Mourning Becomes the Media

With Apologies to Eugene O’Neill and Aeschylus

Eugene O’Neill said that by using the title “Mourning Becomes Electra”, he sought to convey that mourning befits Electra; it becomes Electra to mourn; it is her fate; black is becoming to her and it is the color that becomes her destiny. (“Contour in Time” Travis Bogard http://www.eoneill.com/library/contour/historian/electra.htm)

Newshub went off the air on Friday 5 July 2024. This was reckoned to be a sad day. Sad because a mainstream media platform was no longer being supported by its owners. Particularly sad for those who lost their jobs. In fact the outpouring of grief on that front has been repetitive to the point of banality.

Bryce Edwards, a political scientist at Victoria University, runs a news aggregation site via Substack called NZ Politics Daily. Bryce collects news stories from mainstream media and organizes them according to topic and then posts links to each of them.

I don’t know how he does it. But what he is doing is similar to Google and Facebook although Bryce provides a link only rather than content. His Substack site is free to air but to get the full benefit a contribution must be made. I wonder if Bryce may become a target for the proposals under the Fair Digital Media Bargaining Bill. Probably not. The absence of content will probably save him.

For the week of 1 July to 5 July I kept an eye on the stories Bryce linked to that deal with the media. Here they are.

1 July

Adam Hollingworth (The Detail): The beginning of the end for news at TV3
Adam Hollingworth (The Detail): Newshub's Mike McRoberts: "The end is hard to accept."
Shayne Currie (Herald): Media Insider: Sunday News to close after 61 years; Stuff says newspaper ‘no longer a good fit (paywalled)
Tracy Watkins (Stuff): End of an era for Sunday News
Shayne Currie (Herald): What’s eating TVNZ? The major financial, operational and leadership challenges facing state TV broadcaster and the bold and brutal plan to survive and thrive (paywalled)

Two of the stories dealt with the Newshub demise.

2 July

Newshub: A note from us: What happens when Newshub's newsroom closes this Friday?
Sarah Nealon (Stuff): ThreeNews set to debut this weekend
Tom Pullar-Strecker (Post): Sky TV replacing daily news bulletin with 3-year-old episodes of Pawn Stars (paywalled)
Emily Brookes (Stuff): Why you might find Jenna Lynch with a jacket over her head
Matt Slaughter (Stuff): Kiwi Yarns: TVNZ stalwart Mark Crysell opens up about job losses and his 'amazing' career

3 stories about the Newshub demise

3 July

Duncan Greive (Spinoff): An abrupt U-turn from National, a brave new world for news in New Zealand
Tim Murphy (Newsroom): Ministers will shake the Facebook and Google money tree for NZ media
RNZ: 'Terrible precedent' - Expert concerns about Fair Digital News Bargaining Bill
Liam Hehir (The Blue Review): Why Paul Goldsmith's "good cop" routine is doomed to fail (paywalled)
David Farrar: Stupid Government backing Willie’s bill
Chris Lynch: Paul Goldsmith’s Fair Digital News Bargaining Bill will decimate local news
Stewart Sowman-Lund (Spinoff): An unexpected (and overdue) helping hand for the media
Martyn Bradbury (Daily Blog): Digital Bill announced as Newshub murdered
Richard Harman (Politik): Goldsmith’s media move; “unprincipled” “sop” (paywalled)
Felix Desmarais (1News): Media crisis: Govt outlines plan to open up revenue stream
Mark Quilivan (Newshub): ACT Party 'agrees to disagree' with National on Fair Digital News Bargaining Bill - David Seymour
Colin Peacock (RNZ): Mediawatch: Digital news Bill backing a big shift by government
RNZ: Coalition to press ahead with Fair Digital News Bargaining Bill
Tom Pullar-Strecker (Post): Digital news bill help for sector ‘under enormous pressure’, says minister (paywalled)
Patrick Gower (Newshub): That was f**king Newshub
Shayne Currie (Herald): Media Insider: Newshub closure – former MediaWorks chief executive Mark Weldon breaks silence; 6pm TV advertising battle heats up (paywalled)
Isaac Gunson (Te Ao Māori News): More media cuts? Whakaata Māori prepares for $9.5m funding decrease
Sam Smith (Stuff): Whakaata Māori facing a $9.5 million funding decrease
Chelsea Daniels (Herald): Front Page: NZ media shake-up: Shortland Street’s lifeline, Newshub’s final goodbye, and a new look 6pm bulletin
Russell Brown (Listener): The final countdown: Just four days before Stuff takes on broadcast news (paywalled)
Emily Brookes (Stuff): Here’s what will replace Newshub’s bulletins and AM show
RNZ: Award-winning academics, NZ journalists headline Pacific media conference in Fiji
Centrist: We don’t think there is balance in the media coverage of National and the Greens

Quite a few stories but that was prompted as much by the announcement about the future of the Fair Digital News Bargaining Bill. Nevertheless, Paddy Gower (whose headline would suggest a certain poverty of expression) and Shayne Currie managed to sneak a couple of stories about Newshub, as didChelsea Daniels, Russell Brown and Emily Brookes.

