7 April 2017
Dear Suzanna,
By email:
[FYI request #5491 email]
This letter responds to your Official Information Act request of 5 March 2017, in which you
requested the following information:
“The number of articles, opinions and advertisements in the NBR that were made possible because
of the financial support by Callaghan Innovation, for the last three calendar years (2014, 2015 and
2016).”
As indicated in our response dated 2 March 2017, Callaghan Innovation has a contract with
BusinessDesk, an independent business news agency that provide material for a range of media
outlets, including the NBR. The purpose of the contract is to produce innovation related stories
with the aim of increasing the breadth and depth of innovation stories in the mainstream media.
This is consistent with Callaghan Innovation’s goal of building greater awareness and
understanding of innovation.
BusinessDesk distributes those stories which are subsequently published by multiple outlets
including the NBR, NZHerald, NewstalkZB, The Listener and others. As the NBR is not the sole
recipient of that content, and they do not publish all content produced under the contract, the
number of stories the NBR take, is not recorded.
The contract with BusinessDesk is monitored through sample reports which are used for analysis
of the quality of the output, as well as the volume.
From August 2014, when the contract was put into action, to December 2016, Callaghan Innovation
received reports from BusinessDesk covering a total of 18 months. These reports captured 190
articles and broadcast items.
This information is broken down as follows:
Year
Months reported
Total items
2014
2
14
2015
9
120
2016
7
56
I trust this information answers your questions. If you would like further clarification, or have any
other questions, please feel free to contact me if you would like to discuss them further.
You have the right to request a review of this response, by the Ombudsman at
www.ombudsman.parliament.nz or by contacting 0800 802 602. Please contact
[email address] if you require any further information.
Yours sincerely
Justin Brownlie
Group Manger, Communications