In March of 2024 the freelance writer Madeleine Holden published an article for the Spinoff estimating the number of journalists remaining in New Zealand.
The blatant mixing of fact and opinion by journalists was bad enough, but became unwatchable/unreadable when layered over with smug righteousness and an implicit and arrogant judgement of others with different views.
I think the "podium of truth" was a very important last straw in this country for tolerance of this type of journalism, even among boomers who used to shape their day around TV news and/or a daily newspaper.
It is hard to see this changing when truth is subordinated to ideology. As the old saying goes, 'You can fool all the people some of the time and some of the people all the time, but you can't fool all the people all the time.'
First, there is neither right nor entitlement to advertising revenue. In its advocacy for the Fair Digital News Bargaining Bill, mainstream media has overlooked or ignored that. There is another solution and that lies in rejigging copyright law and I have advocated that.
The concern I have is that objectivity has gone and we can see that in most reporting. Recording facts has given way to loaded impressions and the journalists opinion. I fear however that the thesis of this article may be correct.
I'm not convinced by the 'post-journalism' argument that is becoming increasingly popular, or the cries of poverty from 'legacy media'.
Public trust in news media has declined almost entirely due to bad editorial standards and the deliberate inability of writers to separate fact from opinion. There is clearly still a public demand for publications that have meaningful delineations between fact and opinion writing, it is just that media enterprises have not figured out how to monetise this demand yet.
One could argue that there has never been a real separation between fact and opinion, as there has always been some form of bias in news reporting, but ignoring this separation entirely also ignores public demand for publications that try to uphold this separation.
My feeling is that most 'legacy media' publications have dug their own grave by pandering to the inflamed rhetoric of 'activism' and hiring 'activist journalists', but it is likely that in the future a new form of 'mainstream media' will emerge from publication outlets that attempt to balance fact and opinion in their reporting. As there is public demand for this sort of discourse, eventually these publication outlets will find a way to successfully monetise this demand.
The most popular current model is the subscription model, but this is based on the print publication concept of 'newspaper subscriptions' and only seems to be successful for publications that already have a good reputation and a large consumer base. Personally, I doubt that the subscription model is the best solution for monetising serious journalism in digital publications and expect new models will emerge in the future.
I agree. As well as not separating fact from opinion, I noticed years ago that television news reporting was including barely disguised 'advertising' of products (eg. new drugs or technology) or entertainment. This wasn't 'news' to me so I stopped watching. Then mainstream media started to sound like an echo chamber for whatever the predominant 'narrative' was (especially during Covid) and censorship in all forms of media (especially social) became rife. Very rarely do I see the intelligent investigative journalism I long for. I have to search for it in 'alternative' sources like Substack and even then, as the saying goes, you can't tell if it's a dog on the internet!!!
Thanks Bryce. I note that most of the comments relate, either directly or indirectly, to "It no longer pretends to objectivity or political neutrality. Instead, it is deeply ideological, fostering polarisation and anger to engage audiences...". My brother was one of the editors of the now-defunct Auckland Star which was how I learned about good journalism. I cannot bring myself to watch the TV parliamentary journalists whose reporting is so biased that one could think we don't have an actual elected coalition government. Postmodernism and its offshoots, critical theory and social justice, teach that basically there is no such thing as objective reality or absolute truth, and given that these ideas hold sway, however packaged, in all our learning institutions and training courses, including journalism, is it any wonder that journalists coming out of these courses are unable to distinguish between fact and opinion.
However the pink elephant in the room is that for many of us the lies about the covid vaccine that came from "the podium of truth" and which continue in the media today were the nails in the coffin of trusting the media. That trust cannot be regained.
Mainstream journalism is dying because people have seen that it is frequently unbalanced and uninformed. It has regularly engaged in censorship of the worst kind over the last few years and the narratives have been in lockstep globally which also adds to distrust. From the parliamentary protests to commentary on the Ukraine-Russia conflict, time and time again the level of honesty, detail and intrigrity has been higher from the citizen reporters on the ground and in the midst of the action. Despite the overuse of the word 'misinformation' by mainstream journalists in relation to citizen based reporting I could point you to endless headlines which have all the journalistic standards of a back room tabloid. Headlines such as Putin is dying or dead, covid vaccines prevent transmission and Trump is unpopular. The mainstream media need a complete reset in standards of neutrality and research.
