By now everyone knows that Newshub, one of New Zealand’s mainstream news operations is being shut down by their parent company, Warner Brothers Discovery.
I have worked as an editor there for just over 12 years, pretty much since I arrived to New Zealand and it has been a pretty important part of my life. Saying that I am gutted by the closure is an understatement.
The Newshub newsroom has become a second (or third?) home to me. And I will miss participating in crafting the news bulletin that informed New Zealanders day after day.
It is how I got to learn, know and love this country and its people. I have been privileged to be there when historic events happened. We reported the Christchurch Mosque shooting, the Kaikoura earthquakes, the Whakaari eruption. Every election and change of government, every instance of the Olympics, Rugby World Cups, Cricket Test series, all of it. Every controversy, scandal, national achievement, weird or funny situation. Every time John Oliver referenced New Zealand on his show (usually to mock us), like the flag referendum and all its adjacent discussions. The unlikely friendship between Prime Minster Ardern and Stephen Colbert. We were there for all of it and so much more.
But everything must come to an end.
To quote the immortal Kurt Vonnegut: “So it goes”.
Twelve years ago, I was a single young dude arriving to a new country to test his luck. I found a space to work, learn and grow. I loved it. I stayed.
Now I am a middle aged dude, I have a small family and a mortgage. I can’t pick up an go somewhere else as easily as I once could. I am responsible for a little one’s well being.
It would be a lie to say I am not scared. I worry what the future will bring for us. Things are not precisely encouraging in New Zealand, or really the world as a whole right now.
So me and my workmates are back to polishing the old CV. Once again writing the self promoting rubbish we need to write to “sell ourselves” and find another job. Except the media landscape is now a hollow shell of what it once was. I feel icky about this way the world forces every worker to be a product for employers to choose from. But there is little choice from that.
I don’t know what happens next. I am lucky that we will have some time, thanks to some savings and the upcoming redundancy payment. I have a few ideas and have already applied to some jobs that are available. There is still some time until the news operation actually shuts down, so we carry on every day. But it has started to feel like a party closing down.
Everything feels very uncertain and fragile right now.
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