Wire reporters have broken some huge fucking stories over the past century of journalism in this country, but were rarely up for the big media awards. And when they were, they were often overlooked in favour of colleagues from 'proper' publications.
They also covered a lot of basic news stories, things that the big papers and broadcasters would never get around to, due to a shortage of staff or the tyranny of distance. Wire reporters could provide useful and necessary copy on any kind of news event, no matter how big or small. For the entirety of the 20th century, wire reporters were at the scene when nobody else was, and telling stories that nobody would hear otherwise.
The slow death of the wire concept in New Zealand began when the NZ Press Association (NZPA) died in 2011. After 132 years, it was all over in a few short months, mainly because APN and Fairfax couldn't agree on some basic fundamentals behind the business, and decided they could do better with their own in-house services.
The two wire services set up by these big media companies lasted a little while, but still failed to garner much respect, even from their own executive branches. For an example of how much the corporate class at APN cared about its wire, you only have to note that when the company changed its name to NZME., nobody at the highest level had any fucking idea what the APNZ wire would be called for several weeks, until somebody just decided it would be called NZME too.
Both NZME and Fairfax's wires were eventually absorbed into their greater organisations, and don't exist as their own entities anymore (It probably didn't help that the reporters on the NZME wire just started saying they were from the Herald when they rang new contacts, so they didn't have to explain that they were actually calling from the editorial department.)
AAP's NZ Newswire (NZN) lasted a while longer, but was wrapped up with reasonably little fanfare last week. It was a shadow of what wires used to be in this country, with just a dozen staff covering things around the country, but it was still out there, supplying a large amount of copy to multiple outlets.
Now NZN is gone, and while there are legitimate questions over how much quality work it was actually producing in the past couple of years, that's 12 more decent journalists who won't be providing coverage of events throughout New Zealand, reducing the amount of overall news produced in this country. When combined with things like Fairfax's fucking idiotic idea to cut back on regional sports coverage, it means more and more events will slip through without being recorded or noticed by anybody. It all just fades away
There are still faint glimmers of the fire that once lit up the wire services, and hard-earned lessons that are being passed on. RNZ is almost turning into a defacto wire, with copy given freely to more than a dozen other outlets, including Bauer's Noted website and msn.co.nz. But the hard-working journos at NZ's public radio organisation aren't doing anything more work than they already are, and that's still the great loss of this wire.
The good folk of New Zealand's news wires will be missed, and the great and vital work they carried out will be missed even more. Wire journos saved the arses of subs desperate to fill a space and kept websites looking alive and new. Who's going to bother with things like that anymore?
- Margaret Tempest
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