RNZ tried to get away without paying writers a red cent for their work
When Radio New Zealand recently announced its short story competition for the Nine To Noon show, writers from all over the country flocked to their computers to create or revise a story for submission. This isn’t surprising: there are limited avenues to get one’s work into the public eye and RNZ is valued in the writing community for the opportunities it offers to local writers.
But the detail showed that the only prize RNZ was offering was use of the winning stories, while claiming worldwide digital rights in perpetuity, for no remuneration. In other words, yes, they would produce the stories for radio and publish them on their website (which does indeed give writers some exposure), but they can play (or print) these stories without having to compensate the writers as copyright law would expect. Meanwhile, ironically, those who voice and produce the recording for RNZ will all get paid.
To those on the outside, this may seem like a fair payoff, yet with writers' average incomes remaining below the poverty line at $15,800 pa ( with a 2021 Horizon study showing this has been static for the last eight years), this content grab suggested that our state broadcaster has no respect for the creative output of writers or their need to generate an income, despite writers being entitled to ‘Fair Reward’ under the Human Rights Act, Article 27. It’s like a musician being offered the chance to play all night in a restaurant for free, solely for the exposure, with a recording made that can then be played time and time again without any additional compensation.
To the credit of our local writers and the organisations that support them, RNZ received a flurry of letters and emails questioning this content grab, including from WeCreate (an alliance of Aotearoa’s creative industries) and the NZ Society of Authors Te Puni Kaituhi O Aotearoa (PEN) Inc. This collective action saw RNZ rethink its position and revise its prize to include the statement that "RNZ will purchase the rights to the five winning stories.” Good news! We’re grateful that they acted to remedy this. But why conceive this compensation-free ‘competition’ in the first place?
It’s vexing that this collective action was needed to ensure writers are paid. It’s a continuing struggle to exact fair reward for writers, artists and musicians. No-one would suggest their plumber or drycleaner work for exposure alone – and it raises a bigger question of how we value our storytellers.
It feels as if we live in an alternative universe to every other producer in the country who rightly expects that if they do the mahi they’ll be paid. We currently have a copyright review that has seen some in MBIE claim that writers don’t need compensation, that we do it for love. We’ve also seen the government ignore the clause about writer’s compensation from the Marrakesh Treaty update. And we’re still fighting to have NZ digital books and school library collections added into the Public Lending Right in another review. While libraries champion a seismic shift to digital lending, there is no compensation for writers.
Despite a lot being written in glossy government brochures about how writing and reading impacts positively on the nation’s wellbeing and literacy, here at the coalface we’d like to see our state-run institutions walk the talk and support us in telling local stories that help build this desired sense of nationhood and wellbeing — and that support includes paying writers fairly.
There is so much more RNZ and NZ on Air could do to actively support creatives (as per their charters), especially for the literary sector, which has never enjoyed on-air quotas of the kind that essentially lifted up the Aotearoa New Zealand music industry. For instance, the 16 precious review slots in Speaking Volumes on Nine to Noon should surely champion local work, rather than international blockbusters, for which reviews abound. If these organisations truly do support local content and creatives, it’s time to see them stepping up.
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Postscript by ReadingRoom literary editor Steve Braunias: My own inquiries to RNZ about their short story competition involved correspondence with the state broadcaster's likeable PR trout, John Barr. I asked him whether RNZ was paying so much as a red cent: "Is there a sum, at all? Does the winner, and the four runners-up, receive money in return for their work?"
He said he would have a word with someone - most likely Clare Sziranyi, executive producer for Nine to Noon, who dealt with Mandy Hager's lobbying for RNZ to pay the winning authors. Barr eventually replied, "I can confirm that RNZ will be paying all five winning authors for their stories, in the same way, and at the same rates, that it pays all authors whose work is broadcast on RNZ."
I asked what that rate was, and he said he would have a word with someone. He eventually replied, "RNZ is offering a prize package that includes $350 for each of five writers."
That's good money! Newsroom pays $200 for its weekly short story. Huzzah to RNZ!
One matter, though, remains. Mandy Hager asks in her story, "Why conceive this compensation-free ‘competition’ in the first place?" The answer seems to be that RNZ thought it was okay to not offer money to "new and unpublished writers". John Barr emailed, "I understand there has been an immediate and very positive response to the Nine to Noon competition - the team had originally envisaged it appealing more to new and unpublished writers, but there has been a great response from more experienced writers as well." He later added, "To be clear this is not the Sargeson writing prize - it is an opportunity for new or emerging writers."
Well, no. It's an opportunity for writers of whatever standing. The competition is open to anyone 16 years and older. Stories will be anonymised for judging by Harry Ricketts and Tina Makereti. No stories which have previously been published can be entered. The word length is 2000 words. Entries close on October 1.
