Regional journalism boost at RNZ expense: ‘The bleeding hasn't stopped'

Newsroom

22-05-2025

Pipped at the post for community newspaper of the year at this month's Voyager Media Awards, Ashburton Guardian managing editor Daryl Holden consoled himself by chatting with Media Minister Paul Goldsmith.
He badgered the minister about the open justice scheme, under which media giant NZME was granted $3 million in 2021 for a dozen specialist court and legal affairs journalists, spanning from Whangārei to Christchurch, as well as editors. The scheme's partners included Otago-based Allied Press, which ran a rival community paper in Ashburton.
'I said how our area and the central South Island, and probably through to the West Coast, had missed out with the existing open justice system,' said Holden, who co-owns the paper. 'It was a little bit frustrating.'
Fast-forward to Thursday's Budget, and Goldsmith announced he was expanding the open justice team, and local democracy reporting (LDR), which has 16 publicly funded journos in newsrooms, including the Ashburton Guardian, to cover local councils.
'Well, there you go,' Holden said, post-Budget, with Mid Canterbury understatement.
'We were always confident that the LDR scheme would continue, and that's all the noise we'd heard about it. But the extension of the open justice system, and particularly that emphasis in the press release about regional journalism, that is a surprise, and that is fantastic news for a newsroom like us.
'It can be monumental if we've got sort of funding to be able to fill gaps in our news coverage.'
One of the biggest complaints Holden heard about the Guardian before he started in March 2021 was the lack of court coverage. He was asked: Is it too controversial?
'We just couldn't afford to hire anyone,' he said. 'Having that funding to be able to do that is important for democracy. It shows if you do something really wrong, that perhaps it could get covered in the newspaper to show people that democracy is working.'
The Government announced $6.4m in new funding, over four years, to boost council, court, and community reporting. 'It will get funding into regional newsrooms so that more local frontline journalists can report on the things that matter to their audiences,' Goldsmith said in a statement.
'If NZME is struggling, and if Stuff is struggling, it doesn't take Einstein to work out that smaller community newspapers must also be doing it tough.' Daryl Holden, Ashburton Guardian
Gavin Ellis, the former NZ Herald editor-in-chief, who reviewed the open justice and LDR schemes for the previous government in 2023, said: 'That's a good move, and I think it'll be generally applauded.'
There was less cheering, perhaps, for Goldsmith's other announcement – cutting state broadcaster RNZ's annual budget by 7 percent, or $4.6m a year, to $62.3m.
'Government-funded media must deliver the same efficiency and value-for-money as the rest of the public sector,' the minister said, while noting RNZ's annual budget increased $7.3m in 2020, and $25.7m in 2023.
The cuts were imposed over four years, for a total of $18.4m.
Conan Young is a journalism lecturer at University of Canterbury, who worked for RNZ from 2004 till 2023. His last role there was as local democracy reporting editor.
He said the broadcaster spent some of its new money on hiring top journos, like national crime correspondent Sam Sherwood, and strengthening its investigative team. 'You'd certainly say their journalism is a lot more muscular.'
But the full benefits were yet to flow through, Young said. 'For RNZ to be on the brink of something quite special and really important, given the state of newsrooms around the rest of the country, to hear about this huge funding cut is really gutting, not just for RNZ, but for journalism in general.'
As the MediaRoom column reported last year, RNZ has experienced an online surge, with its monthly unique readers skyrocketing from 422,000 in September 2018 to 1.56m in August 2024.
But big media companies – struggling because overseas-owned digital platforms are hoovering up advertising revenue – can see RNZ as a subsidised rival, taking away their online audience.
'There might not be any love lost there,' Young said. Yet RNZ has become a news distributor akin to the now-dead NZ Press Association, funneling free copy to those who want it, including its supposed rivals.
In the context of the Government's overall budget, $18.4m is tiny, he said, but it's a huge cut for RNZ, constraining its ability to invest in journalism.
'It seems incredibly mean-spirited, and almost not really reading the room, in terms of where media is at the moment,' Young said. 'There are so many things the Government could be doing to actually make a difference, such as getting tech platforms to actually pay their fair share for the content that they use to bring in their audiences.'
The phrase mean-spirited might conjure up memories of last month's abrasive performance on RNZ's Morning Report programme by Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters, who told host Corin Dann: 'The fact is, you're paid for by the taxpayer and sooner or later we're going to cut that water off, too, because you're an abuse on the taxpayer.'
After Thursday's Budget, the Act Party trumpeted the cuts in a newsletter to supporters, saying: 'Additional savings have been found in all parts of government: from cuts to 'bilingual cities', more debt collection from legal aid recipients, and a reduction in funding for RNZ.'
Ellis, the former NZ Herald news boss, said there may be a political motive behind the RNZ funding cut – 'not by National but by the other coalition partners, I don't know'.
