have the opportunity to compartmentalise my house which has six people living in it and a hundred different Zoom calls going on at the same time.”

Vae’au found the inability to separate these aspects of life particularly challenging.

“As a child of the Pacific or as a child in a multi-generational home, as the eldest child as well, there are lot of factors that were still impacting mental health-wise and just stability-wise in the home environment.”

University difficult to navigate
Fellow Vic student Rosina Buchanan is a self-described “queer non-binary person of colour with a disability”.

The Bachelor of Health student has found university difficult to navigate without adequate mental health support and would like to see greater equity when meeting the challenges campus life presents.

“Because I would encounter quite a bit of ableism, elitism, classism, homophobia, being misgendered, racism, and that is definitely a lot of barriers to being able to thrive.”

For Ali Leota, the national president of the Pacific student body Tauira Pasifika, financial support is key.

“One thing for sure is introducing a universal education income” he said, challenging the government to help provide a hand up to provide Pasifika students with a level playing field.

“The public health major would like to see student allowance eligibility reconfigured in a way that’s fairer to Pacific families, as the parental income threshold doesn’t adequately take into account the number of dependants.

“And coming from a big family, we’re kind of victims of that,” Leota says.

Universal education income
“So therefore, implementing a universal education income is a way to pave the way forward to making tertiary education accessible and fit for purpose for our Pacific learners.”

Post-graduate students should also be included in the ‘universal education income’ according to Leota, who pointed out the incumbent government had failed to reinstate their financial backing which he said was a barrier to Pasifika achieving masters and doctoral success.

It is also a barrier to Pasifika moving into academia.

“Do they go to work or do they continue to study?” Leota says.

“Of course nine times out of 10 our Pasifika students will opt to work to go and help support families but a universal education income will enable our students to climb up the ladder and make our tertiary spaces a space where we feel like we’re welcomed.”

Leota says Pasifika people are underrepresented in academia, even in Pacific studies, and pointed to studies by Dr Sereana Naepi and Dr Tara McAllister who asked Why isn’t my professor Pasifika?

The incumbent government has committed to “confronting systematic racism and discrimination in education” as part of its five point action plan to support Pacific learners.

More student body support
University of Auckland law student Shaneel Lal says they can help address it immediately by offering more support to Pacific student bodies which in turn provide support to students.

Lal’s family moved from Fiji when he was 14 and he attended Auckland’s Ōtāhuhu College where his hard work was recognised, being named school Dux. The Youth Parliament 2019 MP who represented Jenny Salesa said he had difficulty transitioning from the strong Pasifika and Māori-dominated culture of high school to the University of Auckland.

“I went from a very collectivist community to a very individualist community where I went from being a person to a number, and nothing really prepares a young Pacific person for that transition.”

The 20-year-old said he was overwhelmed with the culture shock at the time and dropped out. Although he is back at university, he would like more attention paid by tertiary institutions to learning priorities and styles from this part of the world.

“For example, Māori communities are underpinned by the fundamental principles of whanaungatanga and we have similar concepts in our Pacific communities that we exist as a community,” said Lal.

“That is missing at university. University is about competing rather than collaborating and working together.”

While Labour has released a five-point action plan to improve things for Pacific students, including “to respond to unmet needs, with an initial focus on needs arising from the covid-19 pandemic”, other parties lack university specific education policy for Pasifika.

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

New Zealand established its credentials as an independent small nation after the fatal bombing of the Greenpeace flagship Rainbow Warrior in 1985, says an author and academic who spent weeks on the vessel shortly before it was attacked.

On 10 July 1985, the Rainbow Warrior was sunk at an Auckland wharf by two bombs planted on the hull of the ship by French secret agents.

The event is often referred to as the first act of terrorism in New Zealand.

LISTEN: The Afternoons with Jesse Mulligan Crime NZ interview with David Robie
WATCH: Eyes of Fire archival videos
READ: The Eyes of Fire book

Two French agents planted two explosives on the ship while it was berthed at Marsden wharf, the second explosion killing Greenpeace photographer Fernando Pereira.

Dr David Robie, who is an AUT professor of journalism and communication studies, as well as the director of the university’s Pacific Media Centre, had spent more than 10 weeks on the ship as a journalist covering its nuclear rescue mission in the Pacific.

He wrote about his experience in Eyes of Fire, a book about the last voyage of the first Rainbow Warrior – two other Rainbow Warrior ships have followed.

In 1985, Rongelap atoll villagers in the Marshall Islands asked Greenpeace to help them relocate to a new home at Mejato atoll. Their island had been contaminated by radioactive fallout from US atmospheric nuclear weapons testing in the Pacific.

Environmental journalism
“At the time I was very involved in environmental issues around the Pacific and in those days Greenpeace was very small, a fledgling organisation,” he tells Jesse Mulligan.

“They had a little office in downtown Auckland and Elaine Shaw was the coordinator and she was quite worried that this was going to be a threshold voyage.

“It was probably the first campaign by Greenpeace that was humanitarian, it wasn’t just environmental – to rescue basically the people who had been suffering from nuclear radiation.”

Shaw, he says, was looking for media publicity on the issue and several journalists from Europe and the US had been invited on board as the Greenpeace crew carried out their mission.

“There were about six journalists who went onboard but I ended up being the only one from the Southern Hemisphere.

“It was a big commitment at the time because I was a freelance journalist and it meant joining the Rainbow Warrior in Hawai’i and being onboard until 10-to-11 weeks, right up until the time of the bombing.”

He says the 49m ex-fishing trawler, originally named the Sir William Hardy, built in Aberdeen, Scotland, had been comfortable enough at sea, having been refitted as an environmental sailing ship as well as engines. “It had a lot of character… I guess all of us onboard grew to love it incredibly.”

Moruroa protest planned
The US had carried out 67 nuclear tests at the Marshall Islands. France was also carrying out 193 tests in the Pacific and Greenpeace had planned on confronting that situation at Moruroa Atoll after its Marshall Islands rescue effort.

New Zealand had already voiced disapproval of the testing in the region, with then Prime Minister David Lange in 1984 rebuking the French for “arrogantly” continuing the programme in the country’s backyard.

Dr Robie left the ship when it docked in Auckland after the Marshall Islands stage of the mission. Three days after the ship had docked, a birthday celebration was held for  Greenpeace campaign organiser Steve Sawyer onboard. The attack happened after the party.

Just before midnight on the evening of 10 July 1985, two explosions ripped through the hull as the ship.

Portuguese crew member Fernando Pereira was killed after returning on board after the first explosion.

“I think it was an incredible miracle that only one person lost his life,” Dr Robie says. He was not at the party at the time and joined the crew early it the morning when he heard the news.

He objects to the prominent media angle at the time, which he says focused on suggestions it was not the perpetrator’s intention to kill anyone.

‘Outrageous act of terrorism’
“It was an outrageous act of terrorism and the bombers knew very well, as they were getting information all the time, that there was a large crowd onboard the Rainbow Warrior that night and the chances were very high that there could have been a loss of life.”

Two of the cabin crew were situated immediately above the engine room when the first bomb planted there went off. The second bomb was planted near the propeller to ensure the ship was hobbled.

Dr Robie had been able to visit the ship later after it had been towed to Devonport naval base.

