The case for media reform in New Zealand

In 2008 I wrote a blog titled 'A Complacent Duocracy'. It was about the two dominant television networks, and the two major political parties, colluding to hold a leaders debate involving only the leaders of the National and Labour parties.

Three years later, we see the same thing happening again. Does the election coverage in 2011 look or feel like New Zealand has a free and fearless media, defending the public right to know, holding current and political leaders to account, and engaging the citizens in debates about the important issues of the day? Hardly.

It looks and feels a great deal more like the cosy and corrupt relationship that was exposed in Great Britain recently, between a too-powerful media and both major political parties.  The phone hacking scandal showed, with resounding clarity, that the mainstream media's precious 'right to know' was being systematically abused by greedy press barons to provide prurient and invasive stories that would distract its audiences from thinking or caring about how they might best exercise their democratic rights.

The more important and revealing matters, which came to light as a result that scandal, were the close relationships between media executives and Britain's political leaders. But that story has been rapidly and quietly buried.

In New Zealand, there was a little media hand-wringing about how we should resist any calls for greater regulation of the media in response to the British scandal, because freedom of the press is a Good Thing and it should not be compromised.  Meanwhile, the government quietly replaced the chair of the Radio New Zealand board with a chair who had previously been a National Party prime minister's press secretary, and appointed various other party hacks and fellow-travellers to the remaining board positions.

The National government has also removed any responsibility for TVNZ to serve the public good; it will cease funding TVNZ7; and it has provided a sweetheart deal worth $48 million to the privately-owned MediaWorks radio network which apparently did not think to make a balance sheet provision to maintain possession of its core asset: the radio frequencies it bought at bargain basement prices 20 years earlier.

The previous Labour governments' record was not significantly better; from 1999 to 2008 it had nine years in power to ensure that New Zealand could have a genuine public broadcaster, and a media system that could, and would, put the public interest first. But it failed to achieve anything of the sort. The TVNZ Charter was a weak, self-contradictory and ineffective gesture, and there were various failures of leadership and governance - Ian Fraser's failings as CEO of TVNZ being the prime example.

The only saving graces, in this period, were the establishment of Maori Television service, which provides a genuine public broadcasting service for a nation-wide audience, and the expansion of independent regional broadcasting services in the main centres.

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In 2007/08 I convened the policy working group that drew up the Green Party's broadcasting policy.  I was reasonably satisfied with that effort, but I now think it needs to be reviewed and strengthened.  The media's failings in the 2011 election coverage and analysis are too many and too important to be ignored.

The key problem is the structure of media ownership and cross-ownership in New Zealand. Our media is owned by only a few companies. All are foreign-owned. Each has too much market power, and in some markets and outright monopoly. Bill Rosenberg at CAFCA and more recently the Journalism, Media and Democracy Research Centre at AUT University, have been keeping tabs on the situation:

"Four companies, all overseas owned, dominate the New Zealand news media. There is a near duopoly in two of the three main media – print and radio – a monopoly in pay television, and only three significant competitors in free-to-air television including the state-owned channels." (Rosenberg, 2008).

I won't explain, in this post, how New Zealand got into this situation. For a detailed explanation you could refer to my Master of Public Policy thesis (1999).

Democracy is best served by a free, competitive, responsive and responsible media.  This will tend to ensure that:

1. There is effective competition in the "market for ideas";
2. That the media uses its agenda-setting influence to draw public attention to matters of importance;
3. That public information is freely available to all citizens; and
4. That citizens are engaged in public discourse and debate about issues of social, economic and political importance.

The delivery of these outcomes is a "public good" of exactly the same importance as the existence of a national defence force, an effective police force, and the court system.  While an individual citizen might not utilise these publicly-provided services, we all collectively 'consume' (or benefit from) their existence.

The problem with New Zealand's commercial model is that our media:

• has freedom, but without responsibility; 
• is commercial, but not competitive*
• is responsive to the private interests of advertisers and shareholders - but not responsible for serving the public interest of its audiences.

* The New Zealand media industry is characterised by 'Monopolistic Competition', tending toward natural monopoly. That means there are a few firms, each producing multiple products, often containing the same substance although with different branding. In media markets that means there are many channels, giving the appearance of competition, but masking a sameness of content.

These problems cannot be fixed by a regulatory approach, because that might limit press freedom - and the cure should not be worse than the disease.

But there are a number of 'structural' solutions that can be implemented if New Zealand is to have an effective democracy:

1. Breaking up media monopolies, and reducing cross-media ownership, to ensure a more competitive 'market for ideas' in the New Zealand media.
2. Establishing a public broadcasting institution that is fully, and effectively, independent of government control (or even influence), and with a legally enforceable mandate to serve the public interest to the best of its ability.
3. Reviewing the rules that allocate the right to broadcast, to ensure that the right comes with a responsibility to serve the public interest, and that the right will be revoked if the responsibility is not met.
4. Allowing for responsible self-regulation of the media, by the media; but with a firm legislative 'back-stop' to ensure that self-regulation does not equate to a lack of regulation.

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Why is this so important?  

It's not just because the Green Party, and all the 'minor' parties have been shut out of the leaders' debates.  It is because New Zealand faces a perilous and uncertain future, and the current government appears not to be conscious of the issues, let alone trying to solve them. It can get away with this, because the citizens of New Zealand are woefully uninformed.

Jared Diamond, author of “Collapse: how societies choose to fail or succeed”, posits four reasons why societies, and even whole civilisations, have failed and collapsed. It is to do with failures of social (or group) decision-making:

• First of all, a group may fail to anticipate a problem before the problem actually arrives.
• Secondly, when the problem arrives, the group may fail to perceive the problem.
• Then, after they perceive the problem, they may fail even to try to solve the problem.
• Finally, they may try to solve it but may fail in their attempts to do so.

The first two steps along the path to failure involve a lack of information. The second two flow from a poor political decision-making and ability to solve the problem. And the lack of ability to solve a problem arises often because it is left too late.

The media are an essential component of the 'group decision making' process that constitutes a modern democratic state. And New Zealand faces a number of profound threats to our future well-being, which the democratic group decision-making process urgently needs to deal with.

One of these is the fact that global oil supply has peaked, prices are rising and will continue to rise inexorably, and our economy is extremely dependent on cheap oil. Yet we have a government that believes a multi-billion dollar road-building programme will support economic development.  The New Zealand media is apparently so deeply involved in the oil economy that the issue of this government's palpable stupidity is not on the agenda for discussion in the 2011 election. Our media are not Independent and Courageous Critics of the Status Quo.

Another is the moral dilemma of Climate Change. How can we continue to heat the planet, to provide for the excessive material consumption of current generations, but at the risk of creating an unimaginable holocaust for those who will follow?  The New Zealand media has bought into the narrative supplied by the Merchants of Doubt, and treats climate change as debateable and incomplete science. Our media are not Seekers After, and Tellers of, the Truth.

And of course the growing social and economic inequality within New Zealand is the true mark of disgrace for our media. In a well-informed democracy the level of inequality, and the causes of it, would be front page news and leading every bulletin.  The people of New Zealand have a right to know that they are being treated like farm animals (and mis-treated at that), by the wealthy elites that control our economy. Our media are certainly not Defenders of the Peoples' Right to Know.

No. Our media are, severally and collectively, responsible for eroding and undermining both the ideals and the practice of democracy in New Zealand.


If I am elected to parliament I will be pursuing an agenda of media reform with vigour and determination. Because we, as a people, urgently need the media to do its job, and do it properly. Because our future depends on it.