The news that few wanted to read

By Karyn Scherer

In the middle of May, Matthew Horton called a staff meeting at the headquarters of Horton Media, the family-owned company behind Auckland's newest daily newspaper, The Daily News. Rumours had been flying that the troubled paper's days might be numbered but according to staff, Mr Horton scotched such talk, assuring them he had "the youth, the intelligence and the balls" to make the venture a success.

Just a few days later, the 32-year-old son of retired media baron Michael Horton assured a Sunday newspaper he was in for the long haul. Last Friday, however, a very different young man called staff together again. This time, it was to tell them the paper was closing. To his credit, Mr Horton has paid his staff a more generous redundancy package than their contracts allowed. But many remain understandably bitter about their experience.

Some of those who turned up to collect their redundancy pay yesterday were somewhat surprised to find all traces of the Daily News' existence, including business cards and old copies of the paper, had already been removed from the Horton Media building in East Tamaki.

They claim they have been asked to surrender any information they have relating to the company, and some claim their lockers were broken into and contents removed without their knowledge. They were not impressed when they were asked to leave the building promptly once they had collected their wages.

"There's something weird going on," says one former staffer. "But none of us can quite put our finger on it." For someone who clearly adores tabloid-style journalism and everything it entails, Mr Horton is remarkably unimpressed at such suggestions. "What does that tell me other than the Daily News doesn't exist and we don't wish to have any ghosts of it linger?" he replies. "It's amazing what alcohol and depression fuel."

Such is the Horton style, which has won him some loyal friends and also a remarkable number of enemies during his five years on this side of the Tasman.

During his time as boss of Horton Media, he has upset more than a few people. General manager Philip Kotze disappeared early on. Mr Horton also fell out with news editor Lee Umbers, and eventually with editor Ruth Jackson, who is threatening to take him to court after being made redundant just a few weeks ago. Two key members of staff at Horton Media's radio station, Counties Manukau Radio, have also recently left.

Mr Horton appears perplexed at the suggestion he seems to rub some people up the wrong way. Yet he also happily confirms a gossip item that appeared in Metro magazine this month that he annoyed members of a prominent legal firm by replying to a lawyer's letter by scrawling "get f*****d" across it and faxing it back. "That was totally true," he replies.

It was in 1994 that Matthew Horton crossed the Tasman to help defend the family firm, when Brierley Investments launched its lightning raid on newspaper publisher Wilson & Horton. The family lost the battle and Michael and his two sisters eventually sold their shares in the company, and set up a new operation, Horton Media.

The company launched the Manukau Daily News, a five-day-a-week broadsheet aimed at South Auckland readers, in March last year. It was an idea Horton junior now concedes was "probably misconceived". He took over the reins from his father in April. By January this year, he had relaunched it as a tabloid-style paper called the Daily Hews, with aims of distributing Auckland-wide. According to staff, the main problem was that it had a tiny marketing budget and little organised distribution. Even at the end, only 40 or so retail outlets sold the paper. Mr Horton's main marketing ploy was to distribute free copies, in the hope it would lure subscribers. But only 2000 people signed up.

The problem, he says, is that he was delaying any major promotion until he was happy with the product, which wasn't until February or March. By then, however, the red ink was threatening to explode all over the newsprint.

He is adamant it was the right product and that it would eventually have made money. He won't say exactly how much the family trust poured into the venture, but confirms it was millions rather than hundreds of thousands. However, he insists he made the decision to pull the plug himself, in consultation with his father, on Tuesday.

"I gave myself a few days to have second thoughts, which I did, but at the end of the day I was reconciled to it. For me, at 32, do I want to spend the rest of my life building a newspaper in Auckland? Well no, frankly."

While he is looking forward to playing more golf, he insists he is not washing his hands of what is left of Horton Media: a commercial printing business, a radio station, and the Northland Times, which sells around 2500 copies. All three operations are profitable, he says.

He claims he has no "immediate plans" to return to Australia. His wife, who is Australian, "has settled in to the point where she's now more pro the place than I am," he says. "The point is, what is there to go back to? There is a business here. It is profitable, and I'm better off concentrating on that. To be honest, I'm not saying we shouldn't have another go at a daily newspaper in Auckland. But what that really requires though, is for the business to become sufficiently profitable to fund those activities."