“I was quiet staggered – my old [cabin] floor had sort of erupted, Fernando had a cabin right close to that and he probably got trapped there.”

Thirteen foreign agents were involved, operating in three teams. The first team brought in the explosives, the second team would plant these and the third was on stand-by in case anything went wrong with the first two teams.

“A commanding officer kept an overview of the whole operation. I think there was an element of arrogance, the same arrogance as with the testing itself. There was a huge amount of arrogance about taking on an operation like this in a peaceful country – we were allies of France at the time – and it is extraordinary that they assumed they could get away with this outrageous act.”

Two of the spies were caught. Two General Directorate for External Security (DGSE) officers, Dominique Prieur and Alain Mafart, were arrested on July 24. Both were charged with murder, pleaded guilty to manslaughter and were sentenced to 10 years’ imprisonment.

Repression of independence movements
“You have to see it within the context of the period of the time,” Dr Robie says.

He says that the French policy of repression against independence movements in New Caledonia and Tahiti, with assassinations of Kanak leaders like Eloi Machoro, needed to be understood to put the Rainbow Warrior attack in perspective. France was bitterly defending its nuclear force de frappe.

“New Zealand was unpopular with the major nuclear powers and there was certainly no sympathy for New Zealand’s position about nuclear testing. So, there wasn’t really any co-operation, even from our closest neighbour, Australia.

“Had we had more cooperation… we probably would have got agents who were on board the Ouvea, the yacht that carried the explosives, in Norfolk Island. But it is extraordinary we got two [agents] anyway.

“But we did not benefit in any way from [state] intelligence… so I think we were very much let down by our intelligence community.”

The case was a source of considerable embarrassment to the French government.

“They did pay compensation after arbitration that went on with the New Zealand government and Greenpeace. But justice was never really served… the 10 years were never served, both Prieur and Mafart were part of the negotiations with French government.

NZ was held ‘over a barrel’
“Basically, France had New Zealand over a barrel over trade and the European Union, so compromises were reached and Prieur and Mafart were handed over to France for three years. Essentially house arrest at Hao atoll, the rear base of the French nuclear operations in Polynesia.”

Dr Robie said the rear base was widely regarded as a military “Club Med”.

He says they didn’t even spend three years there, but left for France within the time period.

While the attack was on an international organisation rather than New Zealand itself, most New Zealanders saw it as an attack on the sovereignty of the nation

Dr Robie says it left a long-lasting impression on New Zealanders.

“It was a baptism of fire. It was a loss of innocence when that happened. And in that context, we had stood up as a small nation on being nuclear-free. Something we should have been absolutely proud of, which we were, with all those who campaigned for that at the time. I think that really established our independence, if you like, as a small nation.

“I think we have a lot to contribute to the world in terms of peace-making and we shouldn’t lose track of that. The courage that was shown by this country, standing up to a major nuclear power. We should follow through on that kind of independence of thought.”

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

• Eyes of Fire – Thirty Years 0n – a microsite of Rainbow Warrior bombing archival stories, videos and reports made in 2015

After a week-long controversy, New Zealand’s public broadcaster Radio New Zealand (RNZ) has withdrawn a proposal to axe its classical music station RNZ Concert.

But despite the sudden backtrack, RNZ Concert isn’t safe yet. Whatever the final outcome of RNZ’s rethink, it is clear the board and management placed little value on the significant role the station plays in New Zealand musical culture.

RNZ Concert now needs a compelling new strategic direction to create a redefined – rather than eviscerated – station that is central to a more diverse 21st-century artistic vision in New Zealand.

READ MORE: Newsrooms not keeping up with changing demographics, study suggests

Decades of decline
The announcement that RNZ planned to fire RNZ Concert presenters and producers, and replace them with an automated jukebox on an inferior AM frequency, prompted a public outcry spearheaded by former prime minister Helen Clark, and a legal challenge from a coalition of orchestras.

But this was merely the bleak endgame to a managed decline of RNZ Concert over the past 20 years. During this period, it lost its flagship studio (to make way for government buildings that never eventuated), and had to sell its grand pianos to stay afloat.

On a budget of only 7 percent of RNZ’s total annual expenditure, it nevertheless attracts almost 22 percent of its total audience — despite there being virtually no advertising of the station.

The announcement was also poorly timed, landing just a few days before the government launched a business case to merge RNZ with the television network TVNZ.

RNZ’s role in preserving culture
No broadcaster has done as much to both record and promote New Zealand music as RNZ Concert. Many regard the station as a “cultural taonga” (treasure).

With a new mandate, and a revised strategic direction, it could be central to supporting a “broadening of horizons” currently underway in classical music. Orchestras and ensembles worldwide are finally beginning to understand the need to address systematic imbalances of generational, gender and cultural representation in their programmes to ensure their continued relevance.

In New Zealand, this is evidenced by the number of ambitious cross-cultural, cross-genre and cross-generational projects in recent years. In 2019, soul singer Teeks headlined a collaboration with the Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra in a series of songs arranged by Mahuia Bridgman-Cooper. This concert was recorded and broadcast by RNZ Concert.

Several Sistema-style groups are now training a new generation of Māori and Pasifika in orchestral playing skills, some of which have resulted in packed-out public performances alongside Orchestra Wellington. These are also recorded and broadcast by RNZ Concert.

My own composition Mātauranga (Rerenga), premiered by the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra in 2019, features traditional Māori musical instruments (taonga puoro). Once again, RNZ Concert recorded this, just one of a number of new works featuring these once-suppressed instruments that are being nurtured back to life by artists such as Richard Nunns, Horomona Horo, Ariana Tikao and Alistair Fraser.

At the heart of the arts
RNZ Concert is uniquely positioned to lead a more representative arts experience in a way no other radio station in New Zealand is equipped to do. It is an active partner in a number of collaborative projects such as Resound, which is responsible for amassing a treasure trove of live concert videos of New Zealand music, hosted on YouTube and Vimeo.

It produces documentaries and interviews, presents educational programmes, and has recently expanded its coverage to include musical practices that defy the dominance of mainstream commercial pop – such as jazz, Māori music, experimentalism, sonic art and non-Western music. While these are currently only a small part of Concert’s programming, they could expand and flourish.

Having had a stay of execution, RNZ Concert now deserves a new kind of strategic leadership that can develop an innovative, exciting brand of musical diversity.
It needs a new vision to set it at the heart of 21st-century music-making in Aotearoa.

Michael Norris is associate professor, programme director (composition), Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence. Read the original article.

International and Pacific reporting are among the first casualties of struggling New Zealand newsrooms as they try to cut costs to make up for decreasing advertising revenue.

This was the bleak message from Dr Mel Bunce, a media academic speaking at Auckland University of Technology earlier this week.

Discussing her latest book, The Broken Estate: Journalism and Democracy in a Post-Truth World, Dr Bunce said the New Zealand media had been hit particularly hard by the immense changes brought about by social media and technology.

READ MORE: Ethics needed in computing and tech to stop ‘robber barons’, says academic

“You can see things are really quite bad here. The foundations of the media systems here are actually, compared to most countries more fragile and more vulnerable to further disruption.

“We’ve seen that in the drops in journalist numbers; in 2001 there were 2300 journalists in the census, by 2013 it had dropped down to 1500. So more than 30% of journalists have gone.”

