Fuck it, We'll Do It Live: A case for more independent media

FEATURE | ANAMATA / THE FUTURE

Written by Corey Fuimaono (he/him) | Contributing Writer

Illustrated by Vik Sazhina (she/her) | Contributing Illustrator

It’s time to roll up our sleeves and get stuck in creating our own press. It’s time for more independent media, run by people like you and me. Events over the last few weeks have convinced me that platforms are falling victim to constant pressures so easily: be it internal finances, government crackdowns, or by forces that hold executives by the money bags. We can no longer trust social media networks and global corporations that have been willing to give administrations what they want to gain favour with them, to be the true platforms of our own self-expression. These platforms have no guts to stand up for their own workers at the worst of times or for what is right for the betterment of everyone at the best of times. 

This was days after Jimmy Kimmel re-appeared on U.S. network television, his corporate overlords capitulating to public pressure and the potential/realised threats of millions cancelling Hulu and Disney+ subscriptions. You know things are getting real sketchy in the contest over free speech when the Chair of the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC), Brendan Carr, hops on a right-leaning partisan podcast and casually threatens a nationwide network for the suspension of their affiliate broadcast licences over a negative assertion made over the President they support. “We can do this the easy way or the hard way. These companies can find ways to change conduct to take action, frankly on Kimmel, or there's going to be additional work for the FCC ahead... the FCC is going to have remedies that we could look at.” 

Other than the obvious government coercion being a challenge to the First Amendment to Free Speech, my eyes were on the ABC affiliate television stations owned by Sinclair Broadcast Group and Nexstar Media Group. They had pulled Jimmy Kimmel Live from their schedules in protest over what Kimmel had said regarding Charlie Kirk’s shooter: “We had some new lows over the weekend with the MAGA gang desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them and doing everything they can to score political points from it.”. Kimmel immediately followed that up with a clip that showed, when questioned by the press about his feelings a day after the tragic shooting, President Trump saying he felt very good then pivoting to talk about the latest regarding his pet project White House Ballroom. Kimmel afterwards said “[Trump] is at the fourth stage of grief: Construction”. 

To be clear, the FCC has the power to challenge and revoke broadcast licences that affect affiliate stations directly. It’s their licences on the line. The risk to ABC is losing out on nationwide audience reach, primarily. So why look at the affiliates in particular? Well… Stories have been written before about the political leanings of Sinclair and Nexstar. Both are said to have a conservative edge to their coverage, however, Sinclair is noted to have their affiliate T.V. stations across the U.S. run ideologically charged “must-runs” segments. Wouldn’t it be so surprising if those segments were aligned towards a particular political party and/or sympathetic towards that party’s platform? Nexstar also wants to expand and buy out another T.V. station giant, Tegna, which reportedly runs 13 other ABC affiliate stations, for a whopping $6.2 billion. And who needs to approve this deal? The FCC. Make of that what you will. It’s worth noting that Kimmel’s return came not just by Disney backing down, but by Sinclair and Nexstar backing down a week after. Call me a tinfoil hat guy, but I personally believe Sinclair and Nexstar wrote themselves a guidebook on silencing dissent they’re not keen on supporting by pulling that move. More consolidation of affiliate stations, under their banners, will only make corporate boardrooms the likes of Disney’s increasingly nervous.

Before we move on from the U.S., the Corporation for Public Broadcasting recently shut down as the Trump administration biffed federal funding back in July this year, which would have seen over a billion dollars go to funding public broadcasting. That’s PBS Television and NPR stations across the entire U.S. While fundraising has reportedly been strong after a week of being officially defunded by the government, some who work for those stations said to the New York Times, that the next few weeks will tell if the trend is strong enough to withstand the deep financial pressure. Since then, some stations like Prairie Public Radio in North Dakota have struck a chord with locals supporting them financially - but others aren’t so lucky. NPR recently reported: “PBS, nationwide, have cut their staff by 15%. Penn State is closing the station it owns after the university's board rejected a plan to sell it to WHYY in Philadelphia. New Jersey PBS is slated to close next year.” This is just the United States, you might say - at least it’s different in Aotearoa/New Zealand right? Not really, in my opinion.

Here at home, threats against the press by the government isn’t a new concept. It was the early 1980s, the energy crisis which preceded the decade reflected a big hit for the country: our parents and grandparents have an idea of Carless Days, should you ask them about it. But at a relatively scarce and desolate excuse of an airport in Paraparaumu, then-Prime Minister Robert Muldoon had a fit when he, and members of his cabinet, were called out by a television reporter for hopping on a chartered Air Force flight to Auckland for the weekend. “Is it warranted?” She asked. Disgusted by the tenacity of a valid question, as a leader just trying to live his best life in tax-payer funded luxury, Muldoon hit back. “Do you [think] bringing two television cameras out here is warranted?” Nothing was uttered back. Rather than silence, dozens of perforated frames rolled past against a soundtrack of wind and the jet plane starting up. An evil smirk from the wrinkled loose testicle of a Prime Minister appears. As Muldoon boards the aircraft, he utters what would be considered one of the biggest threats to public broadcasting at the time. “I don't think you needed to have two television cameras out here, did you? Later on in the year you'll only have one”. 

Rather than stand up to such a threat, executives at Television New Zealand (TVNZ) made the call to up sticks, consolidating most, if not all, of the organisation into Auckland; leaving Avalon Studios in Lower Hutt to no longer transmit TV1. Fast forward, and we had another National government end the news-orientated commercial-free television channel TVNZ 7, after it scrapped TVNZ’s public charter installed under Aunty Helen’s Labour Government of the early noughts. I distinctly remember John Key’s government blaming Labour for not funding TVNZ 7 into the future, when it had the option to continue funding themselves. I personally still believe that was a cop-out. More recently, our public radio broadcaster had its budget cut by $18 million in the last government budget for the next four years ($4.6mil a year). The results of the organisation saving money in response to this was: ending its youth-orientated platform and podcast series TAHI, removing a host position for the weekend programme Culture 101, and getting rid of the Sunday Sampler and Simon Morris’ At The Movies programme.

It was only a year ago when The Pantograph Punch went into hiatus as funding pressures hit hard for their editors and writers. Their words to this day still hold true: “The work we do [is] taken for granted because the creative ecosystem isn’t genuinely valued by the hungry capitalist-colonial machine… What we bring to the community… isn’t protected by the current systems. There is a demand and need for more platforms like The Pantograph Punch, yet the ecology is not actually built to allow this.” I still agree mostly with what’s said here. The times now, I believe, should warrant a rethink. A rethink towards specifically that last part there. The only way we can let the steady decline of the fourth estate continue is if we continue to think that the ecology isn’t there: we must build it ourselves. To do that we must fund it ourselves. The number of zines I’ve come across over the last couple years shows me this can be done on a micro-level, and we only need to start off small. If bits of paper doesn’t sound like you, you could start up a blog on Ghost, Medium, or Substack. Most blogging sites usually have a free tier to get you started. Or perhaps, if your mum isn’t using that Kodak Easyshare or Sony Handycam camera from 15 years ago, you could take up photojournalism or make a YouTube channel pretty easily. All of these options cost relatively little monetarily - you need only spend time to get creating. So go and do that now, you bloody beauty you.