The June issue of North & South featured a cover story as old as time: ‘what the hell is wrong with millennials’? Two millennials had a read and What They Found Inside Will Shock You. First published June 16, 2016. The latest issue of North & South has done the unthinkable, and found a non-millennial … Read more
In August, the Herald ran a crazily racist opinion piece where an unnamed real estate agent criticised Auckland for being “unwholesomely Chinese”. Guy Williams went in search of the truth about the story, and ended up being sucked down a rabbit hole filled with intrigue, recriminations, and Winston Peters. First published August 16, 2016 Holy … Read more
Everybody wants to be like The Rock but what happens when you actually try and live like him? Madeleine Chapman was foolish enough to find out. First published May 18, 2016. Gym, movie set, movie set, gym, throwback Thursday, movie set, gym. Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson’s Instagram page is both inspiring and extremely repetitive. Whether … Read more
Fifty years ago, Peter Arnett became the first, and only, New Zealander to win the Pulitzer Prize, for his coverage of the Vietnam War. Ben Stanley met Arnett at his Los Angeles home – and learned about the silent season of our greatest newsman. First published March 22, 2016. Let me tell you a story … Read more
In September Disney once again came under fire for cultural appropriation, this time for the release of their Maui costume for kids. Madeleine Chapman explains why the costume might not be so bad. First published September 20, 2016. Update: Shortly after the publication of this article, Disney announced it was withdrawing the Maui costume from … Read more
It may surprise you to hear that not every article published on the Spinoff is read by tens of thousands of discerning punters. Here are some of the (relatively) neglected crop that we think warranted more click-love. Yesterday we published the top 20 most read posts of the year. Today we turn our attention to … Read more
Clicks and content, content and clicks: these are the posts that attracted the most eyeballs on friendly fledgling website ‘the Spinoff’ this year. Tomorrow we’ll be publishing the Spinoff stories that were unfathomably spurned by readers, but for today, these are the 20 most clicked-upon articles from 2016, in reverse order. 20 From June, Madeleine … Read more
A brief note of festive gratitude as we plunge into hibernation (mostly) for a fortnight. The final Friday beer gong of the year has reverberated through Spinoff headquarters, and we are just about out of here. From tomorrow, our “Summer reissue” series begins, in which we showcase some of the best Spinoff writing of the … Read more
Ever noticed that every summer news story is recycled from previous years? Former sadsack reporter Hayden Donnell designs a drinking game to improve, or at least anaesthetise, your holiday news reading experience. Soon everything will stop happening. The holidays will arrive in a blissful swirl of sunshine. Politics will retreat into its sooty tomb. Gareth … Read more
After attending the National Digital Forum in Wellington, Madeleine Chapman returned to her work desk with the key to a whole new world of knowledge. Last month, the National Digital Forum (NDF) was held across two days at Te Papa museum in Wellington. A gathering of GLAM (Galleries, Libraries, Archives, Museums) personnel to share ideas … Read more
Compiling the best reading from your friendly local website. Toby Manhire: Bloody hell, John Key just quit as prime minister. This is not how things happen! “The National Party under Key has been lauded, rightly, for its ability to renew, with underperforming MPs finding themselves nudged out, or shouldered towards retirement. But now the prime … Read more
John Key was first elected Prime Minister in 2008. What was New Zealand like when the era of radio banter, ponytail pulling, and bad singing was just beginning? Having trouble viewing the quiz? Take it here.
