Correct, but state funding of TVNZ is not permanently guaranteed. Maori TV, as you say, has some advertising. In both cases the lack of advertising results in better programmes.

Wrong: there is TVNZ7 and to some extent Maori TV.

As a Christchurch boy who worked on its surviving daily paper in the early 1980s, then spent 24 years in the UK mostly working as a sub-editor on The Independent, the News of the World, and The Sun, and now on that well-known Melbourne tabloid but still hankering to HOLD The Times daily…I do agree. The Australian is excellent. Nothing else in Aust/NZ comes close.

I find it interesting when I do return to NZ how my non-journalist friends bemoan the lack of quality in their nearest newspaper.

Good article, thanks.

I don’t disagree with this at all. Nothing wrong with parish pump journalism which is often of high quality. We often advise clients not to be dismissive of local papers, including the suburban giveaways. Frequently these papers are more tenacious seekers of the truth and crusaders than the metropolitan press. Ignore them at your peril.

Robert:
Why not? If it’s local news, then do it!
News is that which is interesting and important to people.
I started in journalism in the era when local newspapers did that — the wedding photos, the school days, the animal shows, and so on.
People loved seeing themselves in print, and they loved seeing photos of their kids and their kids’ pets in print, too.

I look at most of the country’s newspapers every day for a job I do. In my general opinion the provincial papers provide the best editorial writing, day in, day out.
They’re readable, they try to illuminate, they explain, provide context, they come to an opinion. I don’t always agree with them, but that’s life.
I think they do an outstanding job when they tackle subjects outside their usual ‘parish’.
So, while their overseas owners gut newsrooms of reporters, centralise functions in ‘hubs’, and so on, their leader-writers seriously try to do their job.

Back to Australian ‘rags’, though. I read recently how a group of laid-off journalists from one of those papers (might have been Gympie; I liked Gympie) set up an on-line alternative. They cover their local news, right down to the school meetings, down to who has been overseas recently (our newspapers used to do that), the council meetings … very, very local.
Last year The New York Times related how a couple of down-on-their-luck hacks had bought a down-on-its-luck suburban weekly that they transformed into a community powerhouse simply by getting out and covering the district. Interestingly, the advertising followed the news coverage.
When I was working in the Far North nearly 40 years ago there were two community newspapers, in Kaitaia and Kaikohe. I was up there a few weeks ago: from memory there are now eight. All covering that which is interesting and important to their local readers.

Thanks Catalina Y. I’m delighted you agree.

I see what you mean. I went to The Arts section and read some reviews. The use of English language; intelligent critiquing, coupled with a flowing verbal rhythm certainly conveys the impression that the level of writing is more cerebral and, hence, insightful. NZ’s never had a luminary such as a Robert Hughes.