A reader in journalism at City, University of London, Dr Bunce said a small market and the inability to exploit economies of scale was a main reason for the New Zealand media’s fragility.

A unique ownership model also meant that news outlets couldn’t adapt as well as other businesses to market disruption.

“A lot of it [New Zealand media] is owned by international financial companies who specialise in buying distressed companies which they buy to make short term profit and then sell off.

“What that means is that you’re not willing to accept losses in some parts of your business. You’re not willing to use your radio profits to subsidise your TV.”

The observation corresponds with MediaWorks’ decision to sell off its struggling TV business, a move that could further erode plurality in the media and could potentially jeopardise 500 jobs if a buyer isn’t found.

However, she said it was a lack of public funding of media that was the main reason for the dire situation.

Neglected public media

“The final reason things are so challenging is that we really have neglected public media here compared to other countries in recent years. Australia historically spends a couple of times more than us in public media, and the UK up to six times much.”

“We are almost alone among industrialised commonwealth countries in having no public broadcaster.”

In an op-ed in the New Zealand Herald earlier this week, Dr Bunce ventured the best options to create a state funded broadcaster would be to expand RNZ into a full multimedia organisation or merge it with TVNZ.

The result would be New Zealand’s version of the BBC or the ABC, both the preferred and most trusted sources of news in their respective countries.

“A newly merged, state-funded broadcaster could also include Māori Television. But it would be absolutely crucial, if that happened, to safeguard Māori Television’s unique and specific mandate (and funding) to support Māori language and culture,” she wrote.

Lack of diversity

Dr Bunce said that Māori Television added a vital counter weight to the lack of diversity which was still rampant in the mainstream media.

“We have lots of research which shows that the media continues to represent Maori and Pacific Islanders very very negatively.”

While reporting on the Pacific region continues to suffer from the changes in the media landscape, she said that local community reporting, here and abroad had been hit particularly hard.

“One big study in the US found that there are now 1300 communities that have no access to local news whatsoever and that includes 200 counties so places where serious administrative power, decision making is taking place and not scrutinised and not reported on in any way.”

These “news deserts” were concerning she said as research had shown what happens to a community when it doesn’t have news.

“We see that voter turnout goes down, people become more polarised because they tend to get their info from national sources which are more politicised, we see that there is also more corruption and less efficient government.”

‘Silver lining’

However, she said there was a silver lining from the global changes that were having such a powerful influence on journalism, one being a boom in new media research to find solutions.

More money was being spent to fund grants and studies in an effort to confront the challenges posed by the likes of Cambridge Analytica.

However, she reemphasised that more investment in public journalism was essential to mitigate the crisis.

“We have a really really compelling moment at which we should be intervening to provide more public funding for journalism.”

“It’s going to be a hard battle because I don’t know that people are aware of what it’s like to be in a place without the news, yet.”

While the data and the research showed that the media as a whole was suffering, she said the quality of journalists’ work, especially in New Zealand, was not.

“Some of the best journalism in the world is being done in New Zealand by some very talented people.”

The occupation at Ihumātao is a spectacle of flags.

In every direction they flutter. Alongside tino rangatiratanga – the Māori flag of independence, Samoan colours fly. Next to the United Tribes of New Zealand banner a Tongan flag quivers. A Niuean flag stands tall on Te Puketaapapatanga ā Hape – the sacred Maunga. A Hawai’ian flag is draped from the shoulders of a man like a cape. And on a teenager’s black t-shirt the Morning Star, the true flag of the people of West Papua is displayed with proud impunity.

It’s the Pacific, come ashore at Ihumātao, standing alongside tangata whenua with whom past, present and future are bound through ancestral bloodlines and an ocean of perspective.

GALLERY: Guardianship photo shoot with the Ihumātao ‘protectors’ – Del Abcede

WATCH Pacific people rally behind Ihumātao occupation – Tagata Pasifika

Yet here at Ihumātao, the site of a peaceful occupation to protect sacred Māori land from development, the flags are more than symbols of national identity. Here they are united symbols of indigenous.

As one supporter was reported declaring: “This is an indigenous problem!”

Although this occupation, against a backdrop of colonial injustice, means so much for Māori in Aotearoa and indigenous across the Pacific who are facing similar battles to protect their land, it has also mustered the support of other cultural groups whose members have formed their own deep and unique connections with Māori people and culture.

Asian presence at Ihumātao
If presence – both at the occupation site and on social media – is anything to go by, one of the most ardent non-Māori supporters of the occupation is Asians Supporting Tino Rangatiratanga.

Formed in 2016 from a group of six Asian-New Zealanders, ASTR now has a chapter in both Auckland and Wellington and thousands of supporters from across the country.

The members are passionate in their support of the Mana Whenua at Ihumātao, and were part of the Asian delegation at the occupation.

Outside of protests, they organise Te Tiriti o Waitangi (The Treaty of Waitangi) workshops where other Asian migrants can learn about the Treaty and Aotearoa’s colonial history.

“We’re trying to demystify [the history] and build bridges,” says youth worker and ASTR member Mengzhu Fu.

“Pākehā try and mediate the relationship between Asians migrants and Māori,” she says.

The colonial status quo
“When they have control of those relationships they often pit migrants against Māori and that division often works in their favour to maintain the colonial status quo.

“The relationship often has to be through them but we want to bypass them and directly build those relationships.”

She also says because of language issues Asian migrants are often susceptible to the misrepresentation precipitated through the New Zealand media.

“There’s is a lot of misinformation that is translated from Pākehā media.

“A lot of our communities that are not as fluent in English will receive that media and make a perception of Māori based on Pākehā translations.”

While she was certainly exposed to those negative perceptions when she first arrived here as a child, she has since discovered that the reality is far different.

Journey of discovery
Her journey however has been her own, and like many New Zealanders, her high school years did little to expose her to much of this country’s history.

“I went to quite a prestigious public school and I only remember learning about the Treaty in fourth form and it was quite brushed over.

“We did re-enactments of the Treaty but we never learned what happened after it was signed.”

Another member of ASTR, Qian-ye Lin, agrees: “I think I only learned about the Treaty or specificity of New Zealand colonial history through my friends, like by falling into friend groups that are political and who are willing to teach me.”

Also a migrant from China, Lin says that Asian migrants are desperate to integrate into Pākehā society which means that the Māori world often falls into the shadows.

“There is this massive need to assimilate whether it is for survival or otherwise.

“That was my journey of assimilating into the Pākehā world and then realising that by doing that I’m also complicit in colonisation.”

Cultural reflections
A student at the University of Auckland, Lin says that one of the most valuable aspects of learning about New Zealand’s colonial injustices is the insights it provides her into her own culture.

“I feel that being Han Chinese and of the more privileged class I’ve definitely been quite blind to colonisation or the perspective of indigenous people because I do occupy the space of being the dominant majority in China.”

She says that ASTR’s work helps educate Asian migrants and enables them to engage meaningfully with the colonial aspects of their own ancestry.

However, both her and Fu hope the work will also permeate more into Pākehā society.

“Sometimes it’s as simple as listening. Listening to people who have been disempowered,” Fu says.

Lin agrees: “I feel like the first step is to get over your fragility, and being brave enough to admit that maybe you do occupy a dominant position.”

“It’s about taking accountability and realising that Pākehā have been privileged because of that history and there are ways that they can dismantle that as well.”