Journalist Jessica McAllen looks back at the two years since Max Key broke into the nation’s consciousness and wonders: where to now for the fledgling DJ/popstar/internet celebrity? I first laid eyes on Max Key across the dancefloor at Auckland’s 1885 club in 2014. He was 19, I was 22. His friend Joshua Troskie gave me … Read more
Last week plans for a new news-based site, run by Mark Jennings and Tim Murphy, thudded prematurely into public view. What are the former mainstream news chiefs’ plans for the venture, could they have done more to stop the crisis they now hope to remedy, and can they sign up John Campbell to cover the … Read more
Alex Casey looks at the best of the worst of John Key on the commercial radio circuit. Caution: contains entirely too much information. It’s hard to know at this point in time what we will miss the most about John Key. Will it be the time he said that gender quotas in Cabinet were stupid? … Read more
A legend of NZ journalism, admired and adored by colleagues in newspapers and at TV3, Gordon ‘Flash’ McBride has died. David Slack bids farewell. Some people find the right words to say goodbye to a dying friend. I struggle. I stare at a blank card for an hour. Only at the funeral do I find … Read more
Compiling the best reading from your friendly local website. Luke Tipoki: You say Kai-kura, I say Kaikōura – why your inability to pronounce Māori place names pisses me off “When I hear this mangling of tō tātou reo Māori, I hear years of colonisation, and I hear a country that seems uninterested in the preservation … Read more
Sure, you could read every submission to the Commerce Commission on the proposed merger of NZME and Fairfax, but time is money and your social media-addled attention span is short. Henry Oliver understands, and is here to help. Yesterday, the Commerce Commission published the public versions of the submissions received in response to its draft … Read more
The reverberations of media misreading of the US election are being felt in New Zealand, where media need to look in the mirror, says Patrick Gower, the Newshub political editor. Freshly returned from witnessing the mind-warping American election of 2016, which saw a man by the name of Donald Trump win the presidency, Patrick Gower … Read more
Fresh from reporting on the American Trumpocalypse, Newshub’s larger than life political editor Patrick Gower tells Toby Manhire about the lessons his US experience offers to NZ media, and how he’s preparing to tackle an election here in 2017, all over the course of a mere seven hours, in the latest instalment of On the … Read more
The HP 48Hours short film competition held its grand finals and awards ceremony on Friday. Madeleine Chapman went along for the first time and came away with some lasting impressions, both good and bad. I’ve never entered the 48Hours film competition, though I’ve been tempted. It seems like something fun and excruciating to do with … Read more
Compiling the best reading from your friendly local website. David Farrier: ‘Hello, my name is Ally’ – how children are being exploited by YouTube predators “Josh believes it is highly unlikely Ally & Maddie are two young female YouTubers. He believes the account is run by an adult male. His suspicions are based on the … Read more
Comedian and writer Michele A’Court explains why she asked men to pipe down on her Facebook page, and how her request was received. The answer may surprise you… Two days after the election of President Trump, I tried a social media experiment on my personal Facebook page. I asked men to shut up, and give … Read more
Compiling the best reading of the week from your friendly local website. Toby Manhire: This stunning map shows that six faults – at least six – ruptured in the big Kaikoura quake “To be clear, that’s six faults that have ruptured? At least. On our initial flight we only flew down the coast and straight … Read more
A call for submissions on a new NZ on Air television funding strategy closes today. Duncan Greive looks at the familiar biases hidden in the new strategy – most notably a continuing bias towards television, a medium which ratings numbers sourced by The Spinoff show is plummeting in popularity for younger audiences. A few months ago NZ … Read more
Aaradhna just stopped the New Zealand Music Awards in its tracks with an incredible speech in which she declined to accept the Best Urban/Hip-Hop Album prize. This is what she said. Update, 21 June 2017. The Vodafone NZ Music Awards today announced a number of changes to the categories for this year’s awards, including splitting … Read more
Today marks the publication of the third issue of Bauer Media’s new Auckland commuter-focused free magazine, Paperboy. Catherine McGregor sat down with the magazine’s editor Jeremy Hansen to discuss urbanism, optimism and why he’s glad to be a cheerleader for the new Auckland. The Spinoff: Free commuter magazines are a completely new model for Bauer, … Read more
Compiling the best reading of the week from your friendly local website. Mark Jennings: When Paul Henry let rip that obnoxious Herald rant he was already through with TV3 “The signs have been there for some time. Henry, whose reported departure Mediaworks has refused to confirm, has been openly saying he was sick of the … Read more
Tim Murphy analyses the latest GfK radio listenership figures and finds evidence that the NewstalkZB juggernaut is finally starting to slow. Radio ratings out today will have been a bittersweet dessert for the executives of MediaWorks as they launched their television new season at a lunch at the Northern Club. Sweet because their radio division … Read more