A lot of talk this past week about the likely impending demise of NZPA, New Zealand’s only national news agency.
It started with this April 6 press release from NZPA’s chairman Michael Muir:
The future of the country’s oldest news wire service, operated by the New Zealand Press Association Ltd, is to be reviewed. The decision was made at a board meeting in Wellington today, New Zealand Press Association chairman Michael Muir said.
He said this move was sparked by major shareholder Fairfax, which had given notice of withdrawal from the co-operative.
“Whatever the outcome there will be new opportunities and in some cases more competition,” Mr Muir said. The quality of journalism in New Zealand newspapers and their websites would not be diminished as shareholders were enhancing their own editorial operations.
He said NZPA staff have been advised and would be consulted and their feedback considered before a final decision was made at the end of the month.
Then came follow-ups with staff reaction and quotes from news executives; here’s NBR , TV3, Newstalk ZB and APN’s Rick Neville and Fairfax’s Paul Thompson speaking on RNZ’s Morning Report along with former NZ Herald editor Gavin Ellis and others.
Then came reaction
An ODT editorial sees opportunity as well as challenges in the likely decision to close down NZPA in six months.
News hole by Falco. Buy on allaboutthestory.com.
The announcement of an impending review of the 131-year-old New Zealand Press Association’s news services this week is a reflection of the rapidly changing environment in which media companies such as Allied Press, publishers of the Otago Daily Times, operate.
Sad and regrettable though the service’s likely demise later this year will be, the move offers opportunities as well as challenges – which the company is well-placed to grasp.
NZPA are the one news agency in Parliament that cover every bill before the House. When other media are safely home in bed, there will be a NZPA reporter noting what time the House rose, and what bill was being debated at the time. Likewise on select committees, they are often the only news agency there (apart from the excellent Select Committee News, which is subscription only).
What I also liked about NZPA is they complement the other press gallery agencies. The other agencies naturally focus on stories which sell – which will make for good television, can run on a front page etc. But NZPA are not about “sexy” stories. They just faithfully produce concise factual and relevant stories about what happened – reporters in the old fashioned sense. And not just about Parliament, also from the courts and elsewhere.
The net result is that New Zealanders will know less about themselves. Parts of the country that have already faded from view since 2005 because of attenuated news coverage may become damned-near invisible, other than when a catastrophe occurs (as at Pike River). Try as I might, I can’t see this as anything other than a seriously retrograde step. If the creation of NZPA in 1880 helped bind the country together, then its demise is likely to have the reverse effect.
He explains some of the likely consequences thus:
First, it will hurt APN more than it hurts Fairfax. This no doubt helps explain why it’s Fairfax, not APN, that has forced NZPA’s impending closure. Fairfax has a substantial competitive advantage over its rival because it controls a much bigger part of the country. The only areas in which Fairfax papers are not dominant are Auckland, Northland, the Bay of Plenty, Wanganui, Gisborne, Hawke’s Bay, the Wairarapa, the West Coast and Otago (where the still-independent Otago Daily Times still holds sway). Auckland is APN’s citadel; its provincial papers are minor players.
The rest of the country – the Waikato, Taranaki, the lower North Island and virtually the entire South Island – is Fairfax territory. This means Fairfax has been able to develop an in-house news-sharing network that almost rivals that of the old NZPA.
This Newspaper Publishers’ Association map shows the main newspapers in New Zealand and may help visualise the geographical gaps in each of the networks.
A Save NZPA Facebook page soon emerged courtesy of long-time journalist and journalism teacher Jim Tucker, which soon attracted thoughts from Gavin Ellis: “NZPA played an important role in establishing our national identity (by telling citizens in one part of the country about events in other parts of NZ). That is an ongoing role that armed media camps will not fill with the same impartiality and commitment as our national news agency has exhibited for 131 years.”
Bill Rosenberg (whose News Media Ownership in NZ is useful reading) posted: “Unfortunately this was quite foreseeable when our competition authorities allowed print media to be dominated by two chains. It will accelerate the squeezing out of the last independent newspapers. Even if APN start providing a feed to the independents which seems to be one suggestion, we end up with three groups: Fairfax, APN and those dependent on APN.”
Peter Griffin of the Science Media Centre is worried any closure of NZPA would result in still fewer science stories in the daily media.
The great thing about NZPA is its reach. A decent science story, or any story for that matter, can run in numerous daily metropolitan and regional newspapers. While Stuff and the Herald Online will pile in to cover the populist stories – Darren Hughes’ night time exploits, the plastic waka etc , often with rolling coverage during the day, NZPA can be relied on to fill in the blind spots, with dispassionate reports. That safety net of coverage will soon be gone for our major mainstream news organisations.
Mr Samson, who lectures at the University’s School of Communication, Journalism and Marketing, says the national news service provides a large amount of news copy that helps fill the inside pages of small provincial daily papers.
