Not long ago, we dialled into a Media Leader’s Briefing held by PRINZ in Tāmaki Makaurau. (And kudos to PRINZ for making the in-person event available to the hundreds of members who are based outside of Auckland!)
Almost every New Zealander will be across the significant change, constraints and reductions in our news media in recent weeks, months and years.
And while journalists across the country are still working their butts off to deliver quality journalism every day, the impact of those drastic media changes for our democratic society remain to be seen. No doubt that will be tested in this year’s local government elections, and even more so before the next national election in 2026.
There will be more change. There will be a greater transition to digital platforms. But it takes time, and it takes significant investment. And New Zealand media outlets are making this transition while still delivering hourly and daily news content at scale. It’s a tough job.
As was pointed out in PRINZ’s media session, the New Zealand media are not competing against each other for our Kiwi audience – they’re competing against the rest of the world, including online titans such as Facebook.
As the Mitre10 kids in the sandpit put it so eloquently more than 15 years ago…”she’s a pretty big job”.
But we also have a lot going for us in New Zealand. Our media remain committed to delivering balanced, quality news coverage, with a dialled-up commitment to delivering trust and transparency.
As New Zealanders, our responsibility is to support, “like”, share and subscribe.
And as PR and strategic communications practitioners, we also have a contribution to make to the future success of our news media.
We’re ex-journos. We’ve worked in busy newsrooms. We get the ongoing balance with the need for advertising to actually fund the news. But most importantly, we have a strong sense about what makes a genuine story – and what is simply fluff.
If someone is looking to achieve their business objectives simply by getting their name in the news, we are not the right people for the job and we won’t risk our trusted media relationships for a tactic that simply doesn’t work anymore.
Using strategic communications to achieve objectives is far more about developing creative solutions, finding the gold nugget that will make an impact and achieve a step-change, exploring multiple channels, and implementing a deliberate, sustained strategy to achieve clear objectives.
That strategy might still include working with the news media, but if so, it requires a genuine angle, creative thinking and trusted relationships.
And we are absolutely the right people for that job.