Mediawatch's weekly catch-up with Lately. Jeremy Rose talks to Karyn Hay about the NZ Herald's Meghan Markle mania; death, dying and the news; the Spinoff joins the membership club; and more.
Meghan Markle 50+ - GG 5
Over a one month period the New Zealand Herald ran 63 stories about Meghan Markle on its website vs just five stories that mentioned the governor general Dame Patsy Reddy - and two of those were photo captions.
It's rare for the Herald website not to have a Meghan Markle story on its home page. Over a 48 hour period this week they ran three stories:
Photo: Google: screenshot
The handful of stories mentioning governor general Dame Patsy Reddy included one listing her gifts to baby Neve (an alphabet set and a jump suit), one saying she would be attending the launch of the te reo edition of Anne Frank's Diary and another noting her attendance at the D Day ceremony in Europe. And two stories that included a photo of someone with Dame Patsy.
Herald editor Murray Kirkness told the podcast The Detail that between 20 and 30 percent of its content was behind the paywall.
"A lot of the material that people will pay for is not necessarily material that will reach the masses," Kirkness said. "Of course we've got all sorts of data available to us as does every modern news room now. We're quite careful, and again it's a cliche, we're quite careful to be data informed and not data driven. Otherwise you end up down the rabbit hole of essentially social media you only tell people what they want to know."
But it's plainly clicks that's driving the Herald's Meghan Markle mania. It's fodder for the masses with in-depth original reporting and analysis reserved for those willing to pay.
The Spinoff's Sam Brooks wrote a piece last year titled: The obsession with Meghan Markle explained. His conclusion, in a nutshell, was that its the fairy tale narrative of a commoner marrying a prince that has us transfixed. And his conclusion... there's far, far more important things we should be talking about.
Spinoff joins the membership club
Photo: Spinoff
The Spinoff will be hoping that its membership drive announced this week will allow it to tackle some of those more important issues.
Media companies asking readers to become members isn't an entirely new idea - the Guardian has successfully managed to become profitable off the back of its scheme.
And closer to home Consumer Magazine has been funded by its membership for decades. (Members also get to elect its board.) But membership models have been the exception in New Zealand where advertising has, until recently, paid for the bulk of the journalism being produced by the commercial media.
The Spinoff - like the Guardian - has given a commitment that its stories will remain free to the public.
Spinoff managing editor Duncan Grieve told RNZ's Jess Mulligan the membership model was growing internationally - particularly with newer start-ups.
"It's really hard out here in the media and there were things that had been on our to-do list - that we thought we might be able to find a commercial model for, that we had sort of been probing for for years, and at a certain point you have to realise, that model is never going to come for you. So members really allow us to have a lot more agency over our coverage."
And Duncan Grieve said a climate change/science reporter would be one of the first hires if enough readers sign up to cover the salary.
Supporters can choose how much they give but those pledging $8 a month or $80 a year will receive a copy of the Spinoff's fifth anniversary book - due out in November.
The Spinoff is far from alone when it comes for asking for donations from its readers. Donations are made through the PressPatron site which also has as members: Newsroom, E-Tangata, Scoop, Farmers Weekly, Newsie and Crux - to name just a few local news outlets.
Death, dying and what makes the news
Stuff writer Joe Bennett recently wrote an entertaining column where he pondered what it was about unusual deaths that make them newsworthy and interesting.
Photo: Youtube: Screenshot
"Misfortune is the quickest way to make the news," he noted. "This week two giraffes in a Florida safari park gained international fame by being struck and killed by lightning. I suppose being struck by lightning is an occupational hazard for giraffes, just as it is for steeples, but it's still unfortunate enough to be newsworthy. And also, it has to be said, comic. Comedy is cruel."
The column is both funny and informative but nerdy types wanting hard data on the topic of death, dying and what makes the news might be more satisfied with a recent post on the blog Our World in Data.
The blog compares what people die of in the US with the number of Google searches and the number of stories published in the New York Times. A third of people die of heart attacks but just two percent of google searches and stories relate to heart attacks.
Thirty seven percent of people searching for causes of death are searching cancer which accounts for a third of deaths and about 14 percent of stories.
Violent deaths account for 3 percent of all deaths in the US but more than two thirds of the stories.
The blog's author, Hannah Ritchie, concludes that the main problem is the coverage leaves people with the impression that things are getting worse - whereas the data tells us the opposite. Fewer people are being murdered than in the past.
Bronze eagle downed by Kiwis rises again
The world wars receive a huge amount of coverage in New Zealand and it seems to be increasing year on year. But an international story with a Kiwi connection hasn't made a splash here.
A court in Uruguay has ordered to government to sell a huge bronze eagle from the German battleship The Graf Spee.
The Battle of the River Plate was the first naval battle of the second world war and a New Zealand ship - The Achilles - was played a crucial role in damaging the German battleship the Graf Spee off the coast of Uruguay. The ship limped into Montevideo where it was scuttled by its captain rather than let it fall into the hands of the allies.
Back in 2014 The Herald reported that an eye-witness account of the battle had been recently discovered. The article set the scene like this:
"To understand the significance of the battle, it is important to know that the Graf Spee embodied all that was aggressive and powerful in the German war machine. A huge warship with advanced technology and armour plated defences, it boasted 11-inch guns that could send deadly artillery shells 19 kilometres. It was operating against British merchant shipping in the south Atlantic and had already sunk nine ships."
After the ship - and the eagle - were recovered in 2006 Germany has claimed it as its own. The local Jewish community successfully asked for its swastika to be covered in cloth.
The latest development in the story has been reported in the Guardian, The Times of Israel, and Deutche Welle. But nada in the NZ media. Strange.
Links to other stories mentioned:
Time has come for an amnesty for those suffering on Manus and Nauru by Arnold Zable