The media could at least try to regain trust and entice back those who no long watch/read/listen because of the overwhelming woke bias of the past decade, but for some reason these seems to be the last move they're prepared to consider.
How do they expect their product to be used in a competitive world if on issue after issue they take (and push hard) the side of a tiny woke veneer of the population against the views of the vast majority?
If they don't try to significantly address this issue they're doomed...
It may be helpful to view journalism alongside historiography. Both are attempts at meditating events and people, analysing what’s happening/happened. One’s focussed up close, the other broader. Yet facts and interpretations (opinions) necessarily intermingle. Then, as we’ve seen in comments already, money, copyright, and consumption/camps all play a part. History gets “revised” - sure does! Papers have their readership: look at UK! Anyway … enough. Just more grist to this helpful mill. Thanks!
Good point, one can't help but interject personal opinions when analysing events - but, ideally, one who claims the title of 'reporter' can try to adopt a neutral framing as much as possible.
As too with any historian worthy of the name, they will naturally view things and write with a ‘bent’, yet one trusts (sic) they will not invent stuff up - that’s mythology 😉 So too with journos, once upon a time. They “reported”!! Thanks
Although advertising $$ influenced if not dictated editorial decisions. Several columns I wrote in the 90s, critical of the big banks, livestock exports, planting vast tracts of pines on erosion prone land, yadayada, were edited and the criticism softened or, more often cut completely although they were my opinion under my by-line.
Taking a different slant from most of your commenters. What I've noticed about media for years is a combination of clickbait and a rather superficial coverage of many things, partly because of the 24/7 news cycle. I stopped subscribing to the 'Herald' some time ago because they sometimes led off with trivia, and were obsessed with Auckland house prices. Read a piece on the latter subject featuring people I actually knew, and the way their situation was framed simplified things a great deal. Not so fussed about bias, in that the outfits that ostensibly oppose the 'woke' bias are equally superficial on the other side. The impact of the 'podium of truth' line has been much exaggerated as well: it was a response to a question about disinformation, but now it is cited ad infinitum to 'prove' the tyranny of Ardern and Hipkins. I still listen to RNZ, but there's trivia there too: Lisa Owen recently spent about 15 mins on the non-issue of whether people should sing along with the music in screenings of 'Wicked'....
I no longer see the collapse of mainstream journalism as a problem. In fact they're part of the problem and the sooner it folds the better. The economics of traditional journalism, being underpinned by advertising revenues are gone and attempting to charge a fee for platforms to hyperlink to news content will never succeed... I cancelled my newspaper sub a couple of years ago (yes I held on until I couldn't stand funding The Post any longer) and now laugh at TV news and increasingly even RNZ news (sadly) to the point I'm questioning why the tax payer is funding them.
To me it's roll on with independent journalism. I now actually pay more for journalism via Substack etc than my Newspaper subs previously and get a far broader range of content from both "right" and "left" wing, establishment (I won't pay for this) and dissident opinion. Sadly there is not yet enough NZ independent journalism I'm prepared to pay for so probably 70% flows to overseas ägents"
While you are arguing these pros and cons,, the 'cons' have have succeeded in their efforts to divide and almost dominate the political/medical conversation with their, make 'em feel guilty leftist wokist thinking! The entire so called 'vax plandemic' was a success as the science was a lie and totally unopposed by your leaders. The mainline media as well as the Medical/Pharma industry pushed it without hesitancy and have both now lost the confidence of 'thinking people!' If you want the real cause look to the WEF, WHO and their big monied members, who want to kill you off while getting total control over you! (Publicly stated on their website) They have broadened their attack but the sheeple need to wake up and oppose this vehemently! Start focusing on the real issue here,, the evil press are a part of the problem, yes! When you research this better and see whats coming right now, and in future, you'll have to act or lose your country, freedoms and more!