4 July

Peter Griffin (BusinessDesk): Finally, a small stand is made against Big Tech (paywalled)
Molly Swift (Newshub): Minister Paul Goldsmith addresses concerns big tech companies could retaliate to Fair Digital News Bargaining Bill
Mike Hosking (Newstalk ZB): The media bill won't work
Kerre Woodham (Newstalk ZB): Where does the media go from here?
John MacDonald (Newstalk ZB): Mark and Paul - Facebook friends no more
Shayne Currie (Herald): Media Insider: Revealed - a sneak peek at the new-look TV3 and Stuff 6pm news (paywalled)
David Harvey: Media Solutions - Part 3
Martyn Bradbury (Daily Blog): TVNZ is doomed – what does the Left do about that?

The fascination with Fair Digital News Bargaining continues, but Shayne Currie can be relied upon for copy about Newshub. A slightly higher standard of content appears from this writer.

5 July

Colin Peacock (RNZ): Mediawatch: Do we still care about the 6pm TV news?
Hal Crawford: Death of a newsroom
Tumamao Harawira and Isaac Gunson (Whakaata Māori): Tama Potaka lays Whakaata Māori woes at Labour’s feet
Joseph Los’e (Herald): Tama Potaka must stand up for Māori and stop the government cuts to Māori television: Te Pati Māori
Gordon Campbell: On saving journalists, not an industry that routinely exploits them
Stewart Sowman-Lund (Spinoff): The day Newshub ends, and Stuff’s major gamble begins
Duncan Greive (Spinoff): Sam Hayes and Mike McRoberts look back in awe and sorrow
Shayne Currie (Herald): Media Insider: Newshub closure - Paddy Gower finds out TV future; Samantha Hayes and Mike McRoberts’ farewell interview; Beacons Awards winners
Graham Smith (RNZ): After more than 30 years, Three's evening bulletin bows out
Mike McRoberts (Newshub): What I'm most proud of as Newshub ends
1News: Newshub closure: Mike McRoberts reflects on his final bulletin
Sam Hayes (Newshub): Reflecting on my time at Newshub
Newshub: Patrick Gower, Tova O'Brien and Jenna Lynch reflect on their stand-out moments as Newshub political editors
Lloyd Burr (Newshub): Newshub closure: Lloyd Burr reflects on his career, from carrying cables to hosting AM
Milly Fullick (Herald): Taupō Times community newspaper announces closure

Eleven of the stories listed are about the Newshub closure.

There were a large number of stories (18) in the Media section for 8 July (the day this was written). Many of them are about the Newshub closure.

Heather du Plessis-Allan (Herald): Newshub closure: The slow death of linear TV - sadly this is just the start (paywalled)
Karl du Fresne: Here's the news: life will go on
Madeleine Chapman (Spinoff): The Weekend: Is there too much news about the news?
Shayne Currie (Herald): Media Insider review: Stuff takes over TV3 6pm news after Newshub closure - here’s how it went (paywalled)
Janet Wilson (Post): Stuff’s ThreeNews; the verdict (paywalled)
RNZ: As it happened: Stuff's new 6pm bulletin goes to air
Tara Ward (Spinoff): Here is the (new) news: ThreeNews makes its news debut
Duncan Greive (Spinoff): Stuff’s 6pm bulletin is the boldest – and scariest – media bet in years. Will it pay off?
Rachel Helyer Donaldson (RNZ): Excitement and nerves ahead of new bulletin, Stuff CEO says
Newshub: Who's behind the next generation of ThreeNews?
Newshub: Goodbye from Newshub
Alex Casey (Spinoff): ‘No tears till 7pm’: How Newshub said goodbye to Newshub
Colin Peacock (RNZ): Mediawatch: Newshub at 6 signs off with a bang - and a whimper
Press Editorial (Post): When the news is the news (paywalled)
Juliet Speedy (Newshub): What legacy does Newshub leave behind?
Newshub: Mike McRoberts and Samantha Hayes make an emotional farewell to Newshub viewers
1News: Thank you for being our people': Newshub's Hayes, McRoberts sign off
Daniel Rutledge (Newshub): Newshub closure: Looking back on the history of 3news.co.nz and newshub.co.nz as it ceases operations
Riria Dalton-Reedy (Te Ao Māori News): Haere rā Newshub - A look back at the Māori journalists who shone
Ashleigh McCaull (RNZ): Māori broadcaster Joanna Paul-Robie asked to present two shows in video closet
Eva Corlett (Guardian): End of an era for New Zealand media as Newshub set to air final bulletin
Good Ideas: A ray of light in the media gloom (paywalled)
Brodie Hunter (RNZ): Media student worried about finding a secure job in journalism
Justin Hu (1News): Internet-only: 'Sunset' for broadcast TV on cards, but timing unclear
Greg Bruce (Herald): Jack Tame on ‘that interview’ with Winston Peters, his old next door neighbour Wayne Brown and journalism’s future (paywalled)
Dale Husband (E-Tangata): Mihingarangi Forbes: I’ve still got heaps of gas in the tank
Felix Walton (RNZ): Shortland Street cut to three episodes a week
Oscar Kightley (Post): Farewell Sunday News (paywalled)

