If journalism in Western democracies has been on a roller coaster in recent decades, in Aotearoa New Zealand this week it threatened to come right off the rails.
Today’s shocking announcement by owners Warner Bros Discovery of the closure of Newshub by the end of June will leave only state-funded TVNZ and Whakaata Māori providing public-interest, free-to-air broadcast news.
The impact on the country’s already shrinking and fragile public sphere will be considerable, as yet another tranche of sacked New Zealand journalists goes looking for work.
Up to 350 jobs will go, about 200 of which are from the news operation.
The brutal nature of the decision, and the apparent disregard for affected staff, echoes the closure last year of Mediaworks’ Today FM radio station. It should be yet another wake-up call about the vulnerability of the country’s precious and struggling news media to global investment priorities.
The news media is core infrastructure for a democracy. Any attempt at a self-governing society requires a well-informed and, to some degree, unified public.
Today, we understand this to mean media that act as the conduit for a significant plurality of voices, ideas and political arguments. And a healthy and diverse media ecosystem is required to enable this.
Read more: Closures, cuts, revival and........© The Conversation