Considering that 'Triumph of the Will' is a Nazi propaganda film from the 1930s this headline - admittedly on an opinion piece - is very innuendo-laden:
The claim that "the mass media is vital to the survival of democracy" needs to include the qualification "democracy as we know it". The media is an essential component of that "democracy as we know it" but democracy as we know it has other more serious issues than the collapse of the media, "loss of trust" (which reflects a whole gamut of flaws, failings and malfeasance) being foremost among them. Fortunately, "democracy as we know it" in New Zealand is not the only or best model of democracy, and more robust models do not depend for their efficacy on the engagement of private or state broadcasting and publishing institutions. So while the collapse of the media may be followed by the collapse of democracy on the Westminster model, that might not be such a bad thing if the people respond by creating their own stronger and more authentic democratic institutions.
I am skeptical about these alternatives to democracy. Do you have any examples of countries that are doing well under alternative models of democracy ? I am concerned that your version of democracy never had to deal with foreigners, because everybody was indigenous. Back in 1840 the indigenous people of Aotearoa turned to the British crown to provide governance over foreigners in NZ, and nothing has changed. Your model of democracy didnt work then, and it wont work now.
Kia ora Mark. If the present system was working well, there would be no reason to look for alternatives. However the present system is not working well. Take the US, the supposed "leader of the free world". A similar story in "the mother country", the UK, where rule by the "natural party of government" descended into farce, and a spontaneous mass boycott of the polls opened the way to an equally unpopular Labour government. France, Germany, South Korea ... the list of failing "democracies" goes on and on. New Zealand itself is not going well. That was the reason for Bryce Edwards' post in the first place. Those who say "It's not broke, so don't fix it" have their heads in the sand. What worked in the thirteenth century no longer worked in the seventeenth century. What worked in the nineteenth century is no long working today. There have been massive social and technological changes over the past century, and the political system has failed to adapt. Yet the choice for democracy is stark: adapt to the new environment or die.
Both of those countries have FPP systems which produce distorted and unrepresentative outcomes. The British public still held delusions of grandeur when they voted for Brexit. In both cases a failure to take everyone with you led to sufficient unrest to tip over the apple cart. But note that is democracy working! You cannot ignore or marginalise such large a proportion of the polis without pushback. And in the long run that is democracy's strength. Would you prefer these groups that felt left behind had their political will oppressed? Either by force or through removal of their right to participate at the ballot box?
Of course our own system has the ability to create distorted outcomes through electorate seats (take for example the purposeful overhang of TPM seats as their voters party voted Labour - forcing Luxo to deal with Winnie).
South Korea is still transitioning from a developing to developed country, and in both France and Germany democracy is working when an inability to be able to work together necessitates a change in government.
Of course in less democratic systems, instead of forming a new government as will happen in France and Germany, the problematic parties are 'retired' or 'imprisoned on corruption charges'. Is that what you want?
It is not a case of what I want. It is what the people of Aotearoa, and other peoples of the world want and will soon be demanding: a truly democratic system of governance by the people. The mixed member proportional system (MMP) is not a panacea for the failings of the Westminster system. In correcting some anomalies it created others and entrenched the power of corrupt party organisations over local constituencies. The principles of rangatiratanga (self-defined constituencies, continuous election and the open ballot) are the way for people to shake themselves free from the rule of colonialist "elites". As for the other states mentioned, it is hardly surprising that the people of South Korea, France and Germany are more concerned about the direction their nations are taken under pseudo-democratic rule than you are. The world is ready for change, and Aotearoa, with its existing rangatiratanga institutions, has a head start towards a better future for the world.
Kia ora Geoff. Why do you think that the Maori wards on our councils are allowing fluoride contaminants to be added to our pure drinking water? Why are they allowing central govt to threaten councils with fines, and why isnt our Nelson ward rejecting the addition of contaminants to our water ? Isnt that exactly why we have Maori wards ?
The blatant mixing of fact and opinion by journalists was bad enough, but became unwatchable/unreadable when layered over with smug righteousness and an implicit and arrogant judgement of others with different views.
