Monday, April 17, 2023

The incredible disapppearing journalists

Over the years I’ve worked with hundreds of journalists. To all intents and purposes, most have vanished from sight.

Some have gone quietly into retirement, but many are still active – just not in journalism. People whose bylines were once familiar to newspaper readers have effectively gone underground, along with the sub-editors who massaged their copy into shape. They have mostly been absorbed into the nebulous world of public relations, or comms as it’s now known in the trade.

The digital revolution inflicted huge damage on the print media, precipitating a hollowing out of newsrooms and an exodus of skill and experience into the comms business. According to the Sapere report commissioned by the Ministry of Culture and Heritage, the number of journalists fell by 52 per cent between 2000 and 2018.

Some of these refugees were snapped up by the private sector, where there has been a proliferation of PR and government relations (for which read lobbying) consultancies, the latter of which have recently come under justified critical scrutiny. But I would guess that an even greater number migrated to the public sector.

As the mainstream media shrank, so the government comms racket expanded almost exponentially. In the vernacular, it was known as going over to the dark side.

The trend has become even more pronounced under Labour. RNZ reported this morning that the number of comms staff in the core public service has risen 50 percent since Labour took office in 2017. Figures provided to RNZ show that 532 comms people were employed in the year to June 2022, up 7.5 percent on the previous year.

It’s odds-on that people employed in comms work across the public and private sectors now far outnumber those in journalism. Even 14 years ago the then Commissioner of Police remarked to me, with what I thought was a hint of smugness, that he employed more trained journalists than most newspapers did. I had no reason to doubt him.

I’m sure this wasn’t unique to the police. It has become de rigueur for every organisation with a public profile, whether it’s the local district council, a charitable organisation, a sports body or a government department, to have a comms manager and a team – often a large team – of comms advisers.

Health Minister Ayesha Verrall recently revealed in response to Opposition questioning that Te Whatu Ora, the national health agency, employs 173 comms people and a further 26 contractors working in the same field. This would be outrageous at the best of times, but looks even worse when the health system is crumbling and desperately short of actual health professionals. It suggests seriously skewed priorities.

I’m reliably informed, meanwhile, that Wellington City Council employs 60 comms people across all its departments. If the effectiveness of an organisation’s comms staff can be gauged by its public image, you’d have to conclude that the comms people at both Te Whatu Ora and Wellington City Council are doing a spectacularly poor job.

Paradoxically, the expansion of comms departments hasn’t facilitated better communication with the public. Quite the reverse: many journalists will tell you that generally speaking, the ease of obtaining important information from government organisations tends to diminish as more comms people are employed.

When I started out in journalism in the late 60s, I could probably have counted on the fingers of my hands the number of fulltime PR people in Wellington. But what was previously a select and rather mysterious little club – mysterious because I could never quite figure out exactly what they did – now forms a powerful and steadily expanding tier in both the corporate and public sectors.

As an aside, not all my former colleagues made the transition into comms. A few re-invented themselves as academics and in the process, ended up a very long way from the world of plain English that journalism valued. I was amused recently to see that one former reporter of my acquaintance had become a university lecturer in marketing and acquired a PhD. According to his professional profile, his published research focuses on “market boundaries from a social practice perspective, approached from an abductive hermeneutic methodology and philosophical basis”. I would have loved to see him try to get that gibberish past a cranky, cardigan-wearing sub-editor.

But it’s comms, in all its varied permutations, that provided most of my old workmates with an escape route from a shrinking (some would say dying) industry. People who did useful and often admirable work as journalists now market themselves as content strategy advisers or communications and engagement leads, whatever that may mean.

I don’t entirely blame them. They have to make a buck, and they’re almost certainly earning a lot more than they did in their former career, though I bet they’re not having as much fun as they did when they worked in newsrooms.

I lament this enormous loss of skill and experience. You can see the results not only in the massive expansion of the comms sector, but more sadly in the greatly diminished quality of journalism.

The growth in the number of political press secretaries and media advisers, who wield more power than is healthy, is a striking manifestation of the trend.

Political press secretaries at the top level are more than mere functionaries. They are key influencers, practitioners of the dark arts: the equivalent of scheming courtiers in a royal palace. They often control the narrative when by rights it should be determined by the people who employ them.

I’ve seen it suggested recently that one reason Christopher Luxon isn’t getting more traction is that his media minders dictate the message when he would probably come across as more genuine and more spontaneous if he ignored their advice and trusted his own instincts. 