Muslim delegation
On a weekend in late July, a Muslim delegation was welcomed with a pōwhiri onto the whenua at Ihumātao.

They sat with the kaumatua (elders), listened to karakia (prayer) and waiata (songs) and were shown hospitality in accordance with the revered Māori customs of manaakitanga.

Among the delegation – which included several Islamic leaders and scholars, was Shaymaa Arif who has found that the principals of manaakitanga have an uncanny similarity to Islamic customs.

It’s the respect and inclusivity of manaakitanga, she says that is bringing Māori and New Zealand Muslims closer together.

“An understanding has really developed,” she says.

“The communities are becoming closer to each other, the gap is becoming smaller.”

A former human rights lawyer based in Kirikiriroa (Hamilton), Arif says the contact between Muslims and Māori has historically been stifled by fear based on media-driven stereotypes and intergenerational ignorance.

A bond is forming
However, in recent years the walls have started to come down and a true bond is forming, the kind that can only form between people who have shed similar tears and felt similar pain.

“There is a long trail of tears in this beautiful country which we as people from minority groups have also experienced on a different level so we understand the struggle.”

After the Christchurch mosque attacks on March 15, that understanding was galvanised into something even stronger.

“The Māori community stood with us so much. They came out and gave us that space to lean on them.”

“They literally were like ‘we understand the struggle. We’ve been through this for so many years.’”

For Arif, who has ventured up from Hamilton three times to join the occupation, the kindness and support shown to her by Māori deeply affected her youth. In her teen years she was included in kapa haka groups without question. In her university years Māori mentors coached her even through she’s not Māori. It was manaakitanga she says, that made her feel connected and welcome.

And yet now, four months after the mosque attacks, questions are being asked if that sense of public connection and unity that was touted on a national level in the aftermath of March 15 has been maintained. Has the bulk of New Zealand society moved on, and once again forgotten about its Muslim community?

Possibly, but certainly not by everyone. Arif says that every Friday evening, four months on from the attack, a group of local Māori pitch a gazebo on the park across the road from the Hamilton mosque and stand guard, while inside the worshippers pray in peace.

That, she says, is why she stands with the mana whenua at Ihumātao.

Auckland University of Technology has denied bowing to Chinese government pressure to stop one of its rooms being used for an event marking last month’s 30th anniversary of the bloody crackdown on protests in Tiananmen Square in Beijing.

The New Zealand university has confirmed it canned a reservation for the event on Monday, June 3 – a public holiday, after a meeting with China’s Vice-Consul General Xiao Yewen on the preceding Friday.

Vice-Chancellor Derek McCormack said AUT did not know the event was about the Tiananmen Square protests and it cancelled the booking only because the staff member who made it had not followed the right process, and the building would be closed for the holiday.

READ MORE: Fault lines of fact 25 years after the events in Tiananmen Square

“If it had been an AUT event or if it had been booked through the proper channels through our hospitality services group, it would have gone ahead as the film In the Name of Confucius went ahead a little earlier, which was also something that the Chinese consulate drew to our attention and asked us to cancel which we did not,” he said.

“It needs to be done in the proper manner for all sorts of reasons, including health and safety. There are also charges that are made for rooms because of cleaning and set-up and utilities.

“These things were bypassed by the person who made the booking. In fact they did not even make the booking in their own name so it was something that was completely out of order.”

Concerns coincided
Messages obtained by Newsroom under the Official Information Act showed McCormack later wrote to the Vice-Consul General to say AUT defended its academic freedom, but in this instance their concerns and AUT’s concerns had coincided.

McCormack told RNZ News that Xiao had not threatened repercussions if AUT failed to cancel the booking.

“The Vice-Consul General pointed out that we had a good relationship with China, that we had lots of Chinese students and because of that good relationship could we help them out and cancel something they objected to.”

McCormack said the university did not know at the time what the event was about. It had been booked as a student seminar and advertised in Chinese media, not in English.

Emails show Xiao described AUT’s decision as “right and wise” and would “definitely help promote further growth of exchanges and cooperation between AUT and the General Consulate and China in general”.

‘Dubious explanation’
Tertiary Education Union national secretary Sharn Riggs said universities sometimes ran into problems with room bookings, but she was dubious about AUT’s explanation.

“Hardly seems credible, does it? That is the public position that the university is putting out, but I guess from our point of view that seems like a fairly lame reason to have cancelled the event,” she said.

Riggs said the incident highlighted universities’ reliance on tuition fees from Chinese students.

“When so many of our universities now are reliant on the fees that international students pay, and in AUT’s case it’s quite a significant chunk of their annual income, it’s inevitable that foreign governments are going to have the ability to put pressure on institutions should they want to and I think in this case that’s exactly what the Chinese government has done.”

Defending freedom of expression
Education Minister Chris Hipkins would not comment on AUT’s decision, but defended freedom of expression at universities.

He said the relationship with China was important to the government and to many tertiary institutions, but it had to be based on mutual respect.

“In New Zealand, free speech, the right to democratic process, those are very important things to New Zealanders and we have always been very clear with the Chinese government that those are things that we will always defend here in New Zealand,” Hipkins said.

The Chinese consulate in Auckland did not respond to a request for comment.

• This article is published under the Pacific Media Centre’s content partnership with Radio New Zealand.

Media are a crucial part of the democratic process and accessibility to politicians is key to informing the public, say Pacific journalists visiting New Zealand. 

Esther Pavihi from the Broadcasting Corporation of Niue (BCN) and Tiana Elle Haxton of the Cook Islands Television News and Radio Cook Islands (RAR CK) are spending two weeks with RNZ Pacific in Wellington as part of the PCBL Media Exchange.

Both journalists say media access to MPs in New Zealand is different to their home countries.

READ MORE: Vanuatu government more open under information law, says journalist

New Zealand media often crowd MPs to ask questions as they walk into the debating chamber. This area is known as ‘the tiles’ or ‘the bridge’ and often has the dinging sound of the division bell in audio recordings. 

“The politicians are very welcoming of the media and their questions and for the members to respond immediately” said Pavihi.

“Back home that doesn’t happen, it takes us quite a long time to get a response from members of Parliament and that’s if we get one.”

LISTEN: Access to MPs crucial for democracy – Pacific journalists

The main chance to get comment from Cook Island MPs on a sitting day is when they take a break said Haxton.

“There’s a relatively alright relationship between the parliamentarians and the media but when it comes to asking the questions that people need to have the answers to, that is my area of focus.”

Access to MPs is made more difficult in the Cook Islands by the geographical spread of electorates across the ocean where flying to an electorate can take hours, and a sometimes unpredictable sitting calender.

Further differences include the rowdiness of the New Zealand Parliament’s Question Time which is an hour of 12 questions to Ministers designed to either support or expose the Government.

“It is a lot louder,” said Haxton.

“I noticed that people would intervene here and there and add their own comments from the sidelines and we don’t have that in the Cook Islands. You might have a couple of people  ‘mm-ing’ and ‘ah-ing’ but that’s about it.”

Shouting out across the chamber while an MP is speaking doesn’t happen in the Pacific Islands said Pavihi. 

“We’re more polite in how we discuss issues of national importance,” she said.

