Media Matters: problematic programmatics & The Spinoff vs Scout

In this instalment of Media Matters, NBR Radio’s Jason Walls chats with Campbell Gibson and Nick Grant about the inner workings of New Zealand’s media industrial complex.

First up, Mr Gibson talks about how New Zealand’s four largest news media outlets (Fairfax Media, MediaWorks, NZME and TVNZ) have entered a joint venture with a programmatic advertising exchange service.

In a nutshell, “programmatic simply refers to the automation of the buying and placement of advertising and, most importantly, the enhancement of business communication to consumers through digital channels.”

Granted, this offers great efficiencies but, Mr Gibson notes, programmatic is also almost certain to be problematic from the perspective of some now surplus-to-requirements employees of the aforementioned companies.

Fruitless search for Scout stats
Segueing from that significant and “transformative” team-up to one that’s not so much, Mr Grant takes the opportunity to talk about how Scout – the gossip website joint venture between Rachel Glucina and MediaWorks – is doing three-and-a-half weeks after launch.

Unfortunately, hard metrics are difficult to come by. NBR has approached MediaWorks for comment about the site’s traffic but the company declined to provide any figures.

Also rebuffed was a query about what’s understood to be further staff resignations from Scout since news editor Francis Cook resigned in the first week:

I resigned from Scout yesterday. It's just not for me. But I wish them the best, and good luck to them. Crazy week. Hello Auckland

— Francis Cook (@FranPaulKennedy) September 17, 2015

Mr Grant notes, however, that while there were 13 staff listed on the site’s ‘Who we are’ page at launch, there are only eight listed now.

He also notes that, on the plus side, the site has significantly increased the number of stories it posts each day. On the downside, however, most of these are about international celebrities and could be found on any number of similar sites. Sadly, Scout is failing to deliver in the area in which it should be excelling: juicy and exclusive local gossip.

Indeed, despite Ms Glucina insisting at launch that the site was independent, the vast majority of the New Zealand content continues to be thinly veiled promotional material for MediaWorks’ shows and “stars.”

A case in point is a piece about how Hilary Barry flew out of the country this week to conduct a clandestine interview with Oprah Winfrey (it remains to be seen how Ms Barry will feel about this being revealed by Scout, given her previous pointed dig at the site via Twitter).

Another such promo piece appeared to have backfired this week.

Last week an item titled “EXCLUSIVE: Inside Julie Christie's mansion” was posted on Scout, in what appeared – to Mr Grant’s eyes in any case – to be an effort to provide a proof of concept to encourage participation in a planned regular feature called “Celebrity Mansions.”

This video piece attracted the attention of Duncan Greive, editor of culture website The Spinoff, which Mr Grant has waxed approvingly about before.

Mr Greive wrote a piece for his site questioning various aspects of Scout’s piece, which in turn prompted a similar article by NZ Herald’s Matt Nippert.

Within hours a Press Council complaint had been laid about Mr Greive’s article:

Just got my first Press Council complaint! Finally!

— Duncan Greive (@duncangreive) October 7, 2015

Not only that but the video that started the furore in the first place had been removed from the Scout site (although it does live on in the ether of the internet thanks to Google cache). 

As previously noted, The Spinoff recently broadened its coverage beyond just television to include sport, books, politics, media and society.

Mr Grant is particularly taken with a couple of the current contributions from political editor Toby Manhire, which run the gamut from the hilarious (“John Key at the UN – Watch the Full Speech, or Read the 15-Second Version”) to the actively illuminating (20 Perspectives on The Trans-Pacific Partnership deal): 

I'm a wonk, but still I'm confused. This is a seriously useful summary. Thanks, Toby! https://t.co/zDZv3BMUBQ

— Matt Nippert (@MattNippert) October 6, 2015

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