It has been interesting to follow the debate on the media as they have wailed their heads off about how hard things are for them. They should start insisting that the Government starts taxing the hell out of outfits like Facebook and Google. Then there might be more money to go around instead of advertising funds draining out of this country and pouring into bank accounts on some tax-free haven somewhere. This money syphon has meant more and more journalists have been laid off and the products fed to us have often become worse and worse.
We cancelled our sub to the Press, after decades of being subscribers, because we increasingly were pissed off at the click bait journalism which we were being presented with each day. Especially the way they treat the Christchurch City Council. As long as Mike Yardley keeps being printed, we won’t go back. His columns are dreadful. They are just pathetic and shallow, in my opinion. I do miss a few of the journalists, who keep turning out excellent articles.
For us this wasn’t a cost-cutting exercise. We haven’t stopped paying for the media. We are now paying more into Newsroom and into The Spinoff than we paid the Press each year. These publications produce the sort of journalism which the Press used to produce. We like the rigour of their journalism. We have also subscribed to a range of overseas media.
In the Spinoff this week https://thespinoff.co.nz/business/30-04-2020/the-winners-and-losers-of-nzs-post-lockdown-economy-and-how-the-losers-might-win-too/ it was reported:
There is a real chance that the era of our biggest media companies being owned by distant and detached offshore firms is coming to an end, and a new era of more independent and public-spirited media will rise in its place.
To that I say “amen”.
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