“Two opposite sides of the [NZ] house are barking at each other basically and the level of intervention and how the Speaker has had to stand on his feet to bring the house to order, that never happens back in Niue.”

Pavihi said debate does happen but is more polite and the MP who has the floor is allowed to speak for their allotted time without interruption.

“We want people to be able to hear what is said by a member rather than listening to a whole lot of arguments and quite petty things that are being called out,” said Pavihi.

This article is published under the Pacific Media Centre’s content partnership with Radio New Zealand.

Auckland Council has declared a climate emergency after an Environment Committee meeting today.

The council’s motion was passed unanimously and was met with applause from activists in the packed public gallery.

Activists had told committee members many of them would be voting this election and their votes depended on what councillors would decide.

READ MORE: UN Security-General tells youth be ‘noisy as possible’ on climate change

Waiata Rameka-Tupe from the group Climate Conscious Mana Rangatahi brought a stuffed New Zealand sea turtle to the table with her, saying it had died because its stomach was filled with plastic.

Rameka-Tupe said her group was excited the council had made the declaration but warned it would be watching carefully to see if they followed up with action.

Representing the school climate strikers, Generation Zero’s Sidd Mehita put the council on notice if they wanted their votes.

“We need to see you have skin in the game,” he said.

It was not just young people speaking today, with activist Rosie Gee telling the council it was time to stop using soft words like “encourage” when it comes to making change.

Policy change was the best way to limit climate change and it was needed now, she said.

The Environment Committee includes every member of the council, so its decisions are binding immediately without having to go through further council processes.

In a press release, the council said the declaration meant it was committing to:

• Robustly and visibly incorporate climate change considerations into work programmes and decisions.
• Provide strong local government leadership in the face of climate change, including working with local and central government partners to ensure a collaborative response.
• Advocate strongly for greater central government leadership and action on climate change.
• Increase the visibility of our climate change work.
• Lead by example in monitoring and reducing the council’s greenhouse gas emissions.
• Include climate change impact statements on all council committee reports.

Councillors also voted that all reports presented by staff to decision making committees should include a climate impact statement.

All supported the declaration, but several said the council did not have a handle on the problem and would need to make major, concrete changes if the declaration was to be meaningful.

This article is published under the Pacific Media Centre’s content partnership with Radio New Zealand.

New Zealand’s major media companies have agreed to follow a strict protocol when covering the trial of the Christchurch mosque accused terrorist.

The accused man, Brenton Harrison Tarrant, faces 50 counts of murder and 39 counts of attempted murder in relation to the attacks on two Christchurch mosques on March 15.

In a NZ Media Freedom Committee statement released today, the senior editors of TVNZ, Stuff, NZME, Mediaworks and RNZ said they were “aware that the accused may attempt to use the trial as a platform to amplify white supremacist and/or terrorist views ideology.”

READ MORE: Online hate speech ‘gives green light’ to religion, race attacks 

“We are committed to ensuring the outlets we represent cover the upcoming trial comprehensively and responsibly,” the statement read.

Victims of the terror attack included people from 12 countries.

The protocol consists of the following guidelines which will limit coverage and prevent the broadcast of any white supremacist ideology.

The protocol stated:

• We shall, to the extent that is compatible with the principles of open justice, limit
  any coverage of statements, that actively champion white supremacist or terrorist
  ideology.
• For the avoidance of doubt the commitment set out at (a) shall include the accused’s
  manifesto document “The Great Replacement”.
• We will not broadcast or report on any message, imagery, symbols or signals
  (including hand signals) made by the accused or his associates promoting or
  supporting white supremacist ideology.
• Where the inclusion of such signals in any images is unavoidable, the relevant parts
  of the image shall be pixelated.
• To the greatest extent possible, the journalists that are selected by each of the
  outlets to cover the trial will be experienced personnel.
• These guidelines may be varied at any time, subject to a variation signed by all
  parties.
• This protocol shall continue in force indefinitely.

Editorial signatories to the protocol are Miriyana Alexander (NZME and chair of the Media Freedom Committee), John Gillespie (TVNZ), Shayne Currie (NZME), Mark Stevens (Stuff), Paul Thompson (RNZ), and Hal Crawford (Mediaworks).

The accused terrorist is due to appear in court on June 14.

This article is published under the Pacific Media Centre’s content partnership with Radio New Zealand.

The allocation of $15 million for public broadcasting will be split between RNZ, New Zealand on Air and a new fund targeting “under-served audiences”. It’s the biggest single boost for public broadcasting for a decade, but will it make a big difference?

“It’s the beginning of a new era,” said Broadcasting and Digital Media Minister Claire Curran, announcing the new funding arrangements.

She flourished a graph from a report showing how spending on public broadcasting in other countries dwarfs our own.

It was “shameful and embarrassing,” she said.

“This increase … is just the beginning.”

Labour went into the last election talking a good game too.

It pledged $38 million a year more for RNZ and public broadcasting funding agency New Zealand On Air to deliver “quality New Zealand programming and journalism modeled on the ABC in Australia”.

Multimedia platform
Curran said the bulk of the money would create a new multimedia platform called RNZ+ and a TV channel on Freeview was part of the plan.

But once in government, Labour earmarked only $15 million more for public media in the Budget in May. Plans for a TV channel were talked down and are now spoken of as merely “an aspiration” for the future.

The new money will now be split four ways.

RNZ chief executive Paul Thompson described the $4.5 million added to RNZ’s $35 million annual public funding as “a dose of steroids”.

“We’ll make you proud, Minister” said NZOA’s chair Dr Ruth Harley, welcoming a $4 million boost to its $100 million-a-year budget for local TV shows and digital content.

The minister said a further $6 million will go into a new “Innovation Fund” to create “more public media content for under-served audiences such as Māori and Pacific Peoples, children and regional New Zealand.”

Both RNZ and NZOA jointly suggested this idea, but suggested only $2 million for the new fund, leaving $8.5m for “stage one of the RNZ+ plan”.

Independent producers
The content will appear on RNZ platforms but it will be made by independent producers commissioned by NZ On Air, the minister said.

Other media companies had opposed the funding increase and TV and film production companies jointly called for $20 million extra for New Zealand on Air instead.

Last year, MediaWorks chief executive Michael Anderson claimed RNZ+ could wipe out his business and hired a lobbyist to talk the minister out of it. New Zealand on Air funding is a significance source of finance for some of its local programmes on TV channel Three.

He was happy with this week’s announcement.

“It targets the right communities and gives RNZ support and extra funding for NZ On Air makes sense,” he told Mediawatch.

The minister’s advisory group – after many weeks chewing over the issues – appear to have tried to keep RNZ, NZOA and independent programme-makers happy with a roughly even split of the fresh funds.

“Keeping our entities happy is not how I would describe it but I don’t see that as being a bad thing,” Curran told Mediawatch.

Better collaboration
“This is stage one. We are working on how to make better collaboration happen across the other public media such as Māori TV, Pacific media and state-owned TVNZ,” she said.

Clearly more money is welcome for organisations that have not had a substantial boost for years and it could go a long way. (Certainly further than the 200 hours of content local TV producers say they could generate with $20 million more funding).

The minister’s instance that there will be more money for media in future is also a comfort for them.

But in the end this is an incremental change which puts more money into the existing system – not a transformative one.

