As journalists wait nervously to find out if they’re about to be laid off, the minister expressed satisfaction that they’re getting a taste of their own medicine, writes Catherine McGregor in this excerpt from The Bulletin, The Spinoff’s morning news round-up. To receive The Bulletin in full each weekday, sign up here.
Redundancies coming for TVNZ news and current affairs this morning
After a messy rollout that saw some teams warned of impending redundancies and others only learning of the plans through media reports, affected TVNZ employees officially received the bad news by email yesterday. Newshub reports that 35 of the 68 proposed job cuts will be from news and current affairs, including Sunday and Fair Go (which Heather du Plessis Allan says will be merged; The Post says it’s Seven Sharp which Fair Go will be merging with), 1News Tonight and Re: News. Staffers will learn their fate at a series of restructuring meetings today, starting with the Sunday team of 20 journalists at 9am. It’s still unclear where the other 33 job cuts will come from, though a TVNZ journalist tells Stuff programme classifiers may be among the casualties. There is more hurt to come, with 1News at Six likely becoming a half-hour show and cuts reportedly being planned at Shortland Street as part of a review of TVNZ’s entire entertainment output.
Seymour kicks ‘em while they’re down
Act leader David Seymour rushed in to rub salt in the wounds, telling Stuff the beleaguered media sector was currently suffering from “enormous self-pity”. He also said 1News reporter Benedict Collins’ coverage of the Chris Luxon housing story was an example of media hypocrisy. “They have spent years celebrating and dancing at every slip that a politician makes, competing to get scalps as they call them,” he said. “And all of a sudden they say, ‘but when we have a bad day you’ve got to be kind to us’.” While it’s a bad look for any minister to show so little empathy over job losses, TVNZ’s position as a state-owned enterprise adds another layer of controversy to Seymour’s comments. Under the TVNZ Act, ministers are prohibited from directing the broadcaster on how to gather or present news. Law professor Andrew Geddis says Seymour may have “managed to stay onside of the black letter law” with his latest pronouncements. Whether he breached it in spirit is an open question.
Seymour criticised Kiri Allan over ‘interfering with media’
It’s not the first time this year Seymour has played armchair critic to TVNZ’s newsgathering process. 1News has a rundown of instances in which he has criticised the broadcaster since becoming a minister, including a tweet saying “if you wanted balanced journalism [on Act’s position on pseudoephedrine] you wouldn’t have got it from 1News tonight”. RNZ’s Jo Moir notes that while in Opposition, Seymour chided Kiri Allan for comments she made about RNZ’s culture. “There is a real problem when the people who hold the purse strings aren’t absolutely critically cautious about even the perception of interfering with media,” Seymour said at the time. Broadcasting minister Melissa Lee says Seymour “should know” his responsibility under the Act, but she will take it upon herself to remind him.
‘Dire implications for our democracy’
Media insiders voiced their despair over the cuts, which come just days after the announcement of Newshub’s likely obliteration. While the cuts are widely being blamed on audience migration to digital, former TVNZ journalist Cameron Bennett says they are also a result of the “undermining of journalism” here and around the world, and a growing belief that the mainstream media can’t be trusted. “I think all of that added to the decline in people listening and watching, certainly in broadcast media.” Sunday presenter Miriama Kamo told RNZ the news was “devastating” for TVNZ, and coupled with the likely demise of Newshub, the contractions in news media had “dire implications for our democracy”. As the TVNZ news and current affairs team faced an anxious wait on Thursday evening, 1News at Six presenter Simon Dallow began the bulletin with a brief message of support: “Kia ora, good evening, and kia kaha to our colleagues.”
Read more: The last 14 months in New Zealand media: a chilling play-by-play
This story first appeared on Radio Today