Wednesday's epidemic response committee meeting invited representatives from media outlets to express their concerns to Broadcasting Minister Kris Faafoi and members of the committee.
Chief Executive of Stuff Sinead Boucher told the committee the news website reaches at least two-million New Zealanders per day, but is still at risk of having to make job cuts.
"We [Stuff] reach just as many Kiwis as Facebook does, but advertising has dried up since we moved into level 2 of lockdown."
Excluding Maori TV and Radio New Zealand, all media outlets are funded by advertising. Representatives from Stuff, TVNZ, MediaWorks and NZME all agreed that less money coming in means job cuts to journalists are inevitable.
Boucher said journalism is an essential service to a healthy democracy and to help keep the industry running. She believes the Government needs to redirect advertising from global platforms, like Google and Facebook, back to New Zealand Media.
TVNZ's chief executive Kevin Kenrick said the lack of money coming in has also delayed the entertainment and educational side of TV.
“Our popular show Casketeers will be pushed back and that has done wonderful things for Te Reo on a mainstream channel.”
Faafoi said a Government package for the media sector will be released within the next week.