A new report on protecting journalism and democracy in New Zealand recommends a levy be charged on global platforms like Facebook and Google to fund media firms undertaking public interest reporting.
It also calls for the reinstatement of a powerful Broadcasting Commission to distribute public funding for journalism and other NZ content, and also to regulate media operators to uniform standards.
And it urges the Government to consider according charitable or special tax status to media businesses who can demonstrate the work they do is of public benefit.
The report, from the Koi Tū think tank attached to the University of Auckland, does not spare the media sector from responsibility for what it calls an alarming fall in trust and rise in news avoidance, saying the industry must agree common core principles and improve practices .
The report’s release on Wednesday morning comes as a new Minister for Media and Communications, Paul Goldsmith, starts to get to grips with the sector’s existential challenges. His sacked predecessor Melissa Lee had been working on a paper for the Cabinet on possible solutions but that process stalled.
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon dampened down expectations for substantive intervention, saying on Monday: “I want to be clear, the levers available to Government are very limited.”
Koi Tū’s founder Sir Peter Gluckman calls the current media industry troubles, caused by technological, consumer-preference and economic challenges, “a truly wicked and existential problem of how to ensure trustworthy information is available to our citizens”.
He says the country cannot “ignore the situation, sit back and see the collapse of our Fourth Estate. The conversation is urgent.”
It needed to go beyond the issues of viability of particular media players, such as Warner Bros. Discovery closing its Newshub news operation entirely, to the needs of a small liberal democracy and its citizens’ access to trustworthy information to be able to contribute to society.
Report author Dr Gavin Ellis, a media commentator and former political department lecturer and editor-in-chief of the New Zealand Herald, says Koi Tū’s inquiry consulted media firms large and small, public and private.
“News media and the provision of reliable news to citizens in Aotearoa New Zealand are suffering a form of ecosystem collapse,” he writes.
“Like any ecological loss, this extinction will have consequences that extend beyond the disappearance of the interacting organisms that form the news ecosystem … the loss of professional, institutional journalism has profound implications for democracy and social cohesion.”
The report does not aim to make a special pleading for journalism “for its own sake” but for its role as “part of the indispensable part of the engine that drives democracy,” Ellis says.
“There is an urgent need to impress upon politicians and public alike the reasons why journalism must be brought back from the brink of that ecological collapse.”
Over the years the importance of the link between journalism and the institutions of democracy had been under-rated by some, lost on others and “deliberately undermined by a few”.
Even if public interest journalism collapsed, society’s need for trusted curation and verification of matters in society’s interest would remain.
“The need to hold power to account will be undiminished. We will be left with the consequences of a simple (unanswered) question – If not journalists, then who?”
The Koi Tū report outlines the substantial drop in advertising revenue for media businesses over the past few years, including the growth of ad funds going to the big global digital platforms and therefore beyond NZ shores. It sets out the tech and economic threats to the sector and the falling trust in ‘the news’.
Describing what it calls “a perilous environment”, it says no part of the media sector is immune and the country has reached the end of its ability to absorb the falls in media firms and journalist jobs that have occurred this century.
“It is highly likely that, within the term of the present Government, there will be consolidation and closures that call into question the maintenance of a pluralistic media sector and push New Zealand below a minimum of journalistic resources.”
It concludes New Zealand has run out of time for incremental change and seeks a concerted, broadly-based plan of action.
While the Government should formally recognize the vital role of the media to society, media businesses themselves need to rebuild trust and fight news avoidance by “urgently reviewing their practices”.
The report, which uses the phrase “If not journalists, then who” as its title, then calls for an existing Digital Services Bill to be amended to include a ring-fenced levy on digital platforms to compensate media for use of content, with a fair way of distributing the money raised.
It estimates such a levy could raise $35 million annually for journalism.
It wants a reconstituted Broadcasting Commission to oversee content standards and complaints for all forms of news media, to allocate public funds, to classify content including on social platforms and to conduct research and advocacy.
Among other measures, Ellis and Koi Tū recommend a review of the adequacy of funding for Māori and other ethnic media, central and local government to divert advertising spending to domestic media, updating of laws covering media and the possibility of journalism being accepted as a charitable purpose for donations.
It also suggests the Government urgently consider investigating the creation of tax-free business entities for media based on the United States Low Profit Limited Liability Company model.
The report does not give the media business an easy ride.
Gluckman writes in his introduction that “the media itself has contributed much to the decline in trust”.
And Ellis says individual media operations should review their editorial practices to consider their news values, story selection and presentation, their journalistic transparency and relevance to the audience.
Collectively, he recommends, the sector adopts a common code of ethics and practice and develops campaigns to explain the role and significance of democratic/social professional journalism to the public. That would involve both media and Government promoting media literacy and awareness of disinformation.
Tags: Urgent democratic save journalism ecosystem
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