Cutting our nose off to spite our face

The demise of Newshub is bad, actually.

Photo by PJ Gal-Szabo on Unsplash

Broadcast television casts a shorter shadow than it once did. The digital age, with all its streaming options and on-demand services, has made the older medium much less powerful than it once was. And so advertisers have flocked to the targeted, cheaper interactive landscapes of online platforms.

Where families gathered around the television at the day's end to take in the news and a handful of sitcoms that everybody watched, individuals now retreat to personal screens, curating their own entertainment experiences.

Blah, blah, blah. So far, so cliched.

But even in its reduced state, television remains far and away the most powerful medium for news content. The combination of immediacy, visual impact and collective experience is not matched, and probably never will be, by its digital successors. Hundreds of thousands of New Zealanders still tune into TV news every day, mostly at the same time.

That audience is an older and more traditional remnant than years gone by. They are therefore not the consumer goldmine that advertisers seek. But here’s the thing: they represent a significant and influential voting bloc with electoral force out of proportion to their absolute numbers.

TV views are more politically active and consistent in voting behaviour, making them a prime target for political messaging.

The 6 o'clock news, in particular, still inspires aspiration and fear in politicians. Being ridiculed or criticised on broadcast news feels like torture, making any agreement to go before the camera a real risk. Yet the prospect of gaining recognition and the opportunity to communicate directly with voters is an irresistible draw.

We have to remember this when considering the impending closure of Newshub.

The phrase "go woke, go broke" has been getting a thorough workout as critics of the liberal media suggest the outlet’s pursuit of progressive narratives has alienating viewers and destroyed its financial viability. There is little actual evidence for that, with institutional media struggling across the board.

Yet even if political bias is not behind Newshub’s decline, the perception of that bias has contributed to a sense of schadenfreude from the online right. And I think that’s short sighted.

There has been much talk of the recent study out at AUT showing that trust in media is at a low and that claims of political bias has played a big role in that collapse. I have been writing about the perception of bias and its role in undermining the media for over a decade. I have never taken the view that we are talking about a simple or overt phenomenon (in most cases) but one that is mostly cultural in nature.

When discussing this with journalists and editors, there are two types of reaction. The first is the reasonable acknowledgment that, yes, this is a factor in how the news is framed and that it’s something the media has to be careful about. The other, less reasonable reaction has always been a certain pig-headed stubbornness about just not seeing the issue.

This has lead to real frustration over the years for almost everyone not on the centre-left side of social and cultural issues. This isn’t just centrists and conservatives, to be clear. People on the more radical side of the left have their critique too. Because what the media tends to have is a default centre-left sensibility.

But even if we accept that critique of television shows, what’s been gained from the demise of Newshub?

First of all, the financial hurdles to establishing a new broadcaster are formidable, so it’s not like some new, supposedly centrist successor is going to pop into existence. So, if anything, what we’re likely to see is televised news becoming more, not less of a monoculture. Less competition for stories will make it easier to set inconvenient stories aside.

That increases the power of politicians and public sector leaders to fly under the radar. Going from one TV newsroom to two inevitably means less stuff that needs to be uncovered, will get uncovered. There will be less accountability, allowing those in positions of power to operate with less fear of exposure.

What type of story. Well, stories like Newshub’s 2020 investigation into PPE mishandling. Or this big email screw up at MBIE. Or Civil Defence blunders during flooding last year.

None of this is particularly earth-shattering, but it’s the type of work that makes government ministers sweat and which keeps officials on their toes.

Do you get annoyed at Patrick Gower’s opinions sometimes? Same. Is banishing them from television compensation enough for the loss of the every day check on government that television news provides? I don’t think so.

I don’t think so at all.