NZME restructuring newsroom

Tuesday, 22 August 2023

NZME, publisher of the New Zealand Herald, is restructuring its newsroom.

The NZX-listed media company is intending to separate out its print and digital operations.

The New Zealand Herald reported that the restructure involved “a renewed focus on digital” and on a “digital-first operation”.

New senior editorial roles would be created and others disestablished, leading to a net loss of one role.

“NZME continues to accelerate our digital transformation efforts to meet the changing needs of our readers and audiences nationwide,” chief content officer Murray Kirkness said.

”We are committed to ensuring we have a sustainable digital news operation, while also delivering our many excellent print publications nationwide.”

Rumours that staff had been called in meetings began circulating on Monday evening.

”Today we met with our newsroom team to discuss a proposal which aims to simplify our newsroom operations,” Kirkness confirmed.

“This includes moving from our current integrated newsroom operating model to having separate digital and print operations.”

The proposal contained changes to some newsroom leadership roles and reporting lines, but the vast majority of frontline reporting and journalist roles would see little impact from the proposed changes, he said.

“All newsroom staff are being invited and encouraged to provide their feedback.”

NZME is due to report its half-year results on Friday.

E tū organiser Michael Gilchrist said the union was supporting E tū members at NZME and working with the company to ensure proper consultation occurs in the restructuring process “wherever possible to minimise any effect on members”.

“Now more than ever before, New Zealanders need well-paid, professionally trained journalists reporting the news,” he said.

“We need to ensure conditions for journalists continue to improve, with sustainable career pathways that keep talent in the industry.”

NZME’s restructure follows a similar move at Stuff to separate into Stuff Digital, which operates the Stuff website, and Stuff Masthead Publishing.

However, in Stuff’s case its newspaper mastheads have their own paywalled websites that sit within its masthead business, thepost.co.nz, thepress.co.nz and waikatotimes.co.nz.

National Party broadcasting spokesperson Melissa Lee said on Tuesday that the party would not be supporting the Government’s proposed Fair Digital News Bargaining Bill.

It is designed to bolster the bargaining position of media organisations in their negotiations with large internet search and social media platforms, such as Google and Meta.

The law change would require the digital giants reach agreements to pay for news content that was made available through their platforms, or else have the terms for doing so set through mandatory arbitration.

“If the Government was really concerned about this issue, they should have brought this bill earlier, so that we could have had plenty of time to go through the select committee process to scrutinise the bill properly,” Lee said.

Lee said she was concerned by the situation that had emerged in Canada, where Facebook had responded to a similar rule by preventing its users from viewing or sharing news content on Facebook and Instagram.

”I don't think governments should be involved in the business of ‘the fourth estate”, she said.

“Having said that, I'm very supportive of regional news development. I'm very supportive of local democracy reporting, where often the funding hasn't actually gone.”

She would not say whether she believed that support should extend to government-funding for those activities.

“I know there are quite a lot of struggles at the moment in the media market,” she said.

“Companies need to transform in this day and age. Some media do it better than others.”