Media 201 Week 6 Lecture- Newspapers: Surviving the Digital Environment
Newspapers were the first mass media and the press played an important role in formation of
societies with democratic representation. Thomas Carlyle attributed the notion of the press as a
Fourth Estate alongside the church, the lords and the commons to a UK parliamentary speech by
Edmund Burke in 1787. Similar to Habermas’ notion of the emergent public sphere, this ascribes to
the press a legitimate watchdog function- to keep checks on those in power by rendering political
processes transparent and hence accountable. However, as critical political economists have pointed
out, the news media’s capacity to serve civil society does not only depend on independence from
the state, but independence from media owners and commercial interests.
The feature of the NZ newspaper industry can be mapped using the Galtung/McQuail model and
value-chain sector model before going on to look at specific institutions.
Newspapers were being produced by settlers by 1840, with the first daily (Otago Daily Times) started
in 1861. But they were largely controlled by political economic elites including individual
campaigning for office or controlled by British government interests and or subject to censorship.
Indeed governor William Hobson and colonial secretary Willoughby Shortland intervened on several
occasions to censor or restrict printing access for publications liable to foment unrest or criticise
policy on settler land rights (note this was controlling the point of production rather than the point
of distribution).
There were also very early Maori publications. This was still a colonial framework as they simply
presented British news with state suppression and censorship. The English news being presented in
Te Reo by newspaper Te Karere Maori. Early New Zealand press circulation was still limited by
demographic, literacy and geography. The nearly colonial-settler press had very limited watchdog
values, was affordable only by elites in both producers and audience was limited in scale and highly
regionalised a feature that is still evident today.
As the potential for circulation increased so did the need for advertising to meet the costs. Industrial
technology increased the efficiency and speed of production and distribution. Later in the 19 th
century the expanding scope and scale of newspaper production necessitated a shift towards wider
circulation and paid staff. This also pushed newspaper proprietorship beyond personal political
aspirations toward more general appeal to a public readership. These publications arguably began to
serve the public as consumers if not citizens. Nevertheless, this engendered an aditorial ethos more
sensitive to the interests of the wider needs of civil society. However, provincial newspapers
, remained private enterprises and were still partisan in their political allegiance, reflecting the
interests of their owners.
The Otago Daily Times was set up by Julius Vogel in 1861 and he used the paper to support his
election to the general assembly in 1863, although this eventually led to tensions between the
paper’s commercial needs and Vogel’s personal ambitions and he was ultimately forced to step
down.
The press in Christchurch was also set up in 1861 in policial oppositions of Lyttleton Times. The
Press’ backing syndicate again supported the editor’s political aspirations but the commercial needs
of the paper began to diverge from individual political ambitions and he too eventually left.
In Auckland, the New Zealander began in 1863. Edited by Williamson and Wilson, the former was
sympathetic to Maori issues but the latter left to found the NZ Herald. In 1876, the Herald/Southern
Cross merger created the Wilson and Horton partnership.
With the development of the telegraph in 1862, the NZ General Telegraph Agency was established
as a nascent news agency in 1865. Although costs were high, the gradual expansion of telegraph
news helped provide the basis for international news exchange and arguably a shift away from
private partisan politics towards a more civic orientation of news service. Re-establishments of the
trans-tasman cable in 1876 saw the establishment of the United Press Ass which later became the
NZPA. The principle of news sharing was important because it linked together regional news
productions and extended then into national and international network. Nevertheless, the lack of
infrastructure including transport and communications in some more remote areas- meant that
regional/local news remained the predominant model for print news.
From the turn of the 20th century, most communities had at least one local paper and often multiple
in urban centres. Wayne Hope notes that the news media exhibited a shift away from early colonial
identity toward a nascent national NZ identity. But this was also accompanied by tensions in class
interests early welfare reforms came hand in hand with as expansion of newspaper representation
and non-elite perspectives. For example, in 1906, the trade union-aligned Weekly Herald was set up
to counter the conservative Press. However, if the range of political views in the media was
becoming more pluralistic, political economic interests still played a key role in media ownership and
editorial perspective. For example, the Dominion was set up by pro conservatives to oppose the
Liberal government of Dick Seddon, although it later claimed party-political editorial neutrality.
The ownership structure was still characterised by family business connections. By the 1960s
increasingly technological pressures and infrastructure costs drove mergers and agglomerations. In
1964, Rupert Murdoch took a stake in the Dominion as an early step in the formation of
Independent Newspaper Ltd.
By the 1980s the structural conditions for the contemporary duopoly has evolved, The Rogernomics
reforms of the 1980s and 90s saw restrictions on foreign media ownership removed and in 1998,
Wilson and Horton was bought out by Irish O’Reilly group. This later merged with Australian APN
News and Media. In 2016, NZ Media and Entertainment became a separate firm. Meanwhile INL sold
all its NZ press holdings to Australian Fairfax group in 2003. There was therefore a shift away from
the regional family business toward corporate shareholding of the NZ newspapers. This helped free
journalism from parochial pressures but brought new commercial ones.
