Two years ago, NZ had 1,439 journalism jobs. How about now?

Bad news: numbers are down – and will get worse following this week's RNZ catastrophe. But it’s probably not as bad as you think.

The sob stories came fast. “I had to cut my team from 17 to 6 in December,” read one email. Another reported 500 applications had arrived for a single editorial assistant position. I lost count of the number of media email addresses that worked two years ago but now bounced back, and the many editors told me some variation of, “It’s just me here now”.

If you’re going to attempt to contact the editor for every newsroom, newspaper, magazine, media company, online publisher, radio station and newsletter writer in New Zealand to find a firm number of how many journalism jobs we have left, you’re going to hear some sad, sorry stories. “That is an unenviable task,” one commiserated.

You’re also going to get some dire predictions thrown at you. “No doubt the results will be sobering,” one respondent told me during a mission that required contacting more than 100 organisations and has taken up a large chunk of the past three weeks. One grimly suggested: “The total could be down to 600-800 – an extinction event threshold.”

Are the nation’s journalists truly disappearing that fast? Should we worry about who will hold politicians and other powerful figures to account, and tell us what’s going on in the world around us? 

When The Spinoff last attempted this task at the beginning of 2024, the landscape kept shifting under us. Shortly after we arrived at the already very low figure of 1,674 – down from the 3,381 recorded in the 2018 census – Newshub announced mass layoffs, then TVNZ closed Sunday and Fair Go. 

That took the number of journalism jobs in New Zealand, as of March, 2024, down to 1,439. That figure has often been cited as some kind of benchmark, a watershed, a low we may never come back from. Recently, every major newsroom began new rounds of cuts, RNZ announced nearly 60 jobs need to go (close to 60% of its workforce are journalists so reporters will no doubt be amongst those who face the chop), and TVNZ staff went on strike over pay. 

We decided to count again. 

Since our last effort, the news about the news has not been good. The world’s biggest tech companies still soak up most of the digital advertising revenue. The work of newsrooms has been swallowed up and used to churn out AI summaries. Australia passed its News Bargaining Incentive, a bill redirecting a percentage of advertising profits from social media giants back to news organisations, but little progress has been made on our own Fair Digital News Bargaining Bill. There is little to cheer.

Any attempt to navigate this landscape, to accurately tally the number of remaining journalism jobs in New Zealand, requires carefully researching the vast array of mergers, acquisitions, layoffs and closures that have happened since our last count, because there have been plenty. 

Whakaata Māori cut 27 roles at the end of 2024, and axed its daily news bulletin, Te Ao Māori News. In 2025, NZME axed 38 roles, and Stuff closed 15 community newspapers. The Gisborne Herald was purchased by NZME, and The Wairarapa Times Age by Stuff. North & South and Metro magazines are both on indefinite hiatus.

There are more pressing matters. In the past few months, Stuff has started two restructures, of its digital newsroom and at its mastheads, threatening 20 journalism positions. Fresh cost-saving initiatives are underway at NZME, with cuts planned in multiple divisions. On Monday, RNZ’s plans to cut 10% of its workforce – around 25-30 roles – were doubled over an $11.8 million financial catastrophe. Because many of those cuts are yet to be realised, they are not included in today’s tally.

Tense, turbulent, fraught and on edge is one way to describe today’s media industry. A paper by the think tank Koi Tū Centre at the end of 2025 puts it another way. “We have no systematic mapping of where our news deserts lie, but it would be folly to think they do not exist,” warns Dr Gavin Ellis in his paper News deserts: Local journalism at risk. “Other countries have carried out such mapping and the results are deeply disturbing.”

So how bad is it? To figure out how many journalists are left in 2026, we attempted to make contact with everyone who delivered us a figure last time, either through pleading emails, LinkedIn notes, Facebook Messenger chats, or the occasional phone call or text message. Despite a lengthy election cycle stressing everyone out, they all obliged, along with messages that went one of two ways: either, “This task sucks,” or, “It’s going to be so bad”.

Those responses were added to an Excel spreadsheet that ran to more than 100 columns, each coloured red as numbers were confirmed. As per our last tally, editors were asked to count anyone who helped create journalism, as a full-time equivalent (FTE) figure. Part-time positions were fine; freelancers and contractors were not included. Any Substack or newsletter writer working full-time on their publication have been included. (Ten publications that employ 18 positions not contacted for our 2024 figures; these have been included this time around.)

So, without further ado, The Spinoff’s best guess at the number of FTE paid journalism roles in New Zealand as of November, 2026, is … 1,346. That’s 93 jobs that have disappeared since March, 2024, a decline of 6% – or 60% since 2018. It’s not a complete wipeout, but as the following bar graph shows, it’s definitely heading in that direction.

“Wow,” said Greg Treadwell when I called him to tell him the very bad but not quite terrible news. Auckland University of Technology’s head of journalism lamented a journalism industry that is “extremely worrying” and said: “It’s riddled with problems. This trend is a race to the bottom. It has wider implications … I think things have to change.”

Aside from all the stressed-out and out-of-work journalists reading this piece, it’s likely the Auckland University of Technology’s head of journalism would care more about the figure we came to than most. I’d called Treadwell because he has dozens of journalists graduating from his courses every year. 

He does care. Around 1,300 journalists here is the equivalent of one for every 4000 residents, Treadwell says. Australia has one for every 2,000, and the UK has one for every 1,100. “Even if we were to raise the game somehow to be the equivalent of Australia, we would need to double the number of journalists in New Zealand,” he says.

His students know this. Treadwell says they’re all aware their chosen industry is shrinking, that there aren’t a lot of jobs, that predictions aren’t good. “We don't pretend it's any other way. Why would we?” he says. Yet he remains in awe of his students. “There's still plenty to be said for becoming a journalist, for taking those instincts you have and developing them into something that is powerfully on the side of the public,” he says.

When I called him, Treadwell was marking his latest batch of assignments from his students. He was delighted by the results, including one from a student who submitted an analysis about the resurgence of film culture thanks to the review site Letterboxd. “There's certainly a core group every year who are doing it because they can't imagine it not being done,” he says. 

Treadwell regularly receives text messages from his students when they’re out on assignments. Despite the layoffs, the shrinking industry and today’s grim tally reveal, he says they remain committed and enthusiastic about the impact journalism can have. “If they've had a really good day on a story, it’s just all caps: ‘I LOVE JOURNALISM’.” he says.