I think the "podium of truth" was a very important last straw in this country for tolerance of this type of journalism, even among boomers who used to shape their day around TV news and/or a daily newspaper.
That “podium” sure was a fulsome, idiotic nail; you’ve nailed it! But then, those 13:00 “shows” were the precursor.
Absolutely.
It is hard to see this changing when truth is subordinated to ideology. As the old saying goes, 'You can fool all the people some of the time and some of the people all the time, but you can't fool all the people all the time.'
Spot on!
First, there is neither right nor entitlement to advertising revenue. In its advocacy for the Fair Digital News Bargaining Bill, mainstream media has overlooked or ignored that. There is another solution and that lies in rejigging copyright law and I have advocated that.
The concern I have is that objectivity has gone and we can see that in most reporting. Recording facts has given way to loaded impressions and the journalists opinion. I fear however that the thesis of this article may be correct.
I'm not convinced by the 'post-journalism' argument that is becoming increasingly popular, or the cries of poverty from 'legacy media'.
Public trust in news media has declined almost entirely due to bad editorial standards and the deliberate inability of writers to separate fact from opinion. There is clearly still a public demand for publications that have meaningful delineations between fact and opinion writing, it is just that media enterprises have not figured out how to monetise this demand yet.
One could argue that there has never been a real separation between fact and opinion, as there has always been some form of bias in news reporting, but ignoring this separation entirely also ignores public demand for publications that try to uphold this separation.
My feeling is that most 'legacy media' publications have dug their own grave by pandering to the inflamed rhetoric of 'activism' and hiring 'activist journalists', but it is likely that in the future a new form of 'mainstream media' will emerge from publication outlets that attempt to balance fact and opinion in their reporting. As there is public demand for this sort of discourse, eventually these publication outlets will find a way to successfully monetise this demand.
The most popular current model is the subscription model, but this is based on the print publication concept of 'newspaper subscriptions' and only seems to be successful for publications that already have a good reputation and a large consumer base. Personally, I doubt that the subscription model is the best solution for monetising serious journalism in digital publications and expect new models will emerge in the future.
I agree. As well as not separating fact from opinion, I noticed years ago that television news reporting was including barely disguised 'advertising' of products (eg. new drugs or technology) or entertainment. This wasn't 'news' to me so I stopped watching. Then mainstream media started to sound like an echo chamber for whatever the predominant 'narrative' was (especially during Covid) and censorship in all forms of media (especially social) became rife. Very rarely do I see the intelligent investigative journalism I long for. I have to search for it in 'alternative' sources like Substack and even then, as the saying goes, you can't tell if it's a dog on the internet!!!
More dangerous still is the trend towards legacy & new media coming under ownership of billionaires with no shortages of axes to grind.
Thanks Bryce. I note that most of the comments relate, either directly or indirectly, to "It no longer pretends to objectivity or political neutrality. Instead, it is deeply ideological, fostering polarisation and anger to engage audiences...". My brother was one of the editors of the now-defunct Auckland Star which was how I learned about good journalism. I cannot bring myself to watch the TV parliamentary journalists whose reporting is so biased that one could think we don't have an actual elected coalition government. Postmodernism and its offshoots, critical theory and social justice, teach that basically there is no such thing as objective reality or absolute truth, and given that these ideas hold sway, however packaged, in all our learning institutions and training courses, including journalism, is it any wonder that journalists coming out of these courses are unable to distinguish between fact and opinion.
However the pink elephant in the room is that for many of us the lies about the covid vaccine that came from "the podium of truth" and which continue in the media today were the nails in the coffin of trusting the media. That trust cannot be regained.
Mainstream journalism is dying because people have seen that it is frequently unbalanced and uninformed. It has regularly engaged in censorship of the worst kind over the last few years and the narratives have been in lockstep globally which also adds to distrust. From the parliamentary protests to commentary on the Ukraine-Russia conflict, time and time again the level of honesty, detail and intrigrity has been higher from the citizen reporters on the ground and in the midst of the action. Despite the overuse of the word 'misinformation' by mainstream journalists in relation to citizen based reporting I could point you to endless headlines which have all the journalistic standards of a back room tabloid. Headlines such as Putin is dying or dead, covid vaccines prevent transmission and Trump is unpopular. The mainstream media need a complete reset in standards of neutrality and research.
