The vast majority of tributes to the Listener hearken back to its glory days, with little reflection on the magazine as it was at its end.
I wrote Listener columns and features for half its life; I have known personally all the editors except the first (mythical) three. From 1978 to 2014 I wrote its fortnightly economics column. Ironically, my end was as abrupt as the entire magazine’s six years later; I got one day’s notice. And, as is the latter case, it was never clear why.
Some years earlier, the Business Roundtable had lobbied the media outlets of New Zealand to stop using me and some others who disagreed with them. The Listener was staunch; not all editors were – or so their journalists told me. It is possible that the Listener changed its mind, but in fact the editor said she would commission feature articles from me, although she never did.
I was sort of glad not to be too associated with the Listener’s economics features at the time. Economists would stop me on the street and abuse me over their poor quality. The articles certainly made some peculiar mistakes akin to confusing rugby with soccer. I assured the critics that I was in no way involved.
t was not just economics features. I have not the same expertise, but I have enough scientific training to distinguish between an evidence-based conclusion and one based upon optimistic opinion. Despite using ‘might’ and ‘possibly’ the articles could well mislead the uninformed reader. Magazine covers were even less restrained. In one case the headline was so misleading – the article itself was very professional by one of our best health journalists – that it led to a political fallout; perhaps some may have died as a result.
The shift from sober public policy analysis to health issues may explain my sacking. The Listener no longer saw itself at the centre of public debate. It targeted a different market. As its website tells us, ‘Bauer Media leads the opinions of millions of New Zealand women every month with the country’s most influential content. From fashion and beauty to home and lifestyle, Bauer brands shape audience opinions in the categories that count.’
This is a different vision from that of the Listener I began with, which was trying to lead the public debate. I remember the frustration when one got onto a story, but with the publication lag (in effect for me about two weeks), the story might broke the day before publication and you looked as though you were a follower. More often you were in front.
That was not the way of the recent Listener. When the TPP negotiations were coming to a head, I wrote seven columns for Pundit in about three months with the aim of preparing the public for the range of complex implications. At last, the Listener chipped in with a rather ordinary editorial. The economics was not wrong but it was thin, well-illustrated by an inability to respond to criticism, despite some obvious flaws in the critique.
But even in health, an area where the magazine claimed to be focused, it could fail. It is not my expertise either, but apparently for at least a decade (after SARS) there had been concerns about a virulent virus with major disruptive impacts. The Ministry of Health prepared for it – perhaps, though, not expecting it to be quite so potent. I do not recall any early warning from our august health-focused magazine, nor was it at the front as the Covid-19 story broke.
As I commented in an earlier column (coincidentally published on the day the magazine folded), it lacked boots on the ground in Wellington – its sole journalist being the entertaining parliamentary correspondent.
The disconnect from public life was reinforced by the move to Auckland in the 1990s and the steady winding down of the Wellington office, following a change of ownership. Auckland is a better base for fashion, beauty, home and lifestyle (and for business, hardly a Listener ladies’ interest; the Herald is surely our premier business newspaper).
Other changes were going on too. The Listener announced it was cutting back on book reviews. (The response was NZ Books, just shafted by Creative NZ.) Today it seems primarily concerned with very short reviews (often of foreign books) and profiles of (sometimes New Zealand) authors. One is left with a very uneasy picture of the opinions of ‘millions’ of New Zealand women.
Apparently the focus on this new market did not work. There was a sluggish reduction in circulation (one assumes a million-odd women swapped copies) and advertising dribbled away.
It is foolish to attribute the Bauer withdrawal to the lockdown. Businesses are not run by flighty men and women who change their minds from week to week. The withdrawal would have been planned; it is probably coincidental that the first intimations of the closure were on the first of April, a few days into the lockdown.
Could The Listener be revived? If one means in its current form, it has been converging towards an upmarket Women’s Weekly and perhaps there might be enough advertising if the two merged. But what about a return to the glory days? Then the magazine was privileged by having a monopoly on the weekly publication of TV and radio programs. When the monopoly was eliminated – the Rogernomes had other ways of getting what they wanted – circulation steadily declined to about an eighth of the peak. (The TV Guide’s circulation is almost double the Listener’s.) Meanwhile all print advertising has plummeted.
The monopoly profits were used to cross-subsidise public debate. As profits diminished so did the magazine’s intellectual effort, although some editors struggled. It would be a tremendous boon to public intellectual life, and thus to the nation, to have a funder for an independent publication. I doubt that it is high on the agenda of anyone with the money.
Perhaps the future will be totally dominated by web publication, with short turnarounds rather than reflection.. I like to think my regular contribution to Pundit is to Listener-on-Line.