Is Radio NZ undermining commercial media?

Lloyd Burr reports:

As a public service broadcaster, it has the funds and resources to cover stories that commercially-driven media can’t always do. Investigations. Council meetings. Court proceedings. Ultra-local stories. Niche stories. Stories that are in the public interest but don’t necessarily need to be justified based on revenue.

Some of its work here is a public good – especially local democracy reporting and local court reporting.

Recently though, a number of media commentators have noticed RNZ expanding into the news mediascape that’s already well-served by commercial news sites. Former NZ Herald boss Tim Murphy and former 3 News boss Mark Jennings have talked about it. So has former NZ Herald editor Gavin Ellis. The Spinoff’s Duncan Greive has spoken about it too.

The crux of it is that RNZ’s news website, which has seen an injection of funding, is chasing audience with stories that aren’t very RNZ-y and it’s coming at the expense of Stuffand NZ Herald.

A good point.

It begs the question: What is the rationale of a taxpayer-funded, non-commercial product eating into the traditional space of commercial news media? Why isn’t it spending its money on core ‘public-interest’ journalism?

The Government should focus Radio NZ more on non-commercial public good journalism. It could, for example, commission a monthly poll (no not from Curia) recognising that no private media outlet can afford to regularly poll anymore. This is actually against my personal financial interest, but would be a public good.

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