The media could at least try to regain trust and entice back those who no long watch/read/listen because of the overwhelming woke bias of the past decade, but for some reason these seems to be the last move they're prepared to consider.
How do they expect their product to be used in a competitive world if on issue after issue they take (and push hard) the side of a tiny woke veneer of the population against the views of the vast majority?
If they don't try to significantly address this issue they're doomed...
It may be helpful to view journalism alongside historiography. Both are attempts at meditating events and people, analysing what’s happening/happened. One’s focussed up close, the other broader. Yet facts and interpretations (opinions) necessarily intermingle. Then, as we’ve seen in comments already, money, copyright, and consumption/camps all play a part. History gets “revised” - sure does! Papers have their readership: look at UK! Anyway … enough. Just more grist to this helpful mill. Thanks!
Good point, one can't help but interject personal opinions when analysing events - but, ideally, one who claims the title of 'reporter' can try to adopt a neutral framing as much as possible.
As too with any historian worthy of the name, they will naturally view things and write with a ‘bent’, yet one trusts (sic) they will not invent stuff up - that’s mythology 😉 So too with journos, once upon a time. They “reported”!! Thanks
Although advertising $$ influenced if not dictated editorial decisions. Several columns I wrote in the 90s, critical of the big banks, livestock exports, planting vast tracts of pines on erosion prone land, yadayada, were edited and the criticism softened or, more often cut completely although they were my opinion under my by-line.
Taking a different slant from most of your commenters. What I've noticed about media for years is a combination of clickbait and a rather superficial coverage of many things, partly because of the 24/7 news cycle. I stopped subscribing to the 'Herald' some time ago because they sometimes led off with trivia, and were obsessed with Auckland house prices. Read a piece on the latter subject featuring people I actually knew, and the way their situation was framed simplified things a great deal. Not so fussed about bias, in that the outfits that ostensibly oppose the 'woke' bias are equally superficial on the other side. The impact of the 'podium of truth' line has been much exaggerated as well: it was a response to a question about disinformation, but now it is cited ad infinitum to 'prove' the tyranny of Ardern and Hipkins. I still listen to RNZ, but there's trivia there too: Lisa Owen recently spent about 15 mins on the non-issue of whether people should sing along with the music in screenings of 'Wicked'....
I no longer see the collapse of mainstream journalism as a problem. In fact they're part of the problem and the sooner it folds the better. The economics of traditional journalism, being underpinned by advertising revenues are gone and attempting to charge a fee for platforms to hyperlink to news content will never succeed... I cancelled my newspaper sub a couple of years ago (yes I held on until I couldn't stand funding The Post any longer) and now laugh at TV news and increasingly even RNZ news (sadly) to the point I'm questioning why the tax payer is funding them.
To me it's roll on with independent journalism. I now actually pay more for journalism via Substack etc than my Newspaper subs previously and get a far broader range of content from both "right" and "left" wing, establishment (I won't pay for this) and dissident opinion. Sadly there is not yet enough NZ independent journalism I'm prepared to pay for so probably 70% flows to overseas ägents"
While you are arguing these pros and cons,, the 'cons' have have succeeded in their efforts to divide and almost dominate the political/medical conversation with their, make 'em feel guilty leftist wokist thinking! The entire so called 'vax plandemic' was a success as the science was a lie and totally unopposed by your leaders. The mainline media as well as the Medical/Pharma industry pushed it without hesitancy and have both now lost the confidence of 'thinking people!' If you want the real cause look to the WEF, WHO and their big monied members, who want to kill you off while getting total control over you! (Publicly stated on their website) They have broadened their attack but the sheeple need to wake up and oppose this vehemently! Start focusing on the real issue here,, the evil press are a part of the problem, yes! When you research this better and see whats coming right now, and in future, you'll have to act or lose your country, freedoms and more!
