Breaking up news: processing the Newshub shut down
A personal reflection on the announcement that Newshub, my former employer, is set to close after nearly 35 years on-air.
We interrupt normal programming to bring you something a little different. I am devastated. Actually, devastated doesn’t cut it. I’m almost in mourning.
Those based in New Zealand - and indeed some overseas - will be aware of yesterday’s announcement that Warner Bros. Discovery are to close down Newshub come the end of June. Newshub - the newsroom that provides Three’s nightly news at 6, The AM Show, digital offerings and a range of other national bulletins - will cease to exist along with its newsroom.
This sucks. It’s really bad news. After its closure, this small nation will only have one, government-funded TV news operation. It’s been called (rightly, in my humble opinion) a disaster for our democracy, but it’s also a gut-punch to the 300 or so staff who are facing redundancy as this winter comes around. Many of those are friends, but they are all also members of the Newshub whānau within which I spent five proud years.
Since the bombshell exploded, I’ve read a few accounts of how plucky, wannabe journos cut their teeth at 3 News/Newshub and grew into what they do today. David Farrier over on Webworm is one such read. I too am one of those souls who learnt the dark arts of TV production at Newshub. Faced with destitution and a book I desperately wanted to write after my cycle-circumnavigation of Aotearoa, the kind folk at The AM Show opened their door and allowed this dog of many mediocre tricks in to help out. After sticking around long enough to convince Executive Producers Sarah Bristow and Reuben Bradley I wasn’t about to run off an another feral mission through the New Zealand swamplands, I was handed a full-time contract and position on the team. We told stories that prompted the government to outlaw smoking with children in cars; we took the show live around the country; we lived the Covid-19 lockdowns in realtime, alongside the nation; and I was only part-responsible for the BBQ segment that tripped the fire alarms, knocked the show off-air and promptly evacuated the entire Three building. It was five unbelievable, never-to-be-repeated years. Then I left, because I wanted go and crawl through a bunch of New Zealand swamplands.
I left behind a highly-functioning family, that survived on a shoestring, with an impeccable ability to upstage the wealthier cousins. Many of that whānau assisted with my packraft adventure. Ali Harley hooked me up with the spare room of a stranger after I successfully crossed the Kaipara Harbour, Paul Little and Wendyl Nissen let me sleep in their tiny house by the Hokianga and Lauren Hendricksen said I could have camped on her family’s land beside the Manukau Harbour if I’d asked and not stayed at the campsite nextdoor. (Lauren also let me know that the Manukau is full of sharks, just as I was halfway across it!) These generous tendencies extend beyond these few, into Newshub as a whole. It’s the ability to offer and give that makes a newsroom tick; no one has any time to spare, but everyone gives their time. That’s because a newsroom and its people care about the stories it tells.
News that Newshub is set to close is not the news anyone wanted (unless you’re the sort who thinks we on The AM Show production team used to sit there on a Sunday night, rubbing our hands with glee and discussing with Jacinda Ardern how we could get more New Zealanders to willingly inject Bill Gates’ chipsets into their arms!). Former colleagues I’ve been in touch with are still processing the announcement. No doubt, it’s still sinking in, just as it is for me. Nobody knows what a Newshub-less future really looks like.
I’ve been thinking of the entire whānau since yesterday, all of today and know I will be for the foreseeable days. There’s one quote that keeps surfacing in my mind. I think it speaks for how the Newshub crew will emerge from this in the coming days and months, but it also fits as my advice right now. It’s by Dylan Thomas and it goes:
“Do not go gentle into that good night!”
Think I'm still in the 'Really?', unbelievable stage of this. Always preferred 3News/Newshub over the TVNZ offerings. Hope something comes of the restructure/buy out talk (another $1 Stuff deal?) but seems a longshot.