Boucher bids to beat brands as focus puts trust at number one

Mar 02, 2021 at 05:26 pm by Staff


After she bravely took over ownership of Kiwi news site Stuff, Sinead Boucher is working with staff to focus on public trust, and is set to hand them a share of the business.

The former Fairfax New Zealand business - which has 900 staff, half of them journalists - was set to be shut down last year, following acquisition of Fairfax by Australia's Nine Entertainment and then the COVID-19 lockdown, earlier attempts to merge it with rival NZME. having been blocked by regulators.

In an interview with Meera Selva of Oxford University's Reuters Institute last week, Boucher tells of the new freedoms and responsibilities which came when Stuff - which is the country's biggest domestic digital brand - became Kiwi-owned for the first time.

And the excitement as she bought the company for just NZ$1: "I didn't even tell my family - my parents and bothers and sisters - I was thinking of doing this until it had been done."

From the frustrations of the profitable major print and digital publisher being wound up, just because Nine didn't want it, Boucher says it has been "a fantastic experience", with the business on track for record digital subscriptions, and newspaper sales benefitting from a 'COVID bump', together with a huge outpouring of staff and public support.

Recent months have seen the publisher working to redefine its metrics of success putting 'growth of public trust' first. It miffed her that while Stuff was in New Zealand's 20 most trusted companies, the top brands were an airline, a car maker, and a chocolatier. "Why can't we aspire to be number one," she asks, noting that Stuff has commissioned advice on ways of measuring trust and looking at internal measures.

Big projects have also included Our Truth, an editorial examination of what the business has published over the course of its history, culminating in a public apology for stereotypes adopted and some of the work published.

Facebook's livestreaming of the March 2019 terror attack - in which 50 people were not only shot and killed, but the episode broadcast on social media - has has wrought more change. After a "deeply unsatisfactory" response from Facebook, Stuff stopped advertising on the platform as an experiment, but has not resumed, seven months later.

Boucher says there was "zero effect" on traffic, its initial decision to "quietly stop posting" to Facebook still an experiment, but winning it huge support. While the estimated five or ten per cent real terms audience loss "hasn't been disastrous", she's concerned about the reach of journalism to Pacific Island and Māori audiences.

Facebook's offer on the subject - at regional, rather than global level - has been to suggest paid targeting, "not what we want," she says. On the other hand, voluntary donations - Stuff doesn't have a paywall - have been strong, and toxic comments have dried up. "There have been so many positives to coming off Facebook," Boucher says.

The donations scheme was rolled out during New Zealand's six-week lockdown, bringing big spikes - mostly with readers signing for recurring contributions - again for Our Truth and an investigation into sexual harassment.

She says she would welcome an initiative similar to Australia's mandatory negotiating code, "being able to address massive disparity and bargaining power", but thinks it unlikely.

"What I want to be able to do is grow and sustain journalism, which is very hard under current environment, when we have all these rules, and these platforms operate with none of them."

Looking forward, Boucher says she was "not comfortable" with being the single owner of this "huge business", and plans to give some of it to staff. "I don't think of that as a good thing, and we are in the thick of exploring staff ownership, working though the final stages."

Not without complications over tax and corporate affairs: "All these were outside my experience as journalist and chief executive," she says. Already a much stronger code of editorial ethics has been launched and published, "so I can't direct the editor".

With the country's small market, funding is "no one size fits all model" - and Nine having sold off some of the complementary businesses such as internet service and energy retailing - "you need a patchwork of things", although a high degree of trust "opens up other things we might be able to do".

Nor is she complacent about penetration: "NZ is really well served by media organisations," she says, "and there is only so much money to go around. We have to ask what role we serve, and how we stay relevant, how do we build in way consistent with trust."

Trust is central to most of these issues, together with the goal of being New Zealand's 'most trusted' brand, and it isn't all about content. Sometimes, she says, quoting a local saying, "News tastes like chicken, no matter how much we slave."

Peter Coleman

Sections: Newsmedia industry

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