Less news to come out of Motueka?

June 15th, 2013
[by David Armstrong]

One of the two local weekly community newspapers, the Motueka-Golden Bay News, is closing down and merging its operations with the Richmond-Waimea Leader for a new Tasman district-wide weekly.

This will leave just The Guardian and Motueka Online to report mainly on the local area. It will be interesting to see what proportion of the merged paper, the Tasman Leader, will be devoted to Motueka.

"It is with sadness we mark the end of the Motueka-Golden Bay News, which reached its 50th year of publication this year," said Craig Dennis, general manager of the Nelson Mail and Leader group (and a friend of mine from back at the Christchurch Press in the 1990s), in a public statement.

"However the need to rationalise costs, recognise the distinct growth of our district and position the Tasman Leader as the best community news and advertising vehicle is behind the change.

"We remain committed to community news and the communities we represent and look forward to bringing you the best from the best region in New Zealand."

It has not yet been announced when the new merged paper will begin circulation and whether or not the Motueka office will remain open and all of its staff retained.

Motueka has been blessed by the reportage of Alastair Paulin and Helen Murdoch over recent years. They have covered local politics and community affairs with accuracy and dedication, so we can but hope that they will continue their work here for at least part of their working week.

I have often been asked how the three local community news outlets compete or co-operate for stories. I can seriously say that Alastair, Helen, the Guardian's Murray Owen and myself get on very well and compete only in that we try to ensure our articles are as well written and interesting as possible.

We are often attending the same events and so are happy to 'swap notes' (metaphorically speaking) on our views and intentions, while not letting on too much if we have a special angle that we think they may have missed.

Because of the Guardian's deadline on Tuesday mornings, they are unable to report fully on monthly community board meetings, and if the new Tasman Leader does not cover them also it will leave this website as the only news outlet reporting these in person.

The closure/merger of the Motueka-Golden Bay News is part of a series of changes taking place at the paper's owner, Fairfax Group, which as with many news businesses is facing increasing pressure from falling advertising and more competing online news sources.

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