The remaining $500,000 of the new funding will be spent on researching how “Crown-funded media agencies can use their assets more efficiently.”

Perhaps it would be better if that had been done before the new funding arrangements were made. State-owned TVNZ for example has substantial assets – and big audiences – but no public mandate at all any more.

It has no role in the funding revealed this week.

Australian comparison
“Compared with Australia, the $216 million spent on broadcasting in 2017/18 is clearly inadequate,” Curran said at the announcement.

Her chart – from a PWC report commission by the Ministry for Culture and Heritage – showed Australia spends $1.6 billion on public broadcasting.

That is about $67 per person a year as opposed to just under $50 a head here. But Australians get a lot more public broadcasting for their money. They get commercial-free ABC TV channels, on-demand video and local and national radio as well ethnic-focused SBS radio and TV and indigenous channel NITV.

The ABC – the model for Labour’s policy according to its pre-election manfesto – is entirely funded directly by the government and is accountable for all of it.

How much you spend isn’t always the issue, but how you spend it.

The Pacific Media Centre has a content sharing partnership with RNZ Pacific.

David Beatson, broadcaster, editor, journalist, public intellectual and media visionary, proposed a new, or renewed, role for New Zealand public broadcasting in anticipating and managing risk – such as natural disasters and technological crises, says an academic in his public tribute.

Speaking at an inaugural memorial address in Ponsonby today celebrating the life of Beatson, Associate Professor Geoff Lealand of Waikato University said that when he died last year New Zealand had “lost a champion for public media and he will continue to be missed”.

The inaugural lecture to a packed Leys Institute library hall was organised by the Better Public Media Trust and preceded a panel discussion by Broadcasting and Communications Minister Clare Curran and Radio New Zealand chief executive Paul Thompson about the planned “evolution” of RNZ into RNZ+.

READ MORE: Minister Curran’s speech to the Better Public Media Trust

Dr Lealand’s full address:

Tena koto, tena kotu tena toku katoa

I do feel privileged in being asked to deliver this inaugural David Beatson lecture today, and in such auspicious company. It will be a short speech and I will try not to meander (even though my opening remarks may seem a little oblique).

Others have lauded David’s contributions to the intellectual life of New Zealand—and to public media in this country, in particular. My role really is to remind us of his legacy, and how we need to keep steadfast in our advocacy (even though things are looking a little rosier than this time last year).

My first encounter with David was in the mid-1980s when he was the editor of the New Zealand Listener, working out of the Bowen State Building in Wellington (in the days when it was a publication less obsessed with house prices and health scares). I was working in the same building, in the Audience Research Unit of BCNZ; my first job in NZ after returning from studies in the United States and a position at the British Film Institute.

My role was to do qualitative audience research (the kind of research which investigates the motivations and responses to media content). It was also my first illuminating experience with ratings; quantitative measurements which claim to record “presence in a room where a TV set is on”. This experience led to a deep and abiding disbelief in the efficacy of this way of describing audience behaviour.

But that is a topic for another day. The reason why I sought out David was because I had started writing a regular column for the Listener about audience research, mainly working with David’s deputy editor Helen Paske. I wandered down the halls of the building one day, to suggest to David that I could also write an occasional book review, starting with a piece on a monograph by Massey University sociologist Brennon Wood, applying Marxist theory to an analysis of television news.

I still remember the look of complete disbelief on David’s face at the sheer audacity of anyone coupling Karl Marx with the production of television. At this point I realised that our politics didn’t match, for I was more receptive to the idea that news production embodied processes of power, reinforcement of political norms, and implied assent from viewers.

But this did not inhibit friendly conversations when we met again, in the ensuing years. One thing I always liked about David was his willingness to listen to and acknowledge that academics had something useful to add to debates about the role of the media in NZ life (the same cannot be said of some of his contemporaries).

Generosity and open-mindedness
I am not the only one to know of David’s generosity and open-mindedness. For example, Roger Horrocks, who worked closely with David when they were both on the NZ On Air Board, sent me the following candid comments;

David had a rich life-time experience of broadcasting, which stood in strong contrast to the politicians and politically appointed members of various boards who fiddled around with broadcasting without really knowing what they doing (there were both Labour and National examples). David had a deep understanding of that territory.

He was a man of integrity. In my experience, a person with principles who didn’t play games. Those were not qualities you could take for granted in the fields of politics or broadcasting administration.

He had known NZ broadcasting when it still had a public service spirit, and he remained wonderfully loyal to that. The history of the last 30 years has been the gradual victory of commercialism and populism over public service. David kept the faith, and it mattered so much to him that he never stopped trying—trying to hold back the tide. Whenever I met him in his last years, he would talk of new initiatives, new possibilities. He never stopped campaigning.

Roger declares David as a great defender of the idea of public service at its best. In his own words, he grew up in a world where the communicator’s basic task was defined simply: inform, educate and entertain, ie not to pontificate, declare viewpoint nor share personal prejudices or judgements.

Furthermore, David believed that the core values of the news media should be fairness and equity—because it is in the common interest that public media delivers those important non-commercial values in ways that reflect the needs and interests of the diverse communities that must interact in our society.

Innovative thinker
He was also an innovative thinker. Even in the late months of his life, when he was wheelchair-bound, he was offering challenging and innovative ideas (his iMedia/Public Media Project) for ways of protecting and promoting public media spaces and voices, framed with an acute awareness that technology was bringing enormous changes in media production and delivery, and that things could never be the same again. But it was not a nostalgia for times past, but motivated by the need to preserve the best of media in the new environment, which in David’s words was eating the New Zealand mainstream media’s lunch…dinner…and breakfast.

The last time I heard a public presentation from David was the address he gave to the AGENDA 2020 seminar at Auckland University of Technology last year. He provided an overview of the challenges facing the media (both globally and locally), then revealed one of his new initiatives, new possibilities. He proposed a new (or renewed?) role for New Zealand broadcasting—television in particular—in anticipating and managing risk—most particularly, natural and technological crises, with their potential to disrupt life in both the short term and long term.

I think we have seen sufficient recent examples, both local and global, of the urgency for crisis management. David’s proposals to use very significant spare capacity for advertising-free, New Zealand ‘public goods’ local content, for periods of national or regional states of emergency, interaction, and local content neglected by mainstream broadcasters. I doubt that David had any time for a laissez-faire or a ‘she’ll be right’ attitude to all aspects of NZ life, and this also would have applied to the looming possibilities of disaster.

Coincidentally, I have friends in Helensville who were still waiting for reconnection of electricity a full week after the storms of two weeks ago. David would have pointed to this event as an example of risk realised (the lack of communication between Vector and customers was a recurrent complaint, together with suggestions of degraded infrastructure). This was an event of medium magnitude; we can longer dismiss the possibility of events of greater magnitude.

When David died, we lost a champion for public media and he will continue to be missed. Others will need to step up (and I think that BPM is one) to fill the space; space which too easily gets colonised by self-appointed, no-nothing commentators and simplistic thinkers (you know who I mean).

As Roger comments, many New Zealander’s alive today have grown up in a world of neoliberal thinking and lack any clear understanding of the principles of public service broadcasting. In remembering David, we need also to remember that concept and that tradition!

I roto i te mahara (In loving memory), David.