Back at the media coalface, a shrinking but honourable minority of working journalists remain committed to telling important stories and upholding traditional values of fairness and impartiality. They should be regarded as heroes. Others still do their best to ensure a wide range of opinions are published in letters to the editor columns.

Unfortunately such people are now outnumbered by university-educated social justice activists posing as journalists who consider it their mission to correct the thinking of their ignorant, bigoted or misguided readers. This would be marginally more tolerable if they were competent writers, but many are not. They write as if English is their second language. 

In the comms war, meanwhile, the balance of power has long since shifted from those trying to get information to those controlling it. They are unseen influencers whose role is invisible to everyone other than the people they work with. This has serious implications for democracy and transparency.

It must be acknowledged that there’s a legitimate and even vital role for comms people. Cyclone Gabrielle was a useful reminder of the importance of making accurate, up-to-date information available to the public.

But there are comms and there are comms. There’s a crucial difference between straight, unembroidered information – factual information that’s openly disclosed and which people can use – and political or corporate spin that’s used to make organisations look good, to promote vested interests or to bury potentially embarrassing issues of public importance. The type of comms, in other words, that seeks to exert influence on public affairs without disclosing who’s pulling the strings and why.

To finish, a couple of crucial questions: is the quality of government better as a result of all these unseen “strategic” comms advisers in government departments and agencies? Most people would almost certainly say no. Do the public get more and better quality information? Again, probably not. The thing to remember is that the comms business is ultimately about control – and nowhere more so than in the political realm.

 

 

24 comments:

  1. It's not just "comms" people that the Health Authority is wasting money on !!

    Here in Palmerston North, I was astonished to discover a few years ago, that our major hospital here has more admin staff than healthcare staff !!!

    Apparently this is the same across New Zealand.

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  2. Comms Job Description. Putting lipstick on a Pig

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  3. Mid Central DHB had a ratio of 2.5 admin to 1 frontline worker. They should be ashamed of themselves.

    They also closed all the theatres at the same time for renovations and had to use Crest hospital's.

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    1. I think it was Heinlein’s “Starship Troopers” (incidentally now hated by the woke for its messaging on society) that made a very good point about administration. One premise was that the growth in “admin” lead to armies failing - too many people in bureaucracy, and not enough fighting, with ratios of 3:1 or some such. In his story, Heinlein had the “mobile infantry”, where everyone fought. The cooks, the cleaners, the generals.

      Arguments both ways, but I found the book, and it’s other commentaries interesting and thought provoking.

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  4. "mysterious because I could never quite figure out exactly what they did"
    I suspect that most of us are still not too sure what they get up to.

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  5. Nothing like a bit of nostalgia. It got me back thinking about the public sector I'd worked in and how, now you mention it, it was bereft of those that practiced the dark arts. In the SSC in the early 80s we had a publicity department no more than a couple of people. Later as Dep Government Printer a then $100m turnover organisation, I don't recall any staff performing that role, despite the fact we were selling the place.

    It wasn't until I ended up in Manfed that PR became a central part of what we did, and we had one person that carried that load.

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  6. Yes Karl, it must be depressing to see your former profession and your vocation debased like this. Our household no longer watches TV "news" nor subscribes to New Zealand newspapers. Instead we support by donations a number of alternatives like the Taxpayers Union or the Platform. New Zealand is in a dark place; the weakness of our institutions and government have been brutally exposed, and the outlook is grim.

    Trevor Hughes


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  7. You call them comms - I'd call them brain-washers.

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  8. To Doug and Gary - as a healthcare admin person I can assure you that we spend most of our time booking appointments and surgery dates then cancelling them because of unavailability of medical staff, theatres etc. We overbook so that management can show the ministry that the patients waiting more than 365 days have a date, but then they are cancelled, some several times. This is soul-destroying for the admin staff and we feel absolutely gutted for the patients but can't do a thing about it. If we had more medical resources for a start then we wouldn't need so many admin staff. Also, the staff turnover is huge, the number of applicants for jobs is small, the systems used are cumbersome and don't talk to each other......the list is endless. As a 15 year employee I loved my job until about four years ago, Covid contributed to my discontent but now it's mainly frustration with the whole set-up. Resignation is tempting but not practical in my case unfortunately. I'm not alone in that.

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  9. I have to laugh, I am pretty sure that the colleague you mention is someone I know somewhat. Let's just say does the letter M ring a bell?

