Buying the News

A long time ago I bought a secondhand book for $1. It began: “the biggest heist in the 1970s never made it on the five o’clock news.  The biggest heist in the 1970s was the five o’clock news.”

The Newscasters by Ron Powers, went on to tell the story of the takeover of news media programming to benefit commercial interests. “The salesmen (sic) took it; they took it away from the journalists... with such finesse that nobody noticed until it was too late.”

Now it’s happening all over again right here in NZ. TV3’s outstanding Campbell Live current affairs programme is threatened by the ratings kings and the bean counters. 

Some allege that the government is leaning on the broadcaster. Others point out that the new CEO of TV3 has no broadcasting experience and has no sympathy for this particular programme.  Gifted satirists and intellectuals alike are fulminating against the threat. A petition is under way and there will be demonstrations around the country tomorrow. Perhaps the public - which didn’t actually watch the show enough to pull up its ratings - will rally round.

But the reality is, unless the taxpayer provides some funding specifically for an impartial news media service of some kind, private broadcasting will inevitably shape its offerings to build its bottom line. We may deplore their taste and motivation. But in an unregulated market we can hardly blame them.

What we need to do is insist that the our taxpayer dollars do more to support programming that may not have commercial potential. Obviously Radio NZ handles news more appropriately than television; merging radio with a free-to-air satellite TV service could work. There may be other ways. But let's at least explore the possibilities....