“Aside from covering and breaking their own stories, small papers like the Westport News rely on copy from NZPA for a lot of their news content, so they’ll be in real trouble.”
Then came the job ads
Last week Fairfax advertised for an unspecified number of journalists:
Fairfax Media is looking for talented journalists to join our staff as our newsrooms meet the multi-media challenges of an exciting future. Fairfax is seeking journalists in several areas as we further develop our National News Service to meet reader needs and expectations in print, digital and mobile across the country. In particular, we are seeking:
General Reporters
Sports Reporters
Newsroom leaders
Journalists with expertise in digital and social media
Earlier today (April 15), APN posted the following ad:
This is an outstanding opportunity for ambitious journalists to make their mark in an exciting new era of multi-media publishing. APN New Zealand is looking for talented journalists with a range of skills to set up a new national news service and to work together with media partners across New Zealand to lead the news agenda each day. The news bureau will be based in Auckland, working alongside the NZ Herald news teams, with other opportunities in Wellington and Christchurch.
Meanwhile the appearance of press releases such as this one, from Australia based press release service Spin It Wide, may well signal an aim to pick up customers from NZPA’s MediaCom press release distribution business, which currently feeds paid-for press releases into its newswire.
At allabouthethestory.com, we feel for the journalists who face losing their jobs and take pause at the likely end of an institution which played such a defining role in the development of New Zealand’s national news media.
But we like to think ahead so we are also looking at ways we might be able to help fill the gaps should NZPA close its doors later this year.
While we’re still a young company with much growth ahead of us, we already have hundreds of contributors around the country (and beyond), a distribution network, payment system and the ability to adapt content feeds and licences according to publishers’ needs.
We want to help publishers fill gaps and help people who write stories that are important to New Zealand to get published and get paid. So drop me a line if you’d like to talk. julie@allaboutthestory.com
All Evolving Newsroom
Wrap: the likely demise of NZPA
A lot of talk this past week about the likely impending demise of NZPA, New Zealand’s only national news agency.
It started with this April 6 press release from NZPA’s chairman Michael Muir:
News outlets duly ran the story; here’s Stuff, NZ Herald, Scoop, Straits Times, TVNZ, Otago Daily Times and Xin Hua.
Then came follow-ups with staff reaction and quotes from news executives; here’s NBR , TV3, Newstalk ZB and APN’s Rick Neville and Fairfax’s Paul Thompson speaking on RNZ’s Morning Report along with former NZ Herald editor Gavin Ellis and others.
Then came reaction
An ODT editorial sees opportunity as well as challenges in the likely decision to close down NZPA in six months.
News hole by Falco. Buy on allaboutthestory.com.
Kiwiblog host David Farrar sees it as a blow for parliamentary reporting in particular.
Karl du Fresne sees it as a seriously retrograde step.
He explains some of the likely consequences thus:
This Newspaper Publishers’ Association map shows the main newspapers in New Zealand and may help visualise the geographical gaps in each of the networks.
A Save NZPA Facebook page soon emerged courtesy of long-time journalist and journalism teacher Jim Tucker, which soon attracted thoughts from Gavin Ellis: “NZPA played an important role in establishing our national identity (by telling citizens in one part of the country about events in other parts of NZ). That is an ongoing role that armed media camps will not fill with the same impartiality and commitment as our national news agency has exhibited for 131 years.”
Bill Rosenberg (whose News Media Ownership in NZ is useful reading) posted: “Unfortunately this was quite foreseeable when our competition authorities allowed print media to be dominated by two chains. It will accelerate the squeezing out of the last independent newspapers. Even if APN start providing a feed to the independents which seems to be one suggestion, we end up with three groups: Fairfax, APN and those dependent on APN.”
Peter Griffin of the Science Media Centre is worried any closure of NZPA would result in still fewer science stories in the daily media.
Massey journalism lecturer Alan Sampson said it would be bad news for small independent newspapers.
Then came the job ads
Last week Fairfax advertised for an unspecified number of journalists:
Earlier today (April 15), APN posted the following ad:
>>> See more journalism jobs here.
Meanwhile the appearance of press releases such as this one, from Australia based press release service Spin It Wide, may well signal an aim to pick up customers from NZPA’s MediaCom press release distribution business, which currently feeds paid-for press releases into its newswire.
At allabouthethestory.com, we feel for the journalists who face losing their jobs and take pause at the likely end of an institution which played such a defining role in the development of New Zealand’s national news media.
But we like to think ahead so we are also looking at ways we might be able to help fill the gaps should NZPA close its doors later this year.
While we’re still a young company with much growth ahead of us, we already have hundreds of contributors around the country (and beyond), a distribution network, payment system and the ability to adapt content feeds and licences according to publishers’ needs.
We want to help publishers fill gaps and help people who write stories that are important to New Zealand to get published and get paid. So drop me a line if you’d like to talk. julie@allaboutthestory.com