    From what I know he got into University Work as he found that Internal Comms wasnt for him and thus was not left with too many options. And to be a lecturer these days requires a PHD hence the PHD.

    I am almost hoping for ACT to get in and sack all the Comms staff. They have inserted themselves into everything and have removed all direct contact between the public and the Govt Depts they work in. They control all info in and out and make sure that there are no avenues other than themselves if you want to lodge a complaint.

    And in lodging a complaint, I have twice received emails back to the effect that they either dont believe in reading emails from the public and wont be reading my email (In this case that was a FMCG household name) or that if they read my correspondence and they deem it of low importance, not to expect a reply. (Govt Dept)

    And as you say the massaging of and obfuscation of, information is out of control. Doing huge damage to public perception. They smooth over falsehoods and twist and turn and make up phrases like "We are more sophisticated than that" and "I refute the premise of the question" and on and on. No-one trusts journalists, PR people and Politicians any more because they almost never tell the truth.

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  10. According to Forbes:
    "In the PESO marketing model, four pillars — paid, earned, shared and owned media — work hand in hand. Public relations focuses on earned media, which is the purest form of media and the hardest to attain because you can’t pay for it — you have to earn it"

    Is this why there's 532 'comms' in the public sector?

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  11. You've nailed it, Karl. I'm old enough to remember when "comms" staff appeared in the provinces. The first organisation to get such a person was the district health board, immediately putting a barrier between me as health reporter and the senior managers I previously had open access to. I saw immediately that this was bad news for our readers. It grew steadily worse from then. Now the Nelson City Council has several more people in "comms" than the Nelson Mail has in journalism. The low point for me was when the police district commander insisted on having his "comms" person – a non-sworn staff member, formerly a junior part of my own team – sit in on a pre-arranged interview and not only vet my questions but answer some of them. There are many downsides to the "comms" wave. The worst? That straight answers are a thing of the past. – Bill Moore

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  12. The one word not written is propaganda because that is what PR is. Terry Brosnahan

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  13. To AEG.
    I apologise if my comments seemed aimed at you as an admin person. This was not my intention at all.
    My concern was/is that there seems to be something basically wrong in the design of a health system that generates these imbalances.
    Doug

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  14. I was in a job interview with a government department in the mid-90s. I was trying to get off the DPB.

    They were a nice bunch, the comms manager, an HR woman, and a couple of the team.

    'All right, Paul, here's a situation for you. The Holmes Show wants to the interview [the CEO]. It's a sticky issue. It's 3.30pm and Holmes is at 7. What would you advise?'

    'That [the CEO] tells the truth,' I said.

    'Are you serious?'

    I assured them I was. I said that being truthful - even if it made [the CEO] and the organisation look bad - would build trust in [the CEO] and the department.

    I didn't get the job. The comms manager actually rang me to tell me I hadn't got it. I respected him for that. He told me that he and the team liked my answer 'but, Paul, you've been out of the workforce for a few years. I need someone who is current'. Oh, well.

    - Paul Corrigan

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  15. Thanks for the memory jog, Bill Moore. It's a long time since I worked on a daily newspaper, but you've reminded me that some of the most obstructive comms people, even then, were former journalists. Perhaps they nursed serious grudges, for whatever reason, and were getting their own back.

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  16. To AEG, like Doug my comment was not directed at you but possibly you have identified where the problem is, "management" rather than "admin".

    However, the system is clearly broken when "comms", "management" and "admin" outweigh health providers by over 2 to 1 don't you agree?

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  17. Regarding PR I wonder how they would spin this if put to their comms in NP...Stuff wouldn't be interested here does not help the govt narrative...more important to spend money on language sign name changes. Went to my doc yesterday...chest and cough issues over the years getting worse...he is a good doc too...suggested a scan not just an X ray to put my mind at rest, or otherwise.
    Doing it today via Southern X. He told me he wouldn't be able to get it done at the hospital unless I was deemed critical ...we exchanged looks and he nodded, you had to be at life threat stage.
    I never smoked but my parents did...as did almost everyone in the old Taranaki Herald when I was there 73-89 ...although it was easing a lot towards the end.
    Maybe if I asked for Te Scan it would be done...cycnical me . _ Paul Peters

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  18. Thanks Doug and Gary - my message was a gut reaction, not a criticism of your comments, I guess more of an explanation of the admin situation and frustration. Imbalances are definitely there, and it's disheartening also to see empty offices where people are still'working from home' rather than being on the ground at many levels. I hope the new nationwide Te Whatu Ora works but don't really hold my breath as it looks like there are more management numbers at present, not less. Comms to the workforce are a bit of a fudge but let's see how it all goes.

