The Bruce Jesson Foundation has supported independent Kiwi journalism for 20 years and is making one last call for projects to support before it winds up at the end of this year.

Established in 2001 in memory of the Auckland journalist and politician Bruce Jesson, has funded 16 ground-breaking journalistic projects that have made an impact on public awareness and debate in Aotearoa New Zealand since 2004.

It has also held 22 annual lectures since former Prime Minister David Lange, a personal friend of Bruce Jesson, gave the inaugural lecture in 2000, a year after Jesson’s death.

The foundation is calling for applications by 30 September for one final funding round for journalistic projects, and plans one final public lecture, but will wind up at the end of the year because of a lack of ongoing funding.

Foundation co-chairs Dr Maria Armoudian and Simon Collins say they are extremely sad that the journalism grants are ending at the same time as the impending closure of Newshub and drastic cuts at TVNZ which The Spinoff writer Madeleine Holden says have jointly slashed the already-dwindling number of Kiwi journalists by a further 15%.

“This is a very worrying time for journalism in New Zealand, which makes independent funders like the Bruce Jesson Foundation all the more precious,” Armoudian and Collins say.

“We are extremely proud of the work that the foundation has helped to make possible over the past 20 years. 

“The journalists we have supported have exposed aspects of our society and foreign policy that would not have come to light otherwise. They have sparked public debate, and in many cases have led to changes in government policy and business behaviour.

“However, unfortunately, we have never had a secure source of funding. We have had some funding from royalties from Professor Andrew Sharp’s collected writings of Bruce Jesson published in 2005, To Build A Nation, and we received a much-appreciated bequest from Wellington peace campaigner Diana Unwin, who died in 2014. But our only ongoing funding has been small donations from people attending our annual lectures and a handful of personal supporters.

“Our trustees have always been unpaid volunteers, and repeated attempts to find other sources of funding over the years have been unsuccessful.”

Bruce Jesson’s daughter Dr Linley Jesson, a Rotorua scientist and a trustee of the foundation, says the Jesson family acknowledges that many charities have a natural life cycle.

“Charities are set up to respond to a particular need, or to honour someone’s contribution, but needs change and what was a good idea originally may not be sustainable 20 years later,” she says.

“The Bruce Jesson Foundation has helped to shine a light on areas of Aotearoa New Zealand society since 2004. Now it is time for someone else to pick up the torch and help to sustain independent journalism in the future.”

The foundation seeks applications by 30 September for projects of “critical, informed, analytical and creative journalism or writing which will contribute to public debate in New Zealand on an important issue or issues”. The full criteria and a link for applications are on its website.

Contacts:

Dr Maria Armoudian

Simon Collins

Dr Linley Jesson

This year’s Bruce Jesson senior journalism grant has been awarded to Christchurch writer Byron C Clark to support an investigation into the spread of climate change disinformation online.

Clark’s book published earlier this year, Fear: New Zealand’s Hostile Underworld of Extremists, was described by the programme director of Auckland University’s Master of Conflict and Terrorism Studies, Chris Wilson, as “a crucial starting point for anyone seeking to understand the alt-right in New Zealand”.

Clark now believes that climate change “has emerged as a suitable substitute for Covid-19 in the conspiracist metanarratives”.

“Like the anti-mandate movement, it amalgamates those who believe that anthropogenic climate change is real, but that it is being used to push a putative ‘elite’ agenda; those who believe climate change is a hoax; and those who believe that the effects of climate change are the result of a deliberate conspiracy to manipulate the weather,” he says.

He plans to write a series of articles “examining the false narratives around climate change, the roots of these ideas, the local groups spreading them and relevant overseas linkages.”

Bruce Jesson Foundation co-chair Simon Collins says the foundation has agreed to give its 2023 senior journalism grant of $1000 to help pay for Clark’s living expenses while he researches and writes the series.

“This series will clearly be ‘a work of critical, informed, analytical and creative journalism or writing which will contribute to public debate in New Zealand on an important issue or issues’, as required by our criteria,” Collins said.

An investigation which exposed the failure of New Zealand’s regulation of rental housing has won this year’s Bruce Jesson Emerging Journalism Award.

Massey University journalism students Mary Argue, James Pocock and Lucy Revill found that many Wellington tenants living in clearly mouldy and sub-standard housing were unable to win cases against their landlords in the Tenancy Tribunal.

A unique award fostering critical journalism in Aotearoa New Zealand is now open for applications.

The Bruce Jesson Journalism Award, unlike any other journalism award in this country, provides up to $4000 up-front to fund the time and resources required to produce journalistic work.

The work can be in any format but must be “critical, informed, analytical and creative journalism or writing which will contribute to public debate in New Zealand on an important issue or issues”.

The award, established in 2004, has helped some of the country’s leading freelance journalists such as Nicky Hager, Rebecca Macfie and Max Rashbrooke to write books and articles on critical social issues.

