Experienced business journalist Rebecca Stevenson joins interest.co.nz from today, July 11.
Among other things Stevenson will be covering issues related to key industries where dominant entities have significant market power, where there may be regulatory capture, a lack of competition, and the impact of all this on consumers.
She'll also be providing analysis and opinion on a wide range of economic, financial and consumer matters.
Additionally Stevenson is looking forward to mining interest.co.nz's deep well of data.
An award winning senior business journalist and former business editor, Stevenson has previously worked for The Spinoff, Stuff and BusinessDesk.
Stevenson also does a fortnightly slot on RNZ's Nine to Noon programme discussing topical business issues. The latest one is here.
She is based in Auckland.
12 Comments
Excellent to hear and welcome. Interest.co is premier in good journalism. And while us common taters cause Mr Chaston to shake his head, sometimes there is a wee gem there too.
Glad to hear of your interest in dominant industries. A core issue in New Zealand. The population is not hyped about it, should be, and the civil service has no clue.
Personally I have a rightish view and advocate free markets. But free markets are also an oxymoron. As soon as the market is unleashed the dominant player seeks to control it - shut down the free bit. So 'free' also needs to be 'supervised' with a big stick. Or else it won't be free.
I am very uninterested in the Commerce Commission and it's monitoring approach to supermarkets. And 'code of conduct'. Really ? Quite absurdly useless.
Better they bust the chains up. Say maximum of 50 outlets to each group. Then let them 'freely" decide who to break up and what segments to pursue.
The openings then would be magnificent. Suppliers who currently are shut out.
Go well.
I love listening to some of Rebecca's reports on RNZ, great addition to the team! Will you still be doing some pieces on RNZ? I recommend people listen to the latest one about Chinese influencers - to be able to comment publicly on certain areas that require expert knowledge in China, you have to have education in that area and social media will be responsible for monitoring it. Probably what we should have in the West, just look at the idiotic stuff that is put on Facebook. Yes, they also aren't allowed to question the leadership, but we could apply the former rule and ignore the latter to adopt an approach of responsible free speech.
The accepted western narrative - growth could happen forever, capitalism and democracy are the only way, this is the end of history - is being shown up as a falsehood now. It is ironic that two serial liars were elected to attempt the prolongation of a serial lie; that tells us we are near the end-game.
The real problem was always energy/entropy/overshoot, and I smiled to hear Morning Report this a.m. running an 'EU is in trouble this NH winter' clip. The Limits to Growth rubber is hitting the road now - Sri Lanka is Syria is Somalia is Ukraine; Systems and feedback-loops apply. How NZ negotiates the coming decade - what we triage, what we build - is an urgently-needed debate.
What is needed for that wider debate to be factually based, is clear expression of the truth(s), in a way that the average punter can grasp. There is a lot of residual incorrectness still endemic in socially-held assumptions ('at a certain price point, there will always be more' being a classic example) and logic tells us there will always be more folk with a vested interest in continuance, that there are lookers-ahead. If Rebecca can help define the next narrative, even if it is by applying the blowtorch to existing-mantra peddlers, all power to her.
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