The shape of NZ newspapers have evolved over time. The family business model gave way to
commercial corporate model especially after the 1980s deregulation. Concerns about parochial
Newspapers were the first mass media and the press played an important role in formation of
societies with democratic representation. Thomas Carlyle attributed the notion of the press as a
Fourth Estate alongside the church, the lords and the commons to a UK parliamentary speech by
Edmund Burke in 1787. Similar to Habermas’ notion of the emergent public sphere, this ascribes to
the press a legitimate watchdog function- to keep checks on those in power by rendering political
processes transparent and hence accountable. However, as critical political economists have pointed
out, the news media’s capacity to serve civil society does not only depend on independence from
the state, but independence from media owners and commercial interests.
The feature of the NZ newspaper industry can be mapped using the Galtung/McQuail model and
value-chain sector model before going on to look at specific institutions.
Newspapers were being produced by settlers by 1840, with the first daily (Otago Daily Times) started
in 1861. But they were largely controlled by political economic elites including individual
campaigning for office or controlled by British government interests and or subject to censorship.
Indeed governor William Hobson and colonial secretary Willoughby Shortland intervened on several
occasions to censor or restrict printing access for publications liable to foment unrest or criticise
policy on settler land rights (note this was controlling the point of production rather than the point
of distribution).
There were also very early Maori publications. This was still a colonial framework as they simply
presented British news with state suppression and censorship. The English news being presented in
Te Reo by newspaper Te Karere Maori. Early New Zealand press circulation was still limited by
demographic, literacy and geography. The nearly colonial-settler press had very limited watchdog
values, was affordable only by elites in both producers and audience was limited in scale and highly
regionalised a feature that is still evident today.
As the potential for circulation increased so did the need for advertising to meet the costs. Industrial
technology increased the efficiency and speed of production and distribution. Later in the 19 th
century the expanding scope and scale of newspaper production necessitated a shift towards wider
circulation and paid staff. This also pushed newspaper proprietorship beyond personal political
aspirations toward more general appeal to a public readership. These publications arguably began to
serve the public as consumers if not citizens. Nevertheless, this engendered an aditorial ethos more
sensitive to the interests of the wider needs of civil society. However, provincial newspapers
, remained private enterprises and were still partisan in their political allegiance, reflecting the
interests of their owners.
The Otago Daily Times was set up by Julius Vogel in 1861 and he used the paper to support his
election to the general assembly in 1863, although this eventually led to tensions between the
paper’s commercial needs and Vogel’s personal ambitions and he was ultimately forced to step
down.
The press in Christchurch was also set up in 1861 in policial oppositions of Lyttleton Times. The
Press’ backing syndicate again supported the editor’s political aspirations but the commercial needs
of the paper began to diverge from individual political ambitions and he too eventually left.
In Auckland, the New Zealander began in 1863. Edited by Williamson and Wilson, the former was
sympathetic to Maori issues but the latter left to found the NZ Herald. In 1876, the Herald/Southern
Cross merger created the Wilson and Horton partnership.
With the development of the telegraph in 1862, the NZ General Telegraph Agency was established
as a nascent news agency in 1865. Although costs were high, the gradual expansion of telegraph
news helped provide the basis for international news exchange and arguably a shift away from
private partisan politics towards a more civic orientation of news service. Re-establishments of the
trans-tasman cable in 1876 saw the establishment of the United Press Ass which later became the
NZPA. The principle of news sharing was important because it linked together regional news
productions and extended then into national and international network. Nevertheless, the lack of
infrastructure including transport and communications in some more remote areas- meant that
regional/local news remained the predominant model for print news.
From the turn of the 20th century, most communities had at least one local paper and often multiple
in urban centres. Wayne Hope notes that the news media exhibited a shift away from early colonial
identity toward a nascent national NZ identity. But this was also accompanied by tensions in class
interests early welfare reforms came hand in hand with as expansion of newspaper representation
and non-elite perspectives. For example, in 1906, the trade union-aligned Weekly Herald was set up
to counter the conservative Press. However, if the range of political views in the media was
becoming more pluralistic, political economic interests still played a key role in media ownership and
editorial perspective. For example, the Dominion was set up by pro conservatives to oppose the
Liberal government of Dick Seddon, although it later claimed party-political editorial neutrality.
The ownership structure was still characterised by family business connections. By the 1960s
increasingly technological pressures and infrastructure costs drove mergers and agglomerations. In
1964, Rupert Murdoch took a stake in the Dominion as an early step in the formation of
Independent Newspaper Ltd.
By the 1980s the structural conditions for the contemporary duopoly has evolved, The Rogernomics
reforms of the 1980s and 90s saw restrictions on foreign media ownership removed and in 1998,
Wilson and Horton was bought out by Irish O’Reilly group. This later merged with Australian APN
News and Media. In 2016, NZ Media and Entertainment became a separate firm. Meanwhile INL sold
all its NZ press holdings to Australian Fairfax group in 2003. There was therefore a shift away from
the regional family business toward corporate shareholding of the NZ newspapers. This helped free
journalism from parochial pressures but brought new commercial ones.
The shape of NZ newspapers have evolved over time. The family business model gave way to
commercial corporate model especially after the 1980s deregulation. Concerns about parochial
