NZ On Air dishes out $9.6 million to journalism

Thursday, 15 July 2021

About 40 per cent of the successful applications to the Public Interest Journalism Fund were for projects benefitting Māori journalism, NZ On Air said.

NZ On Air has dished out the first $9.6 million of its $55m Public Interest Journalism Fund, with Māori projects and journalism training among the major recipients.

Broadcasting Minister Kris Faafoi announced in February that it would make the fund available over three years to “support democracy and ensure New Zealanders had access to trusted information”.

The largest of the 34 approved projects will see NZME, Māori Television, Newshub and Pacific Media Network receive $2.4m to hire and train 25 cadet Māori, Pasifika and “diverse” journalists.

About 40 per cent of the first funding round would go to projects benefitting Māori journalism, NZ On Air said.

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Some cash from the Public Interest Journalism Fund will be used to fund content projects that had previously received funding from other NZ On Air money pots, such as podcasts produced by Newsroom NZ for RNZ.

Newsroom NZ will receive up to $806,135 to continue to produce daily podcasts called The Detail for RNZ.

NZ On Air had previously funded The Detail podcasts from its Innovation Fund, which it managed alongside RNZ.

NZ On Air head of journalism Raewyn Rasch confirmed funding for that series had been “essentially switched” from other funding sources.

“It makes sense for projects that are public interest journalism to come into the Public Interest Journalism Fund, so there are a few projects that may move across,” she said.

Stuff will receive $591,465 for its The Whole Truth project which is designed to counter misinformation where it occurs about Covid-19.

It will also receive up to $214,360 for a multimedia series investigating what life was like for New Zealand’s first Asian immigrants and descendants and the issues facing Chinese New Zealanders, and $300,800 for a cultural competency course for its journalists.

Victoria University associate professor Peter Thompson said the outlay on Māori-oriented training was substantial, but there would be a need to “wait and see” what came out of the content projects.

The initiative that stood out was the $2.4m “Te Rito” hiring and training programme, he said.

“That is potentially a significant contribution to Māori journalism.

“The question is how long is going to last? The fund is only for three years and after that I suspect there is going to be quite a lot of discussion about whether or not there will be a need for it to continue.”

A $361,815 grant to train 100 iwi radio staff was “hugely progressive” given iwi radio had historically had a very limited budget, he said.

There was debate when the fund was being formulated over whether it was simply “a bung to keep existing media outlets ticking over during Covid” or whether it was there to add “incremental journalistic outputs – things that went above and beyond current journalism,” Thompson said.

The projects that had been approved suggested NZ On Air was looking to push “above and beyond what would normally be possible”, he said.

But he expected the commercial mainstream media sector would not be “all that thrilled”.

“This isn’t necessarily going to prop up an existing, faltering business model.”

The next funding round from the journalism fund, for which applications close next Thursday, would go on supporting specific roles, and the mainstream media would be waiting to see where that went, Thompson said.

“The funding for ‘roles’ is arguably more flexible than the funding for projects,” he said.