Last year’s award, for the first time, went to a mainstream media organisation with a grant to Stuff’s Northland reporter Denise Piper and photographer Jason Dorday to part-fund an investigation into whether we are doing enough to save our kauri trees from kauri dieback. Bruce Jesson Foundation co-chairs Maria Armoudian and Simon Collins said the grant reflected the dramatic changes that the internet has brought to the news media, forcing even commercial media to rely increasingly on public and donated funds to keep serious public journalism alive.

The foundation, founded in memory of Auckland journalist and writer Bruce Jesson who died in 1999, also offers an award of up to $1000 for published work by a New Zealand journalism student nominated by a journalism programme leader. This work must also be “critical, informed, analytical and creative journalism or writing which will contribute to public debate in New Zealand on an important issue or issues”. The increased value of this prize is possible thanks to the support of a gift from the Grace Memorial Trust in memory of Diana Unwin.

Applications for both of this year’s awards are now open and close on Friday 2 September.

Full criteria and details on how to apply are available on the Bruce Jesson Foundation website here & here.

Dr Maria Armoudian, co-chair: 027 777 9974
Simon Collins, co-chair: 021 901 036

www.brucejesson.com

The Bruce Jesson Foundation will part-fund a Stuff investigation into saving our kauri forests – a recognition that mainstream commercial media now need support to fund important public-interest journalism.

The planned five-part series by Stuff Northland reporter Denise Piper and photographer Jason Dorday will investigate whether we are doing enough to save the taonga of our kauri trees from kauri dieback.

The Bruce Jesson Foundation, founded in honour of journalist and politician Bruce Jesson who died in 1999, has given its annual senior journalism award for 2021 to fund $3500 in travel and accommodation costs for Piper and Dorday to visit endangered kauri forests and interview key experts.

Stuff will fund the two journalists’ salaries for the time they devote to the project, the costs of their equipment and production of their stories.

Bruce Jesson Foundation co-chairs Dr Maria Armoudian and Simon Collins said the foundation’s decision to back a project proposed by fulltime employees of a major corporate for the first time reflected dramatic changes in the economics of news media since the foundation was established in 2001.

“All our previous senior awards have been to freelancers who genuinely could not have done the work without our help,” they said.

“The original idea of the award was to honour Bruce Jesson by supporting journalists like him who wanted to investigate issues that would not be funded by the mainstream media. We expected awards to go to ’fringe’ journalists like Bruce himself, not to employees of the mainstream commercial media. To date that is exactly what we have done.

“But in the past two decades, the advertising that once funded our commercial news media has been largely lost to internet-based, non-news platforms such as Trade Me, Google and Facebook.

“The media companies are seeking to negotiate with Google and Facebook to recover some of that revenue, on the basis that the online platforms derive much of their revenue from links to the media companies’ free online content. But that will only be a partial solution.

“The government is also helping by providing $55m through NZ On Air over the next three years to fund journalism projects that ‘fill a public interest service and would otherwise be at risk or not produced without this fund’s support’.

“But it would be unthinkable for any democracy to leave the funding of public interest journalism solely to the government, which may be unlikely to fund projects critical of the government, or to commercial organisations, which may be unlikely to fund projects that won’t get enough ‘clicks’ to attract advertisers.

“Although we are tiny, with only up to $4000 available each year, we at the Bruce Jesson Foundation believe that our role is to offer another option for ‘critical, informed, analytical and creative’ journalism which neither the government nor commercial organisations are willing to fund.”

Armoudian and Collins said it was particularly pleasing that the foundation’s first award to journalists employed by a mainstream media company was going to Stuff, which has recently been bought out of corporate ownership and has adopted a charter and a “mission” “to help make Aotearoa a better place through independent journalism and innovative services that connect people and communities and underpin democracy”.

Every Stuff story online now includes a request for donations because “the way journalism is funded is changing and we need your help to sustain local newsrooms”.

“However, we have now decided that our awards will be open to journalists employed in any mainstream media company as well as to freelancers and anyone else proposing “critical, informed, analytical and creative” journalism on issues of public interest which can’t be funded from other sources,” Armoudian and Collins said.

The Foundation’s annual award of up to $1500 for published work by a student journalist is not being made this year.

The Bruce Jesson Foundation acknowledges the support from a gift by the Grace Memorial Trust in memory of Diana Unwin.

A unique award fostering critical journalism in Aotearoa New Zealand is now open for applications.
 
The Bruce Jesson Journalism Award, unlike any other journalism award in this country, provides up to $4000 up-front to fund the time and resources required to produce journalistic work.
 
The work can be in any format but must be “critical, informed, analytical and creative journalism or writing which will contribute to public debate in New Zealand on an important issue or issues”.
 
The Bruce Jesson Foundation, founded in memory of Auckland journalist and writer Bruce Jesson who died in 1999, also offers an award of up to $1500 for published work by a New Zealand journalism student nominated by a journalism programme leader. This work must also be “critical, informed, analytical and creative journalism or writing which will contribute to public debate in New Zealand on an important issue or issues”. The increased value of this prize is possible thanks to the support of a gift from the Grace Memorial Trust in memory of Diana Unwin.
 
Applications for both of this year’s awards are now open and close on Friday 17 September.
 
Full criteria and details on how to apply are available here.