Michael Horton Talks On Post Foreign Ownership Era

Michael Horton (left) with the press gallery's Tony Haas and Minister for Auckland Judith Tizard photographed at the inauguration at Parliament last year of the National Press Club's affiliation with Stratos Television

Former proprietor of the New Zealand Herald Michael Horton has ruled himself out personally from any investment in what he forecasts is the imminent era in which the New Zealand print media is once again owned here.

But in an address to the National Press Club on Thursday 26th February, he pointedly did not rule out investment by his son Matthew who runs Horton Media, a major contract newspaper printer on both sides of the Tasman.

Mr Horton ascribed the transfer of the New Zealand Herald and its associated chain to foreign ownership as being directly due to meddling by the Brierley interests.

When the Brierley company disclosed their pivotal holding in his company, Mr Horton revealed how he went into high gear to find a foreign buyer who he believed had the integrity to preserve at least some of the family ethos in the New Zealand Herald.

Brierley "shafted us", Mr Horton said. They were "awful."

Foreign ownership of the New Zealand Herald chain, along with the rival Dominion chain had seen a gradual whittling down of real news and instead there had appeared entertainment in various forms, Mr Horton said.

Responding to questions about the prevalence in both newspapers of a multiplicity of personal opinion columns, some of them seeking to be humorous, he said that this was another manifestation of the reduction of editorial costs.

Hard news, he noted, was more expensive to get. Neither, he noted, did these opinion pieces require the working relationship between sub editor and reporter in order to reveal the underlying truth behind what was being stated.

He described both the Australian controlled Fairfax chain and the New Zealand Herald chain controlled by the Tony O'Reilly interests as being both irreversibly in debt, with their liabilities substantially outweighing their assets.

In the instance of Mr O'Reilly, he said that the Irish tycoon had consumed his own personal assets in his business ventures, and thus there was nothing left over with which to save his newspaper investments.

Describing the impact of new media, he noted that the annual subscription to broadband now equated to the annual subscription of the daily and Sunday New Zealand Herald.

Even so Mr Horton described Mr O'Reilly in his acquisition of the New Zealand Herald as a "benefactor" because he had delivered the chain out of the reach of the Brierley organization, whose sole interest was to make money out of it by any means.

Mr Horton was speaking at the Wellington Club - and midway through his address to the National Press Club - the building was evacuated because of a fire alarm. As Mr Horton and his audience cannoned out of the fire escape stairs onto The Terrace, they encountered Sir Selwyn Cushing, a central figure in the Brierley organisation during its play with the New Zealand Herald family ownedcompany Wilson & Horton shares.

Sir Selwyn, a fellow evacuee, told intrigued reporters that he had noted Mr Horton and without having heard him speak, suspected that the Brierley organisation's role would have been extensively covered in the talk.

Mr Horton, he averred, had done well out of the situation at the time, and this was all he would say.

Though discounting himself on grounds of age and general jadedness from any executive role in the return of New Zealand media to local ownership, Mr Horton said he would try to ease the transition, and "assist in any way I can."

Mr Horton is known to have an interest in the Auckland television station Triangle and its national Freeview counterpart Stratos.

He is viewed by the National Press Club as something of a seer because in the club's formal affiliation with the station conducted in parliament a year ago. Mr Horton, a member of the Stratos delegation had publicly chided the newspaper chains for permitting to be published exaggerated claims from financial companies.

These claims were dangerous in that a large proportion of readers would take them at face value. They would not have been allowed to see the light of day during the Wilson & Horton ownership era, he emphasized.

In recent times Mr Horton has become a campaigner for free speech, and has fought the Electoral Finance Act which he views as suppressing dissent.

Peter Isaac is the president of the National Press Club

ENDS

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