James (Jim) Grenon & Sinead Boucher's Worlds Collide
How New Zealand's Media Landscape Is Frequently Clouded With Corporate Interests
Stuff Promotes Brooke Van Velden
Yesterday, I came across an incredulous article by Stuff’s Kelly Dennett.
It was a piece basically promoting David Seymour’s confidante and political ally, ACT’s #2, Brooke Van Velden. I admit I read the whole piece, incredulous at its claims.
Quoting Auckland Ōrākei Chairperson, and CHPNZ Executive Director Scott Milne to start, Dennett pushes on readers that Van Velden is “very intelligent” and ‘empathetic’.
Dennett does not stop there. She accepts Van Velden’s office’s emailed list of achievements and repeats them mechanically in the article.
The other person Dennett interviews for her ‘hard hitting’ piece is Damian Grant, a convicted 18 time theft, conspiracy to & fraudster, regular Stuff columnist, who opines that he believes people “respect” Van Velden.
There is more titillating analysis:
Brooke is close to her mum, who used to run a car yard. She is in a closely guarded private relationship.
Dennett bats away criticism of Brooke’s significant diminishing of workers’ rights by saying businesses “largely patted [Van Velden] on the back.”
This is the same Van Velden who says NZ put too high a value on human life during Covid, and when asked about the potential deaths of Kiwi workers from dangerous materials, proved her priority was “employers” and “the economy” over Kiwi workers dying.
Like Seymour, Van Velden is also an unabashed liar - from misrepresenting environmental statements without apology to gaslighting around her anti-worker policies (some of her work includes repealing fair pay agreements, proposing bare minimum wage increases, implementing restricted ability to strike, bringing back 90 day trials, refusing to meet with union representatives etc.)
Dennett doesn’t highlight this.
She also fails to mention that Ōrākei councillor Scott Milne has a direct interest in medicine legislation - touting the Coalition government’s repeal of the Therapeutics Products Act last year - a law which would have safeguarded Kiwis against misleading and false health product claims e.g. on sunscreen.
That repeal was called “a big loss for Kiwis” by Consumer NZ.
Here he is on his Association’s website with Coalition Government Ministers for Health.
I looked Stuff’s Dennett up and as I suspected, she is the same writer who tried to diminish the Greens’ Julie Ann Genter last month. Kelly Dennett and Anna Whyte had headlined an article repeating Jordan William’s claim that Genter used a “raising voice” with Taxpayers’ Union staff.
Incredulously once again, that headline was front and centre of The Post (Stuff) recently.
Sinead Boucher’s Business In Play
This all brings me to Sinead Boucher, part of the right wing lobby / pressure group Vision for Wellington, and Stuff’s CEO.
A week ago, RNZ reported Boucher had split her one shareholding in Stuff Digital into a million shares.
Boucher had also split the Stuff business into two divisions late last year: Digital (stuff.co.nz, Neighbourly etc.) and Masthead (The Press, The Post, The Waikato Times, Nelson Mail etc)
Something is afoot and a few days later, NZME revealed that it had approached Stuff late last year to buy their masthead business. Stuff’s masthead papers have good name recognition in the South Island, and NZME hoped to capitalise on that for its property label, One Roof.
New Zealand Permanent Resident Jim Grenon Enters The Picture
Those talks stalled after long term Kiwi PR James (Jim) Grenon made his takeover bid this month.
A move that the Free Speech Union (guided by figures such as Jordan Williams, Chris Trotter, Ani O’Brien etc.) took credit for.
Interestingly, Rupert Murdoch’s paper over the weekend reports that Grenon, who started alt site The Centrist (anti-vax, anti-trans, anti-co-governance, climate skepticism etc) and retained it under sole control until 2023, had tried to buy Stuff for $1 back in 2020 as well. NZME too.
Only Boucher won. (The Australian seller, Nine, didn’t even bother responding to Grenon).
Now it looks like Boucher is still looking for an out. Yesterday, papers revealed that Stuff is also in talks with TradeMe for part of her business.
Stuff and NZME remain head to head in website visit rankings (approximately 2 million unique hits a month), while One Roof beat Trade Me Property on unique visits in February.
Trade Me is of course owned by private equity firm, Apax, based in London. Last year there were rumours that Apax considered publicly listing TradeMe and Rupert Murdoch had also expressed interest in acquiring the company.
Murdoch’s papers also reported over the weekend that while Grenon and his band of investors would not be impressed with having to fork out serious money for Stuff, it might consider salvaging Stuff on the cheap.
When Boucher bought Stuff in 2020, she spoke of her love for newsrooms, and it is my view that journalism is a genuine skillset that ought to be driven by a deep desire for truth and the skill to relay it competently.
It would certainly have been nice to see that type of journalism play out in her papers.
Grenon’s Activist Bent
Meanwhile, Grenon has no time for such pretence.
In response to E tū’s Michael Wood asking if Grenon will respect NZME’s editorial independence if his takeover succeeds next month, Grenon fired back with “6 questions”.
They include this one of six (yes there are many in this one question) -
How much autonomy do you believe journalists should have? Can they write anything they want? Where is the line, and who gets to say if they have crossed it? Who decided during the government blitz to promote 3Waters, for example, and to suppress analysis to the extent that the Taxpayers Union used it as an opportunity to increase their subscriber base, quite possibly at the expense of the Herald, by touring the country explaining 3Waters.
But given Taxpayers Union affiliated Free Speech Union took credit for Grenon’s NZME takeover bid, and The Centrist frequently publishes Atlas Network, Taxpayers Union links, who is working with who?
Grenon is expected to succeed / What this means for Kiwis
Media reports Grenon is near or above the 50% threshold to take over NZME next month.
The wealthy invesetors and private equity firms have united.
Newsroom’s Tim Murphy showed the top 20 investors in NZME pre-Grenon - a veritable list of corporate money:
But the main players are the Kiwis, Canadians, Americans and Australians on the face of it.
It’s a tangled web the media landscape weaves - but it’s also abundantly apparent it’s a close knit enterprise of rich and powerful right wing interests that guide many of its steps.
NZME’s reach is extensive and dominant here in Aotearoa NZ - approximately 3.5 million people across its divisions.
That influence is substantive and many social media platforms such as Meta/Facebook and Reddit only use headlines as the talking point - which will extend its reach further.
Outside of publications such as NZ Geographic, Newsroom, Spinoff and RNZ, we are few and far between on public interest journalism.
We don’t see the calibre and the likes of Nicky Hager either. Instead we get Stuff journalists like Atlas Network ex-New Zealand Initiative’s Luke Malpass or puff pieces on Brooke Van Velden.
Public interest journalism is amiss. Investigative journalism is skin deep.
And for that, the impacts for all Kiwis is profound and remiss.
Cartoon
These puff pieces are not only in obviously right of centre media - and they make me so sad. We need a backlash against NZME and Stuff of Tesla-like proportions, too many people of my age still subscribe because they always have. I was so cheerful when I cancelled ‘The Post’ a couple of years back, and the $1000/annum can help a lot of substackers!
I hoped Sinead Boucher would be good for Stuff, but if anything they have got worse. I support several local media platforms, in addition to several Substacker's, but I'm still happy I chose not to create a free account with Stuff or NZ Herald, nevermind subscribe.