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  19. Journalists themselves brought about the comms person. The culture of relentlessly questioning public officials and demanding whatever answer, the resulting career embarrassment or personal embarrassment. The culture of slam journalism, of attempting to humiliate has created a purposeful layer to block that cost. You see the excessive use of OIAs by journalists, at immense cost to these bureaucracies.

    The idea of the news of the day, the need for some story in the form of endless infotainment, for vicariously enjoying the suffering of others, attracts power hungry and disgusting people. Journalists are not held to account for the lies they tell, who is going to correct them? They certainly don't advertise their retractions as loudly as they yell their accusations.

    What should be striking is the rise of the Comms person as Politician. Ardern was a Comms type,the new Mayor of Wellington was a Comms type etc. Much of the Labour party is either dating or married to Comms types (Ardern, Allan) or they are former journalists (Coffey, Lorck). Because of the rapid fire, instant response media environment we live in, people have parasocial relationships with these politicians through their television and computer screens; therefore the political leader must be in a permanent state of 'posture', some combination of an Actor, Sophist and Rhetorician. The perception of the leader must always come first. And this will be at immense detriment to the quality of governance, given the sort of deceptive and disgusting people are inclined towards being actors and sophists. They were denied christian burial for a reason.

    It is a two way relationship too where these same journalists are employed by the state, funded in their profession both attacking and defending the state. Given the collapse of the monopoly newspapers once had over geographic areas, these papers will be run at a loss funded by some puppet master with an agenda until someone discovers a profitable way to distribute news again.

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  20. I am making my way through a book written by a retired executive editor of the Washington Post. Book is basically a memoir of his involvement in various major news stories. The Clintons don’t come out of it very well. Though he did conduct an arm’s length and professional relationship with them. The chapter that interests me is the Nixon/Watergate/Deep Throat story. Deep Throat turned out to be an FBI agent.

    I have always thought that what New Zealand really needs is a Deep Throat to come out of the political system, the justice system, the Press Gallery maybe, and put it “all out there” for everyone to see. Would there ever be a New Zealand journalist brave enough to take on the task?

    Book is “All About The Story” - Leonard Downie, Jr

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  21. Karl I understand your angst at the demise of your former profession but I for one can't see it happen fast enough.

    A strong democracy needs a strong and independent fourth estate and we, in New Zealand, have not had that for some time.

    I vividly remember the "homeless people living in cars" stories from john campbell and others. Now the situation is worse, where are the stories? Where is the outrage over the current crime stats, motel dwellers, gang growth and on and on ......

    So again Karl, I for one will be glad to see the back of them and a resurgence of honest down to earth "reporters" of truth, not creators of fantasy and expounders of opinion.

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  22. Karl, I share your sadness at the loss of capability in journalism. It seems that these days, so called journalists spend their days scanning Twitter to find something that some nobody said to create an article.

    But your broader commentary around the growth of the communications department is endemic across the public sector in Wellington. Whether it's the proliferation of communications staff, or the equally over-resourced diversity or well-being consultants, departmental/ministry head offices seem to be full of these roles that add little value yet are paid for by taxpayers dime. I recall similar growth under Helen Clark's government, so it's certainly not unique to this iteration of Labour.

    It pains me to think about how much money is wasted on these paper-pushing jobs in Wellington; how many teachers, police officers, nurses and doctors that funding could be providing and making a real difference to Kiwi. It's time the entire Wellington belt is restructured and put back to basics. Don't start me on the money being paid to consultants, or property specialists fitting out these lavish offices. This is why we can't have nice things.

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  23. I started in journalism as a young cadet reporter on a country newspaper in the early 1960s. And yes, crusty sub-editors definitely ruled the roost. I was finally made redundant from Radio NZ in the late 1980s in one of their many cost-cutting rounds. I was glad to be out, as I had become totally fed up with where journalism was heading. At the time, a large number of journalists were walking the street, and I had no desire to go back into the maelstrom, or to move to PR. Thankfully, with a significant redundancy package, I did not need to find a job immediately, and eventually wound up moving into graphic design, which was a much more pleasant environment. These days, I weep over what a once-proud profession has become.

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