Hawke's Bay Today newsroom to halve as NZME scrambles for readers in main centres

Saturday, 8 June 2024

Regional newsroom staff to be slashed as NZME chases main centre readers.

A leaked document shows the restructure at NZME revealed by Stuff on Thursday was designed to help NZME better compete in Christchurch and Wellington.

The NZ Herald publisher plans to divert resources from its regional newsrooms and centralise their leadership.

Numbers of journalists in almost every regional newsroom would be cut by up to half under the proposal.

The recently crowned newspaper of the year could lose half its reporters as part of a proposed restructure.

The restructure at Hawke’s Bay Today comes as its owner New Zealand Media and Entertainment (NZME) looks to beef up its presence in Wellington and Christchurch where its online audience is significantly lagging behind its major rival Stuff.

A presentation circulated to NZME’s regional staff in a meeting on Thursday morning and seen by Stuff shows that in Wellington, NZME currently has just 15% of the total minutes spent on its websites vs Stuff, and just 16% in Canterbury.

But implementation of the proposal, dubbed “Project New Horizon”, would see NZME’s regional newsrooms severely scaled back in service of the main centres.

NZME’s offices in Napier house Hawke’s Bay Today. The publication would lose half its journalists under the restructure.

Hawke’s Bay Today, which was named Newspaper of the Year at the Voyager Media Awards less than two weeks before the restructure was announced, would have just half the journalists it does now were the proposal to go through.

Its total full-time equivalent staff (FTEs) would go from 12 to just six.

The Bay of Plenty newsroom, which publishes the Bay of Plenty Times and Rotorua Daily Post, would go from 14.6 FTEs to eight - a drop of 45% - while The Northern Advocate’s newsroom drops from 11.225 FTEs to eight.

The Gisborne Herald, in which NZME took a 50% share in March this year, is unchanged.

NZME’s smaller community papers are also affected by the proposal.

The Lower North Island newsroom would be cut from 14.5 FTEs to seven, though two of the lost roles are due to the Whanganui Chronicle being re-categorised as a regional rather than community publication.

The Waikato/Bay of Plenty newsroom would drop by 2.8 FTEs to seven.

There also appear to be no visual journalists, responsible for still photos and videos, in the regions under the new structure, outside of the Gisborne Herald.

Do you know more? Contact emily.brookes@stuff.co.nz

Currently, two posts listed as “multimedia visual journalists” exist at Hawke’s Bay Today, while there is one at the Northern Advocate and one in the Lower North Island newsroom. Two freelance visual journalists work at the Bay of Plenty Times.

In Christchurch, NZME has just 15% of the total minutes spend on its websites versus Stuff.

None of these roles are listed in the new set up.

Under Project New Horizons, NZME would create a central editorial leadership hub, creating a North Island regional editor, chief regional content leader and five regional content leader roles.

A source currently working in a regional newsroom said during Thursday morning’s meeting, NZME chief content officer Murray Kirkness told regional staff those positions could be based anywhere.

Several sources told Stuff their understanding was NZME wanted to focus on print in the regions and digital in the main centres.

One source, who spoke to Stuff on the condition of anonymity, said this strategy represented a “U-turn” for NZME.

“It’s quite frankly bizarre,” they said. “The whole push has been digital-first… The stories that end up in the paper are sometimes days old.”

In the presentation, NZME says the restructure would allow “community teams to put greater focus on fit-for-purpose print content and put local readers first”.

But the source said “their line is they want to pull resources out of regions and funnel them into … Wellington and Christchurch”.

This is supported elsewhere in the document, which says NZME would “redistribute resources in areas such as Wellington, Christchurch, business and politics, where we believe there is significant potential for digital audience growth”.

NZME publishes the NZ Herald but does not have daily newspapers in Wellington or the South Island.

Stories produced in those newsrooms appear on the NZ Herald website.

According to that site, the Herald currently employs three Christchurch journalists.

There are eight in Wellington, plus three political reporters.

NZME has been approached for comment.