AUCKLAND (Media7 / Pacific Media Watch): On its final edition last night, Russell Brown’s Media7 programme dissected the strange times for journalists with the "heralding" of the slashing of 1900 Fairfax jobs in Australia and the revelation that News Ltd would cut up to 1000 jobs as well.
Former Fairfax editor and now CEO of the Newspaper Publishers Association, Tim Pankhurst, said Gina Rinehart’s campaign for greater control of the Fairfax press was a concern, as she did not have a background in editorial independence.
Rinehart was refused a seat on the board of Fairfax on Wednesday, and had earlier refused to sign an agreement on editorial independence.
But Pankhurst said Rinehart would play her cards carefully.
“She is a smart woman who has made a lot of money. If you don’t have audiences and advertisers, you don’t have a product and I don’t think she’ll be going there to destroy it,” he said.
Media 'still learning'
CEO of Telecommunications Users Association Paul Brislen criticised the decision by Fairfax to separate its print and online operations and said for a time the National Business Review in New Zealand did the same thing.
“It’s duplication of resources at a time when resources are scarce and it simply doesn’t work,” he said.
Brislen said that he mainly read news online and preferred the Fairfax “stable” but that they too had a lot to learn.
“I still get the impression [that] a lot of newspapers, Fairfax in particular, don’t seem to know what to do online.”
He said with new technology it was possible to see how many people click on certain advertisements and the results had been interesting.
“The advertising community has been taking us all for a ride for years – people don’t buy newspapers for the ads and that seems to surprise them.”
Content remains 'king'
Pankhurst agreed: “Content is still king no matter what platform it’s on.”
But he said the advertising shift had hurt companies and no one had yet come up with a new effective model to “monetise online”.
Pankhurst said some sort of method of payment had to be formed for online news.
“If you support the concept of quality journalism and the role of the media in democracy then you have to make some sort of payment for that.
“The question is how that’s pitched.”
Brislen gave smaller media operators hope, saying they were “nimble” enough to corner part of the market.
“I’d like to see a lot more media and a lot more competition,” he said.
“I find it very odd… that we have two major papers that simply don’t compete with each other. They have their markets, they sit in their corners and they don’t come out very much at all.”
Russell Brown thanked journalists and staff involved in producing and delivering the media-focused programme before signing off for the final time.
Media7 will be reincarnated on TV3 after an announcement by New Zealand On Air. The new programme will be named Media3 and will screen on Saturday mornings.
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Alex Perrottet