The inaugural David Beatson Memorial Lecture in Auckland, 22 April 2018, delivered by Associate Professor Geoff Lealand, research associate, Screen and Media Studies, University of Waikato.

• More information at Better Public Media

While a former US President’s visit preoccupied the New Zealand media this week, the state visit of the current president of Indonesia went mostly under the radar. You’ll look in vain for reports about what was discussed at top-level talks about important issues.

Just before former US President Barack Obama flew in to New Zealand, a leader described as “Indonesia’s Obama” by Stuff this week touched down on Monday.

Indonesian President Joko Widodo represents the world’s fourth most populous country and he is an interesting leader. The former furniture maker is a heavy metal fan only turned to politics 12 years ago.

Briefing the reporters last Monday, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern told reporters: “Indonesia is an incredibly important potential economic partner for New Zealand.”

LISTEN TO RNZ MEDIAWATCH

READ MORE: Open letter to PM Ardern: Raise Papua human rights crimes with Jokowi

She went on to say that she had also raised some political sensitive issues including “freedom of speech and access of foreign media in the Papua region.”

The Indonesian Embassy promoted the state visit via social media.

That media freedom issue is important for the disputed Melanesian territory of West Papua. Reporters have found it very difficult to get in to find out what’s going on there.

Stuff, The New Zealand Herald, RNZ and Newshub all noted in their preview pieces that West Papua independence activists had been urging the Prime Minister to raise the issue too.

Witty remarks
On day one of the visit, most media outlets covered the photo opportunities and scheduled walkabouts in Wellington. President Widodo’s witty remarks about Indonesian coffee and New Zealand sheep made for a big headline in the Herald the next day.

RNZ Pacific reported that the President and his team were greeted by Free West Papua protesters and flag-waving Indonesian patriots on parliament grounds, who tried to drown out each other’s songs.

A video of that by RNZ posted on Facebook has been viewed more than 35,000 times.

So far, so good.

But you’ll look in vain for media reports about what was said at those bilateral talks.

Photos were taken on behalf of all media by one photographer when the Indonesians met jacinda Ardern. Judging by the smiles on all the faces, it was going well at that point.

Similarly smiley pictures of a meeting with Simon Bridges appeared on his Twitter feed and that of the Indonesian Embassy afterwards.

Reporters ushered out
But the media reports of both meetings say reporters were ushered out of the room as President Widodo began to speak.

RNZ reported that the Indonesian government had requested “media opportunities for questions . . . were kept to a bare minimum”.

Joko Widodo and Jacinda Ardern did not hold a press conference.

“I’m advised—that as far as the Ministry of Foreign Affairs recalls, there has been never a requirement for post bilateral stand-ups. They’ve always been case by case,” Jacinda Ardern told reporters earlier

A joint statement was released on Tuesday covering areas of cooperation and common ground.

It said both leaders reaffirmed other’s “sovereignty and territorial integrity” – not a comfort to those who hoped he would be pressed on independence for West Papua.

But that was a document drafted by diplomats – not by journalists

No change
In his preview of Joko Widodo’s visit, on Scoop.co.nz Gordon Campbell predicted it would not change a situation once described by David Lange years ago.

“He had said it was almost impossible to get New Zealand to think about the huge nation sitting right on our doorstep,” Campbell wrote.

It seems he is still right about that.

And Joko Widodo seems capable of handling the media.

On The Panel on RNZ National last Tuesday Jim Mora noted Joko Widodo brought the house down with thoughts about politics and the media during a speech last week in Australia.

“Since the arrival of Netflix the politicians have no choice but to turn politics into reality TV, because if we don’t, all of you will watch House of Cards and Stranger Things instead of watching us,” he said.

Republished from RNZ Mediawatch by Pacific Media Watch.

• More West Papua stories
• Gordon Campbell on the Indonesian PM’s guest
• David Robie on Indonesia, West Papua and media freedom
• Audrey Young on Indonesian ‘disrespect’ for failure to have joint media conference

The Pacific Media Centre, well established as a champion for media freedom, celebrated its 10th anniversary last week and the milestone has been highlighted on the RNZ National Nine to Noon programme.

Media commentator Gavin Ellis compliments the centre at Auckland University of Technology (AUT) for its “comprehensive” and in-depth “overview” of the Asia-Pacific region, especially on media issues.

The PMC marked its event with a photojournalism book launching and panel featuring media freedom in the Philippines in the face of the spate of extrajudicial killings and also in West Papua.

He notes the contribution by the centre’s director Professor David Robie, both in reporting and scholarship for the regon. Listen at 9min 25sec:

Ellis also pays tribute to journalist Yasmine Ryan who has died tragically in Turkey.

She played a prominent role in reporting the so-called Arab Spring from Tunisia in a wide-ranging international journalism career.

The latest New Zealand media ownership report, also at AUT, highlights the number of privately-owned and digital media outlets. Ellis asks could our largest newspaper groups go the same way?

Gavin Ellis is a media commentator and former editor of The New Zealand Herald.

• Philippine media freedom riskier, traumatic under Duterte, says PCIJ director
• YouTube video on the PMC’s 10th anniversary

New Zealand’s Māori and Pasifika community will have a stronger presence in the country’s public media if the Labour Party succeeds in forming a new coalition government later this month.

In a move to strengthen New Zealand’s national identity, the opposition Labour Party has revealed its plans for Radio New Zealand (RNZ) and New Zealand on Air (NZOA) if it wins the election on September 23.

The party said its public broadcasting and media policy, released this week, reflected Labour’s value of cultural diversity, with its public digital media service to allow for diversity and plurality.

“Labour recognises that as a nation we must be able to tell our stories, including those of our diverse communities, on multiple platforms effectively in a rapidly-changing media landscape,” Labour leader Jacinda Ardern said.

In order to increase the presence of Māori and Pasifika voices, Labour plans to transform RNZ into RNZ+, which is intended to be a “truly multi-platform provider”, dedicated to quality programming and journalism.

RNZ will receive an additional NZ$38 million a year in funding in order to grow content services for “special interests and needs”, such as children, Pasifika, other ethnicities and those with disabilities, Labour said.

“RNZ+ will increase in-house production and distribution of New Zealand content, with an emphasis on quality reporting and investigative journalism reflecting all parts of New Zealand.

Ethnicity ‘stronger presence’
“Māori, Pasifika and other ethnic communities, people with disabilities, and education and entertainment for children will have a stronger presence with Labour’s policy,” Ardern said.

However, improvements to public interest journalism and special interest services mean RNZ’s Charter will be revised.

Labour assured consultation would be carried out.

“Labour’s objective is to improve and increase these important special interest service through a consultative process with all stakeholders. Ultimately, however, we are prepared to regulate for the provision of such services.”

The party’s self-titled “broadcasting manifesto” sheds further light on Labour’s plans for public service media in the country, with the party reinforcing their desire for Māori and Pasifika to have a greater voice in telling their stories.

In particular, Labour has expressed the desire for New Zealand’s growing Pacific community to continue their tradition of storytelling, strengthening culture and traditions.

Labour said it intends to develop a Pasifika television or audio-visual content service within the revitalised RNZ.

Charter reflects diversity
“Labour is committed to ensuring that the increasing diversity of New Zealand’s population is reflected in the Charter for RNZ+ as the national public non-commercial service, and by New Zealand on Air in its dealings with commercial networks.”

