AI ‘is coming for your news feed’: News leaders meet in Christchurch

Friday, 29 August 2025

The Press editor Kamala Hayman, RNZ’s Chief Executive Paul Thompson, former Head of Premium for NZ Herald Miriyana Alexander, The Spinoff’s editor at-large Toby Manhire and Conan Young (L-R) talk during ‘The State of the Nation's Media' event as part of the WORD Festival at The Piano.

Dwindling trust in the media was one focus of a public discussion in Christchurch, featuring some of New Zealand’s news leaders.

In an event organised by the WORD literary festival, Radio New Zealand’s (RNZ) chief executive Paul Thompson joined a panel at The Piano performing arts centre on Friday, alongside editor of The Press Kamala Hayman, former head of premium for the New Zealand Herald Miriyana Alexander and the broadcaster and The Spinoff’s editor-at-large Toby Manhire.

Hosted by University of Canterbury journalism lecturer Conan Young, the group dug into the public’s perceptions of news, internet algorithms and subscription news services.

News leaders gathering in Christchurch on Friday to talk about ‘The State of the Nation’s Media’ . From left, The Press editor Kamala Hayman, RNZ’s Chief Executive Paul Thompson, former Head of Premium for NZ Herald Miriyana Alexander, The Spinoff’s editor at-large Toby Manhire and Conan Young.

The past two years had been “incredibly volatile” for news organisations, Alexander said, but that would continue, she predicted, “because it's on us to innovate and keep delivering quality content”.

When taking part in meetings and seminars about the issue, Manhire said a common refrain was “‘where’s f…ing Facebook?’ They're not there, yet they're contributing to these issues a huge amount”.

New Zealand advertisers spent billions of dollars on overseas media, which impacted the country’s news organisations, The Press editor Kamala Hayman says.

Trust was “a real problem” in the modern media landscape, Hayman said, with some internet users only reading “what is fed to them” by an algorithm.

“Yes, we do make mistakes and sometimes we don't get it right, but [we need to highlight] that we are answerable to an independent body that some news organisations are not. This is the media Council or the broadcasting Standards Authority.”

Clearly marking opinion pieces as being distinct from news items was a subject newsrooms “had grappled with”, Alexander said.

It was very difficult, on social media platforms, for “people to figure out what information comes, I think, from a trusted news source,” she added.

RNZ’s chief executive Paul Thompson speaks during ‘The State of the Nation's Media' event. He told his fellow guests and the audience that it was a privilege to run the publicly funded organisation.

The future impact of artificial intelligence was impossible to predict, Hayman said.

“I suspect AI is going to be bigger than social media in terms of its impact on media consumption,” Thompson added.

“I think we won't even know that what we're consuming has AI's hand in it. It's coming for your news feed, and I think it is really challenging.”

Thompson said trust went hand in hand with “people being able to see themselves and their stories and their voices and their languages in their media”, but relating to a diverse audience was “a challenge”.

Trust in News Zealand’s news providers, the rise of AI and subscriber news were some of the topics tackled in ‘The State of the Nation’s Media’, an event programmed by WORD Christchurch. The Press editor Kamala Hayman, from left, RNZ’s Chief Executive Paul Thompson, former Head of Premium for NZ Herald Miriyana Alexander, The Spinoff’s editor at-large Toby Manhire and Conan Young.

He cited the RNZ Asia team as an example of “hiring and training and developing journalists to cover those communities”.

Hayman, who oversaw The Press’ launch of a paywalled news site in 2023 said the past year had been one of “highs and lows”.

She said April’s Trust in News report from Auckland University of Technology, which demonstrated “trust in media in general seems to be continuing to decline” was “disheartening”, but cited the positive experience of splitting The Press’ online presence from that of parent company Stuff Limited, which has “shown the value and importance of local journalism”.

Print was still relevant, Alexander said, highlighting readership figures - published this week by market research company Roy Morgan - showing a combined New Zealand Herald, The Post, The Press and The Otago Daily Times tally of 800,000 readers.

Alexander, who recently became the chair of the Herald’s editorial advisory board, said the NZ Herald’s paywall service was met with some scepticism when it launched in 2019.

“Lots of people said, ‘well we're not going to pay for that, because we're used to getting the news for free online,’ but we put a stake in the ground to say we believe quality journalism was worth paying for.”

The billions of dollars that New Zealand companies spend on overseas media advertising - to corporations like Google and Facebook- had a huge impact on accessibility of news in the country, Hayman said.

The Press initially decided to “go online and give our news away for free”, she said.

“I think we just assumed that the advertising dollar would follow. It didn't. The advertising dollar went offshore. The statistic I remember is of the $3.6 billion spent in advertising in the last year by New Zealand businesses, $2b has gone offshore.” So that's $2b that isn't being used to fund journalism in New Zealand.”

Despite congratulating his colleagues on the success of their subscriber models, Thompson said he was concerned about paid-for news shutting out the less affluent.

It was a “privilege” to run the publicly funded RNZ, he added.

The shared experience of reading, watching or listening to the same content had disappeared from our landscape, Manhire said.

“Most of us remember the days when just about everyone would watch the 6pm bulletin, just about everyone would read The Press or The Dominion [The Post] or The Herald or whatever, and there would be A) a shared experience - which I think is quite a useful democratic idea even if you didn’t necessarily agree with all the presentations of it - but B) you would see things that you weren’t going to see, that you weren’t being fed.”

The New Zealand media had to work to maintain the public’s trust, Thompson said.

“We're resilient as an industry, but as a society we shouldn't take journalism for granted. It's not a given that it will survive and that there'll be a plurality of outlets. It isn’t a given that there'll be career paths for journalists, and it isn't a given that communities will trust our work. We will have to do a lot of work to make that happen.”