Peter Thompson, associate professor in media and communications at Victoria University of Wellington, is vice chair of the advocacy charity Better Public Media.
He said the cut 'looks a little bit like political retribution'. 'I'd really like to believe that's not the case but, really, National is showing its true ideological colours. It really doesn't seem to like public media.'
A responsible Budget, as the Government tried to paint it, wouldn't have undermined public media when the industry was in crisis, he said.
To muddy the waters somewhat, Young, the university lecturer, doubted Peters had a hand in the funding cut. 'Everybody knows that he actually loves the media, and he would love nothing more than to come on Morning Report and be interviewed – in fact he does, quite regularly.'
(Newsroom asked Peters' office for comment on Thursday evening.)
Goldsmith, the Media Minister, told Newsroom: 'Funding decisions are made by Cabinet as part of the usual annual Budget process. Budget decisions are not made by individual ministers.'
Despite RNZ 'operating in a period of tightened fiscal constraint' – which, several commentators said, was actually a political choice – Goldsmith expected the public service broadcaster to improve audience reach, trust and transparency.
Ellis responded: 'It's rather counterintuitive to think that you could do that by cutting budgets.'
The broadcaster would try to protect its newsroom, he believed, but given its tight budgets, and little wiggle room, it may have no choice but to leave vacancies unfilled. 'Over the four years that this is supposed to be enforced, it will have the effect of cutting their newsroom resources.'
Young, of the University of Canterbury, said he would be surprised if journalist jobs were lost as a result of the cuts.
In a statement, RNZ board chair Jim Mather said: 'While we are naturally disappointed with a funding reduction, we acknowledge the Government's fiscal challenges at present as well as the headwinds affecting the wider media sector. We will now carefully review our plans to ensure we continue to strengthen trust with audiences and provide outstanding public media that matters for New Zealanders.'
Merja Myllylahti, a senior lecturer at the AUT research centre for journalism, media and democracy, co-authored the recently released Trust in News report, in which RNZ was perceived as the country's most trusted brand.
While the minister demanded value for money, RNZ was already showing value, Myllylahti said. 'It's expanding online quite rapidly, and it has become a major news hub for the online news as well. Personally, I feel it's not the right time to cut [funding].'
When budgets were cut, spending reduced, and that hit newsrooms, she said. 'Normally it's journalism and journalists who suffer.'
She believed more should be invested in public service journalism.
In Finland, where Myllylahti is from, the public broadcaster, Yle, employed 3000 staff and had an annual budget of about €600m ($NZ1.15b), for a country of about 5.6 million people. Right now, however, its funding is being cut, and hundreds of jobs might go.
Lara Greaves, an associate professor of politics at Victoria University of Wellington, said cuts to RNZ, or media funding in general, stretched already thin resources, to the benefit of politicians.
But it wasn't just media funding being chopped. Greaves noted cuts to research and academia, including 'those who criticise the Government as a routine part of a healthy democracy'. 'Taken together, this is all quite worrying.'
Thompson, of Better Public Media, said the $18.4m cut to RNZ should be viewed in the context of RNZ's funding freeze under John Key's National-led government.
'Much of the extra funds that it received under Labour was really putting right a much, much longer structural problem.'
For years, Better Public Media has been advocating for the Government to impose a small levy on digital services, expanding the telecommunications levy. For example, Thompson said, if there was a 1 percent levy on roughly $2 billion of digital advertising that would generate $20m a year for journalism.
Thompson said strong public media supported democracy, and an informed public, by creating a media entity not beholden to advertisers and mass audiences. Publicly funded media could fill gaps not covered by struggling commercial businesses.
One supposed solution to the industry's funding woes was Labour's Fair Digital News Bargaining Bill, but Thompson preferred the levy model.
It's hard to predict the Government's next move.
While in opposition, the National Party called Labour's bill a shakedown, but then, in July last year, Goldsmith said the coalition would make changes and pass it by the end of the year.
Except it didn't. Progress on the bill was paused before Christmas.
On Thursday, Goldsmith said 'modern legislation' would ensure the media sector was financially sustainable for years to come. 'I am considering submissions from the recent consultation on media reform.' More information would be released 'in the coming months'.
Let's return to Ashburton Guardian's Daryl Holden, who was relishing the prospect of applying to NZ on Air for more funding.
Last year, he told Parliament's economic development, science and innovation committee the media industry was bleeding to death.
Since then, TV3's Newshub closed its newsroom (Stuff now provides its bulletin), and there's been a wave of newspaper closures, and layoffs.
'The bleeding hasn't stopped,' Holden said, after the Budget. 'Let's put it like this – if NZME is struggling, and if Stuff is struggling, it doesn't take Einstein to work out that smaller community newspapers must also be doing it tough.'