Included in Labour’s revitalisation of the country’s public service broadcast sector is increased support of te reo Māori.

Labour said it will continue to support Māori Television and iwi radio, while requiring public media to foster greater use of the language.

The party said: “The special and independent status of the funding arrangements for the Māori Television Service are not affected by our policy for public digital media, and Labour sees no need to review them.”

The establishment of an independent Public Media Funding Commission between RNZ+ and NZOA, intended to ensure funding decisions are free from political interests and improve public interest journalism, is also included in Labour’s policy.

“Support for independent public interest and investigative journalism will ensure greater scrutiny of the Government and the institutions that govern New Zealand,” Labour said.

TVNZ will remain in public ownership.

• Other Pacific Media Watch stories
• Other NZ general election stories

It’s often been said there are just seven stories in all of literature. If a new collection of a 150 years of investigative journalism in New Zealand is any guide, investigative journalism has even fewer.

It was a case of a government and its military speaking the language of peace but involved in the machinations of war; a story that will be familiar to those who have read this year’s Hit and Run by Jon Stephenson and Nicky Hager.

James Hollings says Te Tuhi’s story has all the elements of good investigative journalism.

“It brought hidden facts to light, it verified those facts, it put those facts to the authorities at the time and questioned them. It was a remarkable piece of journalism.”

Another remarkable piece of journalism is Truth’s 1911 campaign to save the life of Tahi Kaka – a youth who the crusading newspaper was convinced had killed in self-defence but had been convicted of murder. There are discomforting echos of the Teina Pora story, which also features in A Moral Truth.

During its campaign to save Tahu Kaka, Truth revealed the identity of the nation’s hangman: Steven John Smart, of 10 St Mary’s St, Thorndon, Wellington.

Bricklayer was hangman
Being a hangman was a part-time gig and Smart worked as a bricklayer for the Wellington City Council. Truth reported that his continued employment became untenable once his co-workers discovered his role as the country’s part-time hangman and he was fired on the grounds that he hadn’t been entirely truthful about his absences.

Truth continued to campaign against the death penalty right up until it was finally abolished in 1961. And one of the most graphic and moving chapters in the book deals with the execution of Albert Black in 1955. The story is told with clinical detail. And the reader can’t but sympathise – not only with Albert Black but the Sheriff of Auckland who is unable to carry out the hanging due to having had a nervous breakdown following the previous two hangings.

“Careful planning goes into preparing a man who is to be hanged,” Truth wrote. “The idea is that he should be as a rigid log of wood as possible when he is dropped.

“For this reason he is dressed in a stiff canvas coat, and steps out of his own shoes into a pair of heavy boots.”

Individual miscarriages of justice account for 10 of the 33 chapters in A Moral Truth: 150 years of investigative journalism in New Zealand. Many of them will be familiar to New Zealand readers, Arthur Allan Thomas, David Dougherty and Louise Nicholas to name just a few.

Pat Booth’s dogged investigation revealed that the police had framed Thomas by planting a bullet casing in his garden. Incredibly, all these years later Arthur Allan Thomas is still waiting for an apology from the police.

So is there a danger that investigations into the likes of the Arthur Allan Thomas case end up being viewed by the public as real life whodunnit stories rather than examinations of systemic failures and sometimes outright crimes committed by those charged with upholding the law?

Dirty dairying
James Hollings doesn’t think so. “You can argue till the cows come home with people about what is the theoretical problem or the systemic problem but people don’t really notice or listen until you put a particular example in front of them.”

And speaking of cows, dirty dairying seems like a very 21st century story. The New Zealand of the 1970s is generally remembered as the a land of 70 million sheep with dairy cows as bit extras.  The recently formed green movement largely concerned itself with the chopping down of the country’s native forests.  But in 1972 Jim Tucker, then the chief reporter on the Taranaki Herald, spent six months walking around the region exposing the country’s most “dishonourable discharges” (to pinch the title of the chapter of the book dealing with Tucker’s work.)

Forty five years later Jim Tucker is working on a follow-up to that story.

And the damage caused by those seeking ever greater profits in under regulated environments continue to be a source of investigative stories. Rebecca Macfie is the author of Tragedy at Pike River: How and why 29 men died.

In the extract from the book republished in A Moral Truth, Rebecca Macfie shares the blame around for those 29 deaths:

“…a regulator that was submissive and unwilling to use the powers at its disposal; a board that was incurious, bereft of knowledge and experience of underground coal mining, and unable to see the symptoms of failure; management that was unstable, ill equipped for the environment, and incapable of pulling together all the piece of its own frightening picture, and a union that was marginalised and irrelevant.”

But what about the journalists? Was the fact that 29 men had to die before the gutting of the mining inspectorate became a political issue a failure of journalism?

“Yes that story was there to be told. And there was some quite live action on that story in the year or two before Pike blew up,” Rebecca Macfie says.

‘Kind of normal’
“In some ways I think we’d all got so used to deregulation and light-handed regulation by the late 2000s, that it was kind of normal. It wasn’t necessarily something that you would have seen as a problem for a brand new mining company like Pike was proposing to be.”

James Hollings, Jim Tucker and Rebecca Macfie all agree that investigative journalism is in good heart despite the difficulties being faced by media companies.

Rebecca Macfie says “There’s a lot of interesting work going on and in a lot of new places, like Newsroom, and a lot of the work that’s going on in the Herald – if you can only find it. If they didn’t just bury it on their website.”

And Jim Tucker adds: “There’s a lot of damn good journalism happening which suggests it’s more than just having resources. I think it’s an individual thing.”

Jeremy Rose is a Mediawatch and Sunday producer for Radio New Zealand.

• A Moral Truth: 150 years of investigative journalism in New Zealand (Massey University Press) is launched on Tuesday, August 8. This article is republished with permission from RNZ’s Mediawatch programme.

Protests against the Trans Pacific Partnership at Waitangi were reported around the world last week after nurse Julie Butler threw a squeaky penis-shaped toy at Economic Development Minister Steven Joyce, reports Radio New Zealand’s Mediawatch.

And there was no shortage of columnists, media personalities and pundits giving their take on the merits or otherwise of marking the closest thing New Zealand has to a national day at Waitangi each year.

But where were the columns by Māori exploring why literally thousands of Māori took to the streets to protest against the TPP? Well, they weren’t in the mainstream media.

Mana magazine editor Leonie Hayden tells Mediawatch:

“You can’t accurately reflect New Zealand as a society if you don’t have Māori and Pacific voices … So if you’re running a media outlet that you want to appeal to New Zealanders then you need to include the voices of all kind of New Zealanders.”

In the latest Mana magazine, Geopolitical blogger Graham Cameron takes a look at the Treaty of Waitangi exception in the TPPA meant to safeguard Māori rights and the Government’s Treaty obligations.

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Video and photos by Del Abcede in Auckland

Māori protesters at the forefront of a massive people’s protest for democracy in Auckland today against the controversial Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA).

Trade ministers from the 12 countries involved in this agreement signed the biggest trade deal in history. But a growing groundswell of opposition has shaken politicians in the government.

Many Māori and other New Zealanders believe the pact will erode democracy and undermine the country’s founding document, the 1840 Treaty of Waitangi.
#TPPabuse

TPPA: It’s our future

More Del Abcede pictures

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