Australian Associated Press will close its New Zealand Newswire (NZN) on Friday April 27 because it is unable to find enough customers to sustain the operation.
AAP will continue to provide 24/7 Australian and world news – text, images and video – to the New Zealand media and the corporate sector.
NZN, with offices in Wellington, Auckland and Christchurch, was launched in September 2011 to report on breaking news events around the country following the closure of the 132-year-old news agency New Zealand Press Association a month earlier.
“This is a challenging and personally trying time for us,” said AAP editor-in-chief Tony Gillies.
“We threw all we could at this. Our staff, some of the best journalists in the business, have worked extremely hard to deliver a news service we have been so proud of these past seven years.”
Aside from local news, NZN journalists also filed coverage from overseas including numerous All Black rugby tours, prime ministerial trips, Olympic Games in London, Sochi and Rio plus the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow.
It will provide NZ coverage of the Commonwealth Games on Australia’s Gold Coast in April.
“This has been fantastic work and we will miss this,” Gillies added.
“In the end we have not been able to sustain the business. Our media customers whom we rely on for revenue continue to confront challenges in the industry.”
Having had an editorial presence in New Zealand for more than 40 years, AAP will retain two full-time journalists in the country to cover NZ events for Australian audiences.
NZN, which currently employs 14 journalists, closed its local digital news video team in September 2017.