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Speaker 1: Bryant Bridge, a new billionaire investor into enz into the

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Speaker 1: media company enz ME, which owns Senior Zealand Herald and

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Speaker 1: this station news Talk ZEBB, is wanting a clean out

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Speaker 1: of the company's board. Auckland based Canadian Jim Grennan has

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Speaker 1: told the company's board he wants to remove most of

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Speaker 1: the current directors. Concern is now growing amongst journalists and

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Speaker 1: staff about a possible move or a shift in editorial direction.

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Speaker 1: Michael Wood is the negotiation specialist at E two. He's

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Speaker 1: with me tonight. Hi Michael, Hi, what role are you

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Speaker 1: playing here?

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Speaker 2: Well, as you can imagine, this is a significant interest

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Speaker 2: to our members, so many of the journalists at NZME

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Speaker 2: and as the union who represents them, we're working through

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Speaker 2: this issue with them, and I think it's fair to

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Speaker 2: say that the primary primary concern here is to ensure

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Speaker 2: that journalists are able to continue doing their job with

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Speaker 2: genuine editorial independence, without fear or favor. And the concern

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Speaker 2: here is that we clearly have an individual who is

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Speaker 2: highly motivated to take control of a major media entity

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Speaker 2: in New Zealand, who is doing so quite clearly was

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Speaker 2: the intent of promulgating a particular political perspective, and there

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Speaker 2: are real concerns about what that might mean for the

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Speaker 2: editorial independence of journalists are at Dyemans.

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Speaker 1: Obviously, this has a process to go through. I mean,

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Speaker 1: you can't just overtake a board, right, so there's a

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Speaker 1: process that has to go through and there will be

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Speaker 1: other investors who will have to decide on this.

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Speaker 2: That's right. There's clearly a commercial process which is playing

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Speaker 2: out here. But again one of the concerns here is

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Speaker 2: it's pretty cloak and daggers. When this individual originally took

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Speaker 2: a stake in the company last week, the comments he

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Speaker 2: made rule about dampening down any suggestion that there was

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Speaker 2: a bigger play here. And then this week, of course

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Speaker 2: we have learned that there is in fact a bigger play,

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Speaker 2: which is a move to potentially try and take over

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Speaker 2: the board and to install other people like minded people,

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Speaker 2: and some names have been reported on in that respect.

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Speaker 2: So there's not any openness or transparency here. There has

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Speaker 2: been no commitment made by mister Grennan to those principles

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Speaker 2: of editorial independence, which is critical. I remember we're talking

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Speaker 2: about one of the major media organizations in New Zealand.

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Speaker 2: It has a huge impact on our public's discourse in

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Speaker 2: New Zealand. Held has often been thought of as New

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Speaker 2: Zealand's paper of record. And we've never had a situation

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Speaker 2: where a particular individual with a lot of money and

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Speaker 2: a lot of power and a lot of influence has said, yeah,

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Speaker 2: I want that, and I want it because I want

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Speaker 2: to get my views out there. This is new territory

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Speaker 2: for New Zealand and we don't think that would be

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Speaker 2: healthy for our media environment.

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Speaker 1: We don't know, of course, any of this yet, this

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Speaker 1: is speculation.

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Speaker 2: Well, mister Greennan has purchased a significant stake. He has

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Speaker 2: gone on record today as saying that he wants to

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Speaker 2: create a position whereby he installed the majority of board members.

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Speaker 2: He has made a claim that he has support of

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Speaker 2: thirty seven percent of shareholders for that plan. As you

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Speaker 2: said before, there's clearly a corporate process which is playing

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Speaker 2: out here, but he has now laid out a very

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Speaker 2: clear plan in this area. And the background to that

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Speaker 2: as well is that mister Greenna has engaged in the

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Speaker 2: New Zealand media environment. He has set up a publication,

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Speaker 2: a network previously called The Centrist was a specific goal

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Speaker 2: about influencing the public discourse in New Zealand. So this

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Speaker 2: doesn't seem like an individual who is going in simply

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Speaker 2: because he wants to make a commercial investment, which is

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Speaker 2: what we normally get in the media environment. Mister Green

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Speaker 2: appears to be an individual who wants to make this

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Speaker 2: investment and wants to have this influence on the board

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Speaker 2: to push a particular agenda. And that's what makes us

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Speaker 2: different and worrying to other changes in courtporate media ownership

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Speaker 2: that we've seen over the years.

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Speaker 1: Okay, Michael, I really appreciate you coming on the program.

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Speaker 1: Michael Wood, who's a negotiation specialist at the Two Union.

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Speaker 1: For more from Heather Duplessy, Allen Drive Listen Lived and

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