Is there a male equivalent of a “vile hag?” What about a “sanctimonious bitch?” How about “patronising c**t”? Megan Whelan of RNZ thinks not. More than race, sexuality, the environment or politics, stories about gender attract abuse, profanity and flat-out nastiness. So, when we posted a video from our series The 9th Floor, featuring former … Read more
The Commerce Commission was right to reject a bid by NZME-Fairfax that would have created a dominance unprecedented in a western democracy, and now the paywalls need to go up, writes Peter Griffin The Commerce Commission’s rejection of a plan for our two biggest media companies to merge is one of the most significant determinations from the regulator … Read more
The Commerce Commission decision appears based on a naive assumption that because news is important it will always be made, writes Duncan Greive. The Commerce Commission decision this morning to decline to authorise a merger between NZME and Fairfax’s New Zealand interests is being widely applauded in predictable places, for predictable reasons. Hearing it and reading … Read more
The challenge for anyone, politicians especially, who opposed the idea of a Fairfax-NZME merger on high principle is to find a practical solution as news media go deeper into the storm, writes Toby Manhire The Commerce Commission would make a rubbish journalist. Not only did it fail repeatedly to meet its own deadlines in issuing a … Read more
The best New Zealand production of the year isn’t TV or radio – it’s a podcast and online video which uses hindsight and our former prime ministers to produce a series of lasting power, says Duncan Greive. While it mightn’t seem so on Twitter during Question Time or in the comments sections of any semi-popular … Read more
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We review the entire country and culture of New Zealand, one thing at a time. Today: Madeleine Chapman caught the latest musical in town with the longest name. When I was younger, I watched a DVD of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat almost every day during one school holidays. And in all those viewings, … Read more
Tom O’Connor bravely penned an opinion piece for the Waikato Times on how men suffer from a woman’s period. Madeleine Chapman responds to each of his relevant points. “Only a very brave man or a fool would dare give women advice on how to manage their menstrual cycle. I am not sure which one I am but–” You’re a … Read more
Compiling the best reading from your friendly local website. Bree Brown: A teenager on what 13 Reasons Why gets dangerously wrong about teen suicide “The main failing of this show is that it continues to perpetuate the idea that suicide is a direct result of a person or an event. For years, experts have emphasised … Read more
What can we learn from the spate of reports about young people bucking the odds and purchasing property? Chris McDowall reads them all and crunches the numbers. Over the last few months I’ve taken to hate-reading the NZ Herald and Stuff articles about plucky young Kiwis buying their first home. Last week, while reading Russell Brown’s excellent … Read more
A range of viewpoints is a good thing. But giving a platform to noxious, hateful, racially inflammatory propaganda is quite another. So why is Newstalk ZB so keen on Katie Hopkins, asks Branko Marcetic. Few would accuse Newstalk ZB of being a fountainhead for enlightened ideas. This is, after all, the radio station that lets Mike Hosking … Read more
Saturated with Trump commentary, Danyl Mclauchlan’s brain felt like a tiny teacup with a firehose gushing into it. Here he explains why he decided to refocus his attention away from the floods of content and the ‘ludic loop’ of social media, where, more than ever, the audience is the product. I keep a large stack of books … Read more
So there he goes, a titan of New Zealand comedy has left us. Has any other satirist caught the ridiculousness of New Zealand life better than John Clarke? He’s famous for Fred Dagg and We Don’t Know How Lucky We Are of course, but here are some lesser know classics. See also: Tributes to John Clarke from … Read more
Compiling the best reading from your friendly local website. Kristin Hall: Remembering Big Fresh, New Zealand’s greatest supermarket of all time “This one time at Big Fresh, I was going up to press the moo cow button and some other little c*** pressed it right before I got there. I lost the fucking plot and … Read more
Head of news concedes ‘regrettable error’ over TV and online stories on what appears to be a phantom Hamilton police survey. Broadcast and text stories relating to a purported police survey about beggars on Hamilton streets have been removed by TVNZ following a Spinoff report published this week. “We didn’t verify there was a survey … Read more
