Stuff-Me is dead, with the merger between media companies Stuff and NZME once again denied by the courts. A different combination now looms large as a possibility, but would it work? At a certain point, you probably have to accept that they’ll never let you be together. That’s the harsh lesson for Stuff and NZME, … Read more
Media bias, collective guilt for Nazi atrocities and being on the wrong side of history: It was a pretty heavy Sunday night on Radio Sport. “Look, a lot of us want to say that we would’ve been definitely anti-Nazi during Nazi Germany, but statistics will tell you that 90% of us would’ve gone along with … Read more
The calculus of supply and demand has driven WMBAD to abandon humour and focus instead on hot takes. Here Robbie Nicol, Finnius Teppett et al pitch their wares White Man Behind A Desk has given up comedy because it is a moral evil. Some people might think we gave up because of our inability to convert … Read more
The On The Rag podcast team – Michele A’Court, Alex Casey and Leonie Hayden – look back at the lady ads that made them the women they are today.
Bringing you the best weekly reading from your friendly local website. Angela Cuming: Who the fluff is Blippi?? “If you don’t have young children there’s every chance you have never heard of Blippi, but the video superstar is a hero to millions of children the world over with his fun videos and catchy songs racking up more than … Read more
To celebrate 125 years of women’s suffrage in Aotearoa today, Jacinda Ardern edited a special commemorative edition of The NZ Herald. Alex Casey, Madeleine Chapman and Leonie Hayden reviewed her work. Alex Casey: Happy suffrage 125. Here’s a pic of me extremely excited to be writing the first sentence of this essential review. Madeleine Chapman: … Read more
What do you get when you mix a bizarre selection of celebrities who have nothing in common with each other and a Gin Wigmore track? It’s an Air New Zealand safety video! And James Mustapic is here to rank them from worst to best. Watch Friday’s episode of The Spinoff TV in full here. Thanks … Read more
Bringing you the best weekly reading from your friendly local website. Madeleine Chapman: How did a 77-year-old white guy become the go-to media voice on Māori issues? “There are plenty of uninformed takes to be heard on the radio. People call into talkback and air an opinion that isn’t shared by a single listener, but those … Read more
Broadcaster John Campbell will tonight present his final show as the host of Checkpoint on RNZ. Emily Writes explains why he is a basket of kittens and how she loves everything about him. Last week I had to admit to my husband that I’m desperately in love with John Campbell. I had just returned from the Word … Read more
Unhappy with Newsroom’s coverage of him in recent weeks, scientist and philanthropist Sir Ray Avery has filed a complaint with NetSafe alleging that its stories contain false allegations that have caused him emotional harm. Andrew Geddis explains why Netsafe’s decision will be a landmark one. Since launching last year, Newsroom has shown a willingness to stay on a … Read more
Our queer and women comics have been charging ahead and spotlighting its issues with gender and sexuality. Dejan Jotanovic writes. Something huge happened last month. We did it. We won. We took home the mighty trophy, prompting an encouraging Instagram post from our humble PM. Rose Matafeo (Funny Girls) won ‘Best Comedy Show’ at the … Read more
Bringing you the best weekly reading from your friendly local website. Hayden Donnell: What is happening? Mike Hosking and Mark Richardson both made great points “Stash some canned food under your bed. Fashion your garden implements into makeshift weapons. Sprinkle the blood of a lamb or goat over your home’s threshold. For behold; the seven seals … Read more
This weekend, at hundreds of churches around New Zealand, congregations will offer up a prayer for the media. Why? Alex Braae finds out. Back when I used to produce talkback radio, a caller who I didn’t put on the air told me she’d pray for me, then hung up. It didn’t sound like a positive … Read more
From the Big Save lady, to ASB’s Goldstein, to a very young Taika Waititi selling sweets – these are the TV ads that made James Mustapic the man he is today. Watch Friday’s episode of The Spinoff TV in full here. Thanks to NZ on Air
New Zealanders have woken up to a topsy turvy world this morning, with normally annoying commentators Mark Richardson and Mike Hosking talking a lot of sense, reports Hayden Donnell. Stash some canned food under your bed. Fashion your garden implements into makeshift weapons. Sprinkle the blood of a lamb or goat over your home’s threshold. … Read more
