New Zealand's national news agency, the New Zealand Press Association (NZPA), will close its doors after 131 years Wednesday, the latest victim of media consolidation in the digital age. Editor Kevin Norquay lamented the end of an organisation that was once the voice of New Zealand journalism, dominating distribution of both domestic and world news to the country's newspapers.
But after surviving a series of cutbacks over the past 15 years, Norquay said the decision to finally close NZPA was made in April, when the Australian-owned Fairfax group decided it no longer needed the service. "When I started every desk out there would have been occupied," the 14-year NZPA veteran told AFP, gesturing to the agency's newsroom. "Now, I'd say fewer than half of them are."
The agency's demise comes on the eve of the biggest event ever staged in New Zealand, the Rugby World Cup, as well as a national election in November. "It would have been great to cover them for NZPA but it would have been extremely difficult with the resources we now have," Norquay admitted.
He said, however, that NZPA staff had showed their ability to provide top coverage on a shoestring budget during a string of disasters over the past year, including two major earthquakes in Christchurch and the Pike River mine tragedy, in which 29 men died. NZPA was founded in 1880 as the United Press Association, adopting its present name in 1942. At its peak in the latter half of the 20th Century, more than 70 New Zealand newspapers subscribed to the service and the agency had offices in London, Sydney, New York, Washington and Singapore.