One ominous graph and some stray thoughts on the Canon Media Awards nominations, out yesterday. The Canon Media Awards nominations came out yesterday, celebrated in the customary style by our nation’s media outlets. We spent a morning trying to disentangle the data and see what it all meant, but ended up exhausted and confused, so … Read more
Just another Sunday night for the fund manager, philosopher and new political party leader, discussing the issues with the people on social media. Yesterday on Q and A, deputy PM Paula Bennett dismissed the idea of a tourist tax. Gareth Morgan, leader of the nascent Opportunities Party, didn’t like that, particularly given the behaviour of some … Read more
Compiling the best reading from your friendly local website. Simon Wilson: Auckland’s transport crisis: how it was made, and why it will only get worse “AT also wants light rail to the airport, and that’s would probably be the same line, extended from the bottom of Dominion Rd. But there’s the problem: the government has confirmed … Read more
The UN has declared internet access a basic human right, but at-home internet remains out of reach for many struggling New Zealand families. Madeleine Chapman learns how the Spark Jump programme is attempting to bridge the digital divide. For most of last year, a Belmont family took regular visits to their nearest McDonalds. Not for … Read more
Compiling the best reading from your friendly local website, featuring a lot of rent week and Hit and Run. A Landlord: I’m a landlord – but the negligence and greed of other landlords makes me ashamed to admit it “And lucky, lucky us. It has cost us nothing, not a red cent of our own … Read more
Myles Thomas of the Coalition for Better Broadcasting explains why they teamed up with Action Station to launch the People’s Commission on Public Broadcasting and Media, which has a workshop in Auckland on Sunday March 26. Godwin’s law is a pretty well-known internet meme which states “as an online discussion grows longer, the probability of … Read more
Mike Hosking says it’s been three days and, hey, the weekend’s just around the corner – why the hell are you still worried about some war thing from ages ago? It’s well-known that Mike Hosking has stolen almost all of New Zealand’s worst opinions, and will be shitting them out once a day until the … Read more
The planned restructure at the public owned TV network is the wrong path. Paul Brislen issues a plea: turn back before it’s too late. I’m writing this instead of watching television. I’ve just installed Amazon Prime TV so I can catch up with American Gods when it airs. It’s free for the first wee while … Read more
We review the entire country and culture of New Zealand, one thing at a time. Today: Some people are upset about free-range eggs. Toby Manhire is upset about ‘tasty’ cheese. In the dizzying light of the Countdown cold goods aisle, it is easy to make mistakes. Mistakes such as picking up a block of Alpine … Read more
Compiling the best reading from your friendly local website. Duncan Greive: The incremental radical: Bill English meets the Spinoff “Despite his having been marked as a future prime minister since at least university, he seemed to have found a happy and natural ceiling. Yet, thanks to that shocking announcement in November, here he is – … Read more
News broke overnight that David D’Amato, the antagonist of David Farrier and Dylan Reeve’s Tickled documentary, has died. The film-makers have issued a plea for respect over his passing The star of Tickled is David Farrier, the dogged and dazed New Zealand journalist who started pulling a thread online and found it attached to an array of characters, … Read more
We review the entire country and culture of New Zealand, one thing at a time. Today: Calum Henderson plugs into the All Blacks’ new official podcast. Some All Blacks news: the all-powerful New Zealand men’s rugby team now has its own podcast. Something about this is extremely funny to me, but I can’t quite put … Read more
Having analysed the spate of uplifting stories about millennial strugglers buying homes, Don Rowe reveals how you, too, can lift your foot above your head and on to the lowest rung of the property ladder. It’s not impossible, it just takes a few little tricks – like not paying rent. Sometimes it can feel like … Read more
Annie Goldson’s new NZ Film Commission funded documentary about Kim Dotcom and his legal battle has just premiered at SXSW in Texas. We asked Dotcom’s US-based lawyer, Ira Rothken, to send us a quickfire review from the screening. He’s done just that, and attached Annie Goldson’s introductory remarks from the festival. Kim Dotcom: Caught in … Read more