I have always wondered at the media’s fascination with itself. It is, as Karl du Fresne suggests,

“an unedifying orgy of self-aggrandisement as Newshub journalists and broadcasters very publicly and ostentatiously mourn the imminent loss of their jobs…..

Paddy Gower, Mike McRoberts, Samantha Hayes, Lloyd Burr, Eric Young and Melissa Chan-Green have all invited us to share their grief, although Chan-Green, holding back tears, at least had the self-awareness to acknowledge that other people have faced tough times too….

It has been a strange combination of self-pity and self-celebration. The Newshub team are appealing for public sympathy while simultaneously bigging themselves up in a manner that many ordinary New Zealanders will find risibly over-the-top and more than a little self-centred.

They’re behaving as if they’re the first people ever to experience the trauma of losing their jobs, but of course it happens all the time. Businesses constantly fail, often with far more damaging consequences for those affected.

Untold thousands of unskilled and semi-skilled New Zealanders have been thrown out of jobs by technological change or economic upheaval and faced a far bleaker outlook than the relatively small number of skilled and talented people affected by the Newshub closure, some of whom have already acquired new and presumably well-paid jobs.

The difference, of course, is that all those anonymous victims of redundancy had no public platform from which to draw attention to their misfortune. Newshub journalists do, either via their own medium or through others in the media (such as the Herald’s Shayne Currie, who has assiduously reported all the hand-wringing). I’m sure it’s not lost on the public that they are exploiting a privileged position.”

And that is the problem. The suggestion is that the loss of Newshub and associated jobs is tantamount to the Last Trumpet. It is not. The Newshub closure represents a certain inevitability that those who worked for it have failed to recognize or understand. The communications landscape has changed utterly. As Heather du Plessis Allen suggested the days of linear TV are numbered. In the same way that there was a shakeup in the music industry and the movie industry both of which have managed to adapt by developing new business models and streaming services.

As Karl du Fresne says

“life will go on. A timeline of Newshub’s history, published today in the Herald, graphically demonstrates that TV news and current affairs programmes come and go and are soon forgotten. The timeline serves as a striking reminder that television is essentially an ephemeral medium. Many of the shows mentioned have long since faded from the public memory, along with the names of the people who presented them. The same will happen to the 6 o’clock Newshub News, and possibly sooner than many of its grieving employees imagine.”

And indeed life does go on. Even this writer suffered the loss of a job, not because of incompetence or inability but because I had reached what we called in the justice game “the statutory age of senility.” And I hit it twice. I had to cease full time activity at 70 but after short hiatus was able to continue part-time until I was 75. That was at the end of 2021. Since then I have had other jobs, still doing a bit of legal work and, of course, writing.

Thinking of the statutory age of senility, in the United States no one under the age of 35 can run for President. After seeing the first Trump/Biden debate it is a shame the US Constitution doesn’t have an upper limit disqualification age - for both contenders.

Certainly many of the Newshub people have transitioned to other work. Mike McRoberts is going to NBR. Samantha Hayes will read the news during the week on the Stuff supported ThreeNews. Paddy Gower missed on a handout from NZ On Air for his “Paddy Gower has Issues” but I am sure that once he elevates his vocabulary above vulgar profanity he should be alright. There is always Substack.

Karl du Fresne made the observation that a commentator wondered where the mainstream media were when good people were losing their jobs because they chose not to have the Covid jab. No sympathy for them.

Probably because it didn’t fit their self-absorbed narrative which now, like Electra’s, is one of grief.