NZ has two big newspaper companies, both owned by Australian companies. Both companies are holding talks about a merger perhaps by the end of this year. Newspapers are finding it difficult to make a profit these days because advertisers prefer to advertise on news websites but people reading the news on the internet do not pay.
NZME owns The NZ Herald which publishes the daily newspaper in the Auckland area, the Herald on Sunday, Hawkes Bay Today, the Herald website, Newstalk ZB radio and some other radio stations. The company employs 1800 full time staff.
Fairfax owns The Press, the Dominion-Post, the Star Sunday-Times, a number of small regional newspapers and Stuff website. The company employs 1500 staff.
If the two companies merge, many journalists will lose their jobs. When there is no competition, will the newspapers try to be the best? Will they still tell us about new laws, who benefits from them and who does not? Will they ask MPs the hard questions like: “What are you doing about this problem?” A good newspaper is very important in a democracy.
Newspapers in Australia are also having problems making a profit and some of the bigger newspapers are thinking of becoming a weekly instead of a daily paper.
It is not clear why many people prefer to read their daily paper on the internet. Perhaps they are busy. However, if you look at the top news stories on the websites, you can see that visitors to the websites are attracted to news about celebrities, sport, crime or trivial matters. Print papers usually have more serious news stories. Is it too hard to read a longer story on a screen?
However, it is very interesting that one independent newspaper – the Otago Daily Times (ODT) based in Dunedin – is planning to expand.
Vocabulary
• merge – join. Signs on a motorway entrance say ‘merge like a zip’
• celebrities (n) – famous people
• trivial (adj), trivia (n) – not important
Questions
1. Can you compare what is happening in NZ newspapers with your own country?
2. Do journalists in your country interview MPs and ask them hard questions e.g. Why will this law be better than the old one? What is the government doing about . . .? Where is the money coming from? Are the rich paying their fair share of tax? How much money does the government spend on education? etc
3. If news websites are no longer free, would you pay to access their websites?