Journalists Listen To Former U.S. Spy Agency NSA Contractor Edward Snowden
IN PHOTO: Journalists listen to a speech and a question posed by former U.S. spy agency NSA contractor Edward Snowden, at a media centre during Russian President Vladimir Putin's live broadcast nationwide phone-in, in Moscow April 17, 2014. Reuters/Sergei Karpukhin

New Zealand media market lags in innovation and there is a glaring absence of new digital media ventures. This finding has been highlighted by a report of the Journalism, Media and Democracy New Zealand Media ownership. The JMAD report noted that attempts to establish new alternative journalistic outlets in New Zealand have come to nought.

"New Zealand lags behind the global trend in new digital media innovation. While other similar size markets have successfully produced new media outlets, it is surprising that why New Zealand couldn't do the same", said the report's author Merja Myllylahti, according to Scoop. Nz.

Media Ownership

The report found it disturbing that traditional New Zealand media companies are increasingly owned by fund managers and bankers. The preponderance of large financial institutions is causing concern. Currently 67.7 percent of Fairfax shares, 58 per cent of APN shares, 84 percent of Sky TV shares, and 100 percent of MediaWorks shares are in the hands of financial institutions.

The study said financialised ownership is impacting newsrooms and journalistic practices as illustrated in the case of Fairfax. "In Australia, the company is continuing layoffs and journalists are now expected to edit their own copy, take photographs and moderate online commenting," noted Myllylahti.

The report also expressed concern at the mounting evidence of uncomfortable alliances among commercial and political outlets with media. The revelations in the "Dirty Politics" book confirmed how politicians and public relations practitioners have been using citizen and legacy media outlets to drive their own agendas.

Convergence Up

Highlighting the gain in 2014, the study said, convergence between New Zealand mass media and the communications sector was in full swing. Companies, such as Spark started competing head-to-head with the traditional broadcasters in the online on-demand video market. The plan of American online video subscription service Netflix to launch its services in the New Zealand market, hopefully in March 2015, was significant.

A Transparency international report on Media in New Zealand, in 2013, had also harped on the highly monopolised nature of media in New Zealand. Despite plurality of media sources, there is a lack of diversity in terms of ideology and ownership, it said. The media needed to adequately represent the entire political spectrum and reflect a full broad spectrum of social interests and groups. The report had called for giving more voice to many social and political interests in the media landscape of the country.