The breaking news on an otherwise uneventful Wednesday morning was that Three’s parent company Warner Bros Discovery was breaking the news. Staff had been drafted to an 11am meeting, where they were given the unholy word that Newshub’s newsroom would be shut down in June. Job losses were reported to be around 300 to 350 people.
The sudden closure was immediately lamented on social media. While the usual crowd of conspirators and nuts responded with cold-hearted glee at their foolhardy perceived ‘win’ over the mainstream media, most were sympathetic, troubled and worried. There were a lot of voices, but for my money, comedian Guy Williams, whose excellent satirical news show New Zealand Today screens on Three and streams online on ThreeNow, summed it up best.
“This has huge implications for New Zealand’s democracy; we need more sources of reporting, not less,” he wrote.
Newshub’s imminent closure sent shockwaves through the news industry, with reports, analysis and opinion pieces on Warner Bros Discovery’s decision running non-stop in print, on radio, on television and online ever since. In a particularly cruel twist of fate, Newshub’s 6pm news anchors, Samantha Hayes and Mike bulletin with the news they and their colleagues would soon be out of work.