Considering that 'Triumph of the Will' is a Nazi propaganda film from the 1930s this headline - admittedly on an opinion piece - is very innuendo-laden:
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/donald-trumps-triumph-of-the-will-simon-wilson/N4UOBKYWZRFMDF2T3JU7I35IVE/#google_vignette
The claim that "the mass media is vital to the survival of democracy" needs to include the qualification "democracy as we know it". The media is an essential component of that "democracy as we know it" but democracy as we know it has other more serious issues than the collapse of the media, "loss of trust" (which reflects a whole gamut of flaws, failings and malfeasance) being foremost among them. Fortunately, "democracy as we know it" in New Zealand is not the only or best model of democracy, and more robust models do not depend for their efficacy on the engagement of private or state broadcasting and publishing institutions. So while the collapse of the media may be followed by the collapse of democracy on the Westminster model, that might not be such a bad thing if the people respond by creating their own stronger and more authentic democratic institutions.
I am skeptical about these alternatives to democracy. Do you have any examples of countries that are doing well under alternative models of democracy ? I am concerned that your version of democracy never had to deal with foreigners, because everybody was indigenous. Back in 1840 the indigenous people of Aotearoa turned to the British crown to provide governance over foreigners in NZ, and nothing has changed. Your model of democracy didnt work then, and it wont work now.
Kia ora Mark. If the present system was working well, there would be no reason to look for alternatives. However the present system is not working well. Take the US, the supposed "leader of the free world". A similar story in "the mother country", the UK, where rule by the "natural party of government" descended into farce, and a spontaneous mass boycott of the polls opened the way to an equally unpopular Labour government. France, Germany, South Korea ... the list of failing "democracies" goes on and on. New Zealand itself is not going well. That was the reason for Bryce Edwards' post in the first place. Those who say "It's not broke, so don't fix it" have their heads in the sand. What worked in the thirteenth century no longer worked in the seventeenth century. What worked in the nineteenth century is no long working today. There have been massive social and technological changes over the past century, and the political system has failed to adapt. Yet the choice for democracy is stark: adapt to the new environment or die.
Both of those countries have FPP systems which produce distorted and unrepresentative outcomes. The British public still held delusions of grandeur when they voted for Brexit. In both cases a failure to take everyone with you led to sufficient unrest to tip over the apple cart. But note that is democracy working! You cannot ignore or marginalise such large a proportion of the polis without pushback. And in the long run that is democracy's strength. Would you prefer these groups that felt left behind had their political will oppressed? Either by force or through removal of their right to participate at the ballot box?
Of course our own system has the ability to create distorted outcomes through electorate seats (take for example the purposeful overhang of TPM seats as their voters party voted Labour - forcing Luxo to deal with Winnie).
South Korea is still transitioning from a developing to developed country, and in both France and Germany democracy is working when an inability to be able to work together necessitates a change in government.
Of course in less democratic systems, instead of forming a new government as will happen in France and Germany, the problematic parties are 'retired' or 'imprisoned on corruption charges'. Is that what you want?
It is not a case of what I want. It is what the people of Aotearoa, and other peoples of the world want and will soon be demanding: a truly democratic system of governance by the people. The mixed member proportional system (MMP) is not a panacea for the failings of the Westminster system. In correcting some anomalies it created others and entrenched the power of corrupt party organisations over local constituencies. The principles of rangatiratanga (self-defined constituencies, continuous election and the open ballot) are the way for people to shake themselves free from the rule of colonialist "elites". As for the other states mentioned, it is hardly surprising that the people of South Korea, France and Germany are more concerned about the direction their nations are taken under pseudo-democratic rule than you are. The world is ready for change, and Aotearoa, with its existing rangatiratanga institutions, has a head start towards a better future for the world.
Kia ora Geoff. Why do you think that the Maori wards on our councils are allowing fluoride contaminants to be added to our pure drinking water? Why are they allowing central govt to threaten councils with fines, and why isnt our Nelson ward rejecting the addition of contaminants to our water ? Isnt that exactly why we have Maori wards ?