This week the country's biggest arts funding agency published a plan to boost coverage of culture which has been dwindling in our media. Music reviews and writing used to be eagerly-read and hotly-contested in our papers and magazines. We ask a former entertainment editor where that went and what could bring it back.

This week the country's biggest arts funding agency published a plan to boost coverage of culture which has been dwindling in our media.

Music reviews and writing used to be eagerly read and hotly contested in our papers and magazines. We ask a former entertainment editor where that went and what could bring it back.

Back in July, arts funding outfit Creative New Zealand inadvertently picked a pretty intense week to release a new survey called Visibility Matters - which showed media coverage of culture was dwindling.

One day earlier the media published a flood of stories about the crimes of multi-millionaire arts patron Sir James Wallace - described by many in the media as a "worst kept secret" while his name was suppressed.

But the Visibility Matters survey's finding that arts and culture got just half of the space in our media that is devoted to sport these days - that was not news to people in the arts.

That report was prompted in part by longtime arts writer Mark Amery, now the co-host of RNZ's Culture 101, every Sunday at 1pm here on RNZ National.

At the time he told Mediawatch one of the problems was that arts events with a PR push behind them did get coverage in advance - but critical analysis of them was harder to find.

"Too much preview, not enough review" in other words.

Creative New Zealand followed up Visibility Matters with another report this week - New Mirrors - all about ways to strengthen arts and culture media in Aotearoa New Zealand.

It suggests setting up a new funding pool devoted specifically to culture reporting and establishing an agency modelled on the Science Media Centre, aimed at helping news outlets facilitate and organise their arts coverage.

Chris Schulz, a former entertainment editor for The New Zealand Herald and Stuff, is relieved that others are jumping on the bandwagon he boarded some months ago.

He's written several times about the dearth of music journalism in New Zealand on his Substack blog Boiler Room, noting that several major music festivals received no mainstream media coverage, and musicians are struggling to get more than a single interview after releasing albums.

That marks a stark change from when he started in journalism…

Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details