Radio NZ Coverage of US Elections

While I've generally dropped Radio NZ from my news consumption, I have been listening to a little of their coverage of the US Elections - it's leading the news and taking up a lot of air time on all the media outlets. I guess it's an easy way to fill air time, as there's so much content being produced in the USA that can be tapped in to.

However, in RNZ's case, they have dispatched Corin Dann to the USA to provide coverage, and I have to wonder: why?

It doesn't look like the responsible use of resources in a time when non-publicly funded, legacy media is contracting fast in the face of tanking numbers, and it has the appearance of a junket on the public purse. That feels like being tone deaf to their audience, many of whom are in straitened circumstances.

The Machiavellian part of me also wonders if it's a last-chance reward for a faithful servant before something major happens at RNZ: you have to speculate if he's dropping off CVs as he goes. 

Listener numbers have been dropping steeply as RNZ's quality has ebbed, and public trust in legacy media continues to fall. In the private sector, some kind of attempt at an evolution to meet the audience would happen, but when the money is public, it may be that the answer will be to keep on, only more forcefully as "We Know We Are Doing The Right Thing". It feels a common public sector behaviour becasue consequences seem too separated from actions.

Given government's austerity, I wonder what the fate of RNZ funding will be, or if there is the possibility of a demise. In previous years, I would have protested that, but since they seem to have crossed the border from balance to advocacy; not so much.