Remember Animorphs? The book where children turn into animals and save the world? Charlie O’Mannin does – because he just read all 54 of them in five days. This is his story. Animorphs is a children’s book series by K. A. Applegate about a group of teenagers who learn about a parasitic alien race, the Yeerks, … Read more
Bringing you the best weekly reading from your friendly local website. Arie Faber: No-so-squeaky clean: Why wellness culture is a scam “Don’t get me wrong, we should stick to the government-recommended amount of added sugar, but this is not the suggestion of online food philosophers. The suggestion, of course, is to replace sugar with cleaner, … Read more
A glaring lack of representation in Hollywood means Crazy Rich Asians still feels quietly revolutionary in a #woke 2018, writes Keren Sim. The year was 2000 and the movie was Charlie’s Angels. Watching Lucy Liu kicking ass alongside Cameron Diaz and Drew Barrymore, I sat up a little straighter, feeling a jolt of recognition that … Read more
Swearing, nudity, blasphemy and Clarke Gayford – these are just some of the things New Zealanders have been vehemently complaining about to the Broadcasting Standards Authority (BSA) over the past year. Blasphemy Using the Lord’s name in vain is always a big no-no for many God-fearing New Zealanders. The ASA (Advertising Standards Authority) gets plenty … Read more
The media approach following Greg Boyed’s death shows just how much our mental health reporting needs to change, writes TVNZ journalist Jehan Casinader. Greg Boyed had already left the airwaves, but they were still humming with his presence. In the hours after our colleague’s death, his name echoed through every newsroom, and his face glowed … Read more
Last night Rose Matafeo won the Edinburgh Comedy Award at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, one of the most prestigious awards for comedians anywhere. Here’s why that matters. First up: What’s the Edinburgh Fringe Festival? The Edinburgh Fringe Festival is the biggest fringe festival in the world. With well over three thousand shows, there’s nothing that’s … Read more
Bringing you the best weekly reading from your friendly local website. Duncan Greive: The real ratings of NZ’s news sites shows some have a big problem “For 20 straight days we didn’t crest 60,000 pageviews – our marker for a good day – even once. It had come from nowhere: between the start of June and … Read more
Why is Australian politics so poisonous? A lot of the blame can be laid at the feet of the right-wing media, which has given a megaphone to reactionary forces within the Liberal Party, writes the University of Melbourne’s Denis Muller. Note: This article was originally published on Thursday 23 August, before the second spill that … Read more
The news media are routinely criticised as part of the problem in perceptions of crime, justice and the prison system. So what angles would reporters pursue at the government’s much heralded criminal justice summit? Asher Emanuel went along to the event in Porirua to find out. In a departure from the carefully managed schedule, the … Read more
Livestreams posted on Facebook by our major news organisations have been overrun by an army of anti-1080 activists. Hayden Donnell goes in search of the source of the spam campaign. Yesterday the government announced new wheel clamping regulations. As it often does, the Herald posted live video of the press conference on Facebook. It was … Read more
A just-released cache of Nielsen data shows the impact a series of Facebook algorithm changes has had on New Zealand’s online media (spoiler: it’s not great). “How’s your traffic been?” a friend who works at one of the big media companies asked me recently, and even in asking we both knew the answer. It was … Read more
Don Rowe reviews Spin-Off, a knitting quarterly with easily as many polemics and features as The Spinoff – only with more staff. Reports of print’s demise are overstated – and I’ve got proof. It’s contained in the 104 pages of the Spin-Off quarterly, easily the best publication of its name and a giant Fuck You to the … Read more
Bringing you the best weekly reading from your friendly local website. Catherine Woulfe: C-sections can cause infertility. Mine did “These last two years have been grim, numbing, month after month of nothing, nothing, nothing, bookended by very early miscarriages. Various GPs were optimistic but by last summer, I was not: I referred myself to Fertility … Read more
A new English-language paper highlighting the stories of New Zealand’s multiethnic communities published its first issue at the start of this month. The founders of Multicultural Times explain why they wanted to launch a newspaper, what they hope to achieve, and how they plan to work within the country’s existing ethnic media landscape, in an interview with … Read more