Business is Boring is a weekly podcast series presented by The Spinoff in association with Callaghan Innovation. Host Simon Pound speaks with innovators and commentators focused on the future of New Zealand. This week he’s joined by Simon Farrell-Green, founder of Here magazine. This podcast has always had a special interest in the ways people … Read more
Director Bruno du Bois talks about Zealandia, a short film depicting a futuristic New Zealand in the midst of a global pandemic which was written long before Covid-19. New Zealand’s biggest annual short film festival Show Me Shorts kicks off on October 2, bringing over 75 films from around the world to 30 cinemas throughout … Read more
Netflix’s new ‘must-see’ documentary is an alarming watch, but a bunch of woke tech bros commodifying fear is not enough to impress Anna Rawhiti-Connell. The Social Dilemma, Netflix’s latest “must see” documentary, opens with a line-up of gulping, nervous white men (and one or two women), who are asked to try to articulate “the problem” … Read more
We recently built our own members platform so that readers can donate to and support our journalism in a more direct way. If you’re a Spinoff Member, here’s how it affects you. At the end of last year, our team was fortunate to receive a grant that allowed us to build our own membership system … Read more
The Fold host Duncan Greive speaks to NZ On Air’s new chief executive Cameron Harland about his first six months in the job and the findings of the recent Where Are the Audiences? report. Cameron Harland started his new job as the chief executive of NZ On Air in March, the week before the country … Read more
A New Zealand Instagram account has gone global with its simple, attention-grabbing coverage of international politics and social issues. Sherry Zhang talks to the founders of Shit You Should Care About about social media’s evolving role as a news source. No longer solely the realm of brunch pics, filtered selfies and cute pet photos, Instagram … Read more
The Social Dilemma includes a clip from the shooter’s live-streamed Facebook video showing him preparing to enter one of the Christchurch mosques. A warning has been added to a new Netflix documentary-drama for featuring a banned excerpt from the video filmed by the Christchurch terrorist. The Social Dilemma, which explores the rise of social media … Read more
Is 2020 the year of the troll? Are you a troll? Emily Writes has a quiz to see if you can change. Sometimes I will get a Facebook message from someone saying: “Why did you ban me from your page? I’m not a troll! I was just trying to have a conversation!” Now, I might … Read more
After years of losses and months of speculation, Three has finally been sold. We speak to the MediaWorks CEO, and its broadcast operations’ new owner Discovery, about their plans for the channel. This morning, the long-rumoured acquisition of MediaWorks’ broadcast operations (mainly Three, along with some extras) was formally announced, with US cable TV monster … Read more
Together with colleagues on The Disinformation Project, Kate Hannah has been studying the vectors and volume of false stories that wrap around the Covid crisis in New Zealand. Here she explains what they’ve learned, and what we might do to tackle it. As people, as communities, we connect to each other through story; it is … Read more
All the illustrations and animations in one place. The animations and illustrations created by Toby Morris in collaboration with Siouxsie Wiles and published by The Spinoff have been shared in their hundreds of millions over the last couple of months. For ease of reference we’ve put them all together in one post. You can also … Read more
In this edition of The Spinoff’s media podcast The Fold, Duncan Greive unpacks the most important data points from a seismic new report into audience behaviour. NZ on Air’s biannual Where are the Audiences? report is unique in the way it attempts to measure the behaviour of a diverse set of audiences across all media … Read more
Merv was not alone. Marcus Lush has, once again, been doing God’s work: confronting the nation’s late night racists one by one. Newstalk ZB late host Marcus Lush was last night confronted by Judith, who called up demanding answers to one of the biggest questions of our time. Why are Albatross chicks always given a … Read more
Facebook’s threat to pull out of news in Australia is the latest salvo in an increasingly bitter battle over who owns the news – and who should fund its production, writes former MediaWorks news boss Hal Crawford from Sydney. The struggle between the Australian government and Facebook and Google over news is surely close to … Read more
New Zealand’s only comprehensive pan-media audience survey comes just once every two years – and the latest has just been released by NZ on Air. Duncan Greive picks out the 10 most interesting conclusions. Measuring what audiences really do is notoriously fraught. Most surveys are done on behalf of the client – ie the platform … Read more
