Jackson needs to explain why this merger is a good idea

Freelance journalist formerly working in PR, including a stint with the National Party

If Broadcasting Minister Willie Jackson needed amoment to reflect on his reasoning behind why TelevisionNew Zealand and Radio New Zealand should be merged, he could contemplate Gonzo journalist Hunter S Thompson’s astute view that ‘‘the TV business is uglier than most things’’.

‘‘It is normally perceived as some kind of cruel and shallow money trench where thieves and pimps run free and good men die like dogs for no good reason.’’

Because in allowing that shallow money trench to remain with TVNZ but not RNZ, Jackson is risking not only the reputations of both organisations, but he’s throwing a grenade into an already delicate media landscape.

More importantly, he’s failed to adequately explain the reasons for the merger and why it will solve the ongoing dilemmas each organisation faces.

In August, Jackson resorted to scolding both organisations for not giving sufficient priority to Māori, Pasifika, Asians and young people. And while therewas some validity to his summing up of the problem, he failed to demonstrate how the mergerwould fix it, while also not acknowledging the work TVNZ and RNZ were already doing to attract those audiences.

How is merging the two going to solve the fact, revealed in last year’s NZ on Air report Where the Audiences Are, that TV and radio reach only a third of 15-to-39-yearolds on an average day, compared with more than 60% only five years ago?

And in deeming that TVNZ remain commercial, even if less so than before, Jackson has taken a bite out of that tired Labour trope of wanting to have their cake and eat it too. Because New Zealand’s public media modelwould be an outlier, while countries such as Britain, Australia and Canada hold that public broadcasting should be just that – publicly funded.

Jackson has already acknowledged the Herculean task of bringing two quite different cultures together but in doing so he’s resorted to framing who’s the good guy and who’s the bad dude.

At last week’s economic development, science and innovation select committee, he commented that RNZ ‘‘gets the model’’ while TVNZ ‘‘needs to change their attitude’’. Which is a bit like saying that having been happy to have had TVNZ as a commercial Frankenstein – and having kept it – you want it to be not quite so commercial. Good luck with that.

And while being unsuccessful in explaining why the merger is better than having two standalone organisations, the Government is taking a gamble on Kiwis’ trust in both TVNZ and RNZ and their editorial freedom when the new entity arises as AotearoaNew

Zealand Public Media (ANZPM) in exactly five months.

Because that freedom is at risk under the proposed structure as an autonomous Crown entity. It means that the minister is entitled to instruct ANZPM to bear inmind a government policy.

If independence is to be observed, it’s best it’s not seen as a subclause in how it relates to the minister’s role, as it is now, but a core principle of the new legislation, as both TVNZ and RNZ have told the select committee.

Labour should have known better becausewe’ve been here before with the best of intentions and the worst of results. Look at the $55 million public interest journalism fund, which some perceived – incorrectly – as the Fourth Estate getting far too cosy with its political masters.

Which helps explain why, in AUT’s Trust in News in Aotearoa New Zealand report, trust dropped by 10% in the past three years, with trust in TVNZ falling 10%, and trust in RNZ falling 9%. The lack of independence in ANZPM’s present structure threatens that trust even further.

Unsurprisingly the birth of a behemoth, which the Opposition claims cost $350 million (but Jackson says would be $40m over four years) and which has snaffled $85m of NZ on Air money, has been met with howls of anguish from competing commercial organisations.

It would be easy to dismiss this as large-scale fearmongering from competing organisations, as Better Public Media’s Myles Thomas maintains. But ANZPM would become the largest media outlet in Aotearoa and be able to use its muscle not only in hiring staff and developing content but also with advertisers.

And, as the Stuff submission to the select committee argued, it can use government money to subsidise its commercial activities, giving it larger revenues than any other media organisation.

It’s ironic that many Government MPs have cited the rise of misinformation and disinformation as the reason for the merger because that’s the ultimate risk it poses. It also takes a ‘‘we-knowwhat’s-best’’ attitude with Kiwi audiences.

It puts both TVNZ and RNZ in the invidious position of appearing compromised by their political masters, further threatening their independence, and diminishing the trust New Zealanders have in them. And it establishes Labour as an eternal tinkerer, fixing things that aren’t broken.

Janet Wilson produced two seasons of the TV show Eye to Eye with Willie Jackson in the early 2000s, and has also worked for TVNZ and TV3.

ANZPM would be the largest media outlet .

.

. and be able to use its muscle not only in hiring staff and developing content but also with advertisers.