As she preps for season two of hit thriller One Lane Bridge, Pip Hall – TV and theatre writer, basketball player, aqua ballerina and Mariah Carey fan – tells Michelle Langstone why, aged 48, she feels like she’s only just hitting her creative stride. Portraits by Edith Amituanai. Spoiler alert: Contains plot points from season … Read more
The man behind The Spinoff’s popular morning newsletter joins Duncan Greive to reveal the secrets of how he manages to consume so much news. Most days Alex Braae starts work at approximately the same time as a dairy farmer. But instead of hopping on a quad bike to go and milk a shed full of … Read more
Down the rabbit hole and onto Instagram Stories, some of New Zealand’s most popular influencers are now regularly using their platforms to peddle fake news and conspiracy theories that could endanger public health. Jihee Junn finds out what consequences, if any, there are for those actively spreading mistruths. When the government announced Auckland would be … Read more
As Auckland faced the resurgence of coronavirus, misinformation proliferated, and a lot of people encountered it, according to the latest Stickybeak poll for The Spinoff. Plus: What is Facebook’s impact on NZ society? With a third of New Zealand under alert level three lockdown, recent weeks have seen false claims around the source of the … Read more
For too long, fashion magazines have been trading on a hyper-glossy, hyper-produced idea of aspiration – one that particularly jars in the current climate, writes Zoe Walker Ahwa for Ensemble. We need more glamour. A style mantra for some, and an apt conclusion in the eulogy of my career as the editor of New Zealand’s … Read more
If you love The Spinoff and have a vision for how it should appear on Instagram and TikTok, we want to hear from you. The Spinoff is looking for a social media specialist with a focus on Instagram and TikTok. This is a full-time position with a fixed term three-month contract attached, working from our … Read more
The rumour that electrified New Zealand over the weekend was largely spread through Facebook-owned platforms. Duncan Greive asks how the government can continue to pay the social media giants to clean up messes they create. Yesterday David Farrier’s Webworm newsletter ran an interview with the probable source of the vile rumours that infested the country … Read more
It’ll be the best email you get all week (probably). Do you struggle to keep up with all the great podcasts and video content The Spinoff puts out every week? Luckily, we have a solution – introducing Rec Room, The Spinoff’s latest and some are saying greatest [citation needed] newsletter. Every Wednesday, starting this week, … Read more
In New Zealand, as overseas, authorities are dealing with two parallel crises: the Covid-19 virus and the maelstrom of misinformation surrounding it. Hayden Donnell reports for RNZ Mediawatch. In the hours after prime minister Jacinda Ardern announced Auckland would be moving back into lockdown, Billy Te Kahika Jr did something he’d done many times before, … Read more
Driven by a lack of meaningful diversity and an advertising industry in disarray, Rebecca Wadey and Zoe Walker Ahwa have launched Ensemble, a new online fashion, beauty and lifestyle website aimed at upending the traditional high-gloss magazine model. It wasn’t our intention to launch during a level three lockdown in Tāmaki Makaurau. Working in an … Read more
Newshub’s bombshell story about a Newstalk ZB caller named Merv rocked New Zealand’s political landscape. Roger Bridge, who stands accused of also being Merv, yesterday resigned from the National Party board. But he is far from the first political figure to don a fake name and ring a talkback station. The hour before midnight on … Read more
Theatre owners are up in arms that potential blockbuster Mulan – filmed in New Zealand and directed by hometown hero Niki Caro – is to be premiered not in cinemas, but on Disney’s streaming platform, Disney+. On an office wall somewhere hangs a picture of Disney CEO Bob Chapek – target on his head, and … Read more
This Town is being billed as 2020’s feel good Kiwi comedy movie, but Amanda Thompson finds it a gentle romcom with a heart of surprisingly confronting darkness. Movies about rural New Zealand are going to be funny, either intentionally or unintentionally. It’s a funny place and we’re funny people, and New Zealanders are so good … Read more
Between 2009 and 2014, New Zealand’s top-rating breakfast radio host published a serialised ode to life’s simple pleasures on Twitter. We pay tribute to ‘Life is Perfect’, an unheralded literary achievement. On a warm Saturday evening in February 2013, New Zealand broadcaster Mike Hosking lifted the lid of his Weber barbecue. The meat he was … Read more