Are you sick of that moment towards the end of a film when you realise that not a single woman has spoken to another woman the whole time? Turns out you can test for that. In your real life, we bet you probably speak to a whole bunch of different people. Some of them might … Read more
Our feminist webseries On the Rag returns to dissect representation in the media and who is still being left behind when you turn on the telly. In this episode, On the Rag looks at what we are putting in our eyes and ears as media consumers in Aotearoa. We’ve got more content choices than ever … Read more
Wendy Petrie, 49, has lost her job to Simon Dallow, 56. TVNZ’s cull is mystifying on multiple levels, writes Duncan Greive. There’s a genuinely moronic characterisation of newsreading which holds that it’s a low skill job that anyone can do. Just read off the autocue for an hour, collect your $500,000 a year-ish salary and … Read more
New Zealand film-maker Roseanne Liang has just brought her direct, funny and empathetic directorial voice to a big-budget American action thriller. She talks to Michelle Langstone about cosmic partnerships, her love of fight sequences, and how she inadvertently found herself caught up in a #MeToo scandal. Portraits by Edith Amituanai I’ve never seen anyone light … Read more
Wikipedia’s coverage of the Covid-19 pandemic has outdone most media companies in both content output and page views. Josie Adams spoke to Wikipedian Mike Dickison about what makes the organisation so good at covering these events. There are more than 5,200 articles about Covid-19 on Wikipedia. One defines the disease, and another the virus that … Read more
A new platform for Members means 100% of contributions go towards making Spinoff journalism happen. Plus: A merch store! Kia ora, This is the biggest announcement we’ve had since the launch of The Spinoff Members a year ago. For many months now we’ve been ferreting away at a big overhaul of the way members engage … Read more
Allegations of defamation led to an apology by Mike Hosking to John Tamihere. This morning Michael Noel James Hosking IV delivered an apology to Māori Party co-leader John Tamihere over defamatory comments made by Hosking in 2018. The comments relate to a $600,000 private shareholder payment from Whānau Ora contractor, Te Pou Matakana, to its … Read more
Facebook’s perceived lack of trust might be damaging to news publishers, but the company itself has become ever more interwoven into the fabric of the news business, writes Emily Bell, director of the Tow Center for Digital Journalism at Columbia University. Mark Zuckerberg and Noam Chomsky are strange bedfellows in this political moment, but both … Read more
Want to work for The Spinoff? We’re looking for someone to fill an exciting new role based in our Auckland office. We’re looking for a video and podcast content manager: an experienced writer or sub-editor with a strong understanding of social media to manage our video and podcast content across various channels. This is a full-time … Read more
From eggplant emojis and twerking llamas to sweaty anthropomorphic butts, we present some of the most fascinating, hilarious and outrageous complaints dismissed by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) from 2019 to now. Avocadon’t (January 2019) The ad: In this ad from Specsavers, a man gets ready to join a cricket match, but when he reaches … Read more
A new EP from an unknown Auckland singer ignited a bidding war before she’d released a single. Today ‘Call You Out’ is released, with eerie parallels to Lorde’s rise. Duncan Greive meets the artist known as Deryk. Madeline Bradley wasn’t expecting a lot. She’d been to dozens of these meetings over the past four years … Read more
In quitting the social media giant, Stuff has taken a risk. But the gamble is not as big as it may seem, writes Hal Crawford. Ceasing all activity on Facebook is a bold move for a news publisher, and I’m not surprised that it has come from the company now owned and run by Sinead … Read more
The associate editor of The Indian News joins host Duncan Greive to discuss his belief that New Zealand’s media ignores the quarter of our population not born here – and why both parties lose as a result. I first met Gaurav Sharma in the aftermath of March 15. New Zealand and the world has gone … Read more
The biggest news site in New Zealand, and the country’s fifth biggest site overall, Stuff has embarked on an experiment in dropping the use of Facebook and Instagram. It has been launched ‘in the context of the international Boycott Facebook movement’, according to a memo leaked to The Spinoff. A leaked internal communication from Stuff’s … Read more
With the collapse of Bauer NZ resulting in Australian magazines flooding our shelves, Wendyl Nissen looks back at her battle to get homegrown content given the star billing it deserved. Thanks to some hard-fought battles 30 years ago, New Zealand women have been enjoying their own version of Woman’s Day and Australian Women’s Weekly (AWW) … Read more
One would-be bidder who walked away was daunted by the commercial challenges they ran into, writes Pattrick Smellie for BusinessDesk. It is now getting on for three months since the German magazine publisher Bauer announced it was closing its New Zealand titles. Three months in which the company has hung onto well in excess of … Read more
The Fold’s very first guest is back to tell Duncan Greive how she pulled off the media deal of the year. It will justifiably be lost in the tumult of Covid-19, but the chaotic couple of weeks which finally saw the end of the Stuff-NZME saga were riveting and strange, replete with stock exchange announcements, … Read more
The CEO of Pango Productions and creator of some of Māori Television’s biggest hits, Bailey Mackey, lays out his vision for the future of Māori media – and there’s no place for Māori Television in it. I love Māori Television. I always have and always will. I started working there one week before it launched … Read more
In recent weeks, several American editors have been exposed for their toxic work practices. For a New Zealand journalist who spent a decade ensconced in this deeply dysfunctional culture, their day of reckoning comes not a moment too soon. The worst behaviour I ever saw from a grown man was at The New York Post. … Read more
As the Minister for Māori development faces the music for a poorly-received Māori media sector review, new and contradictory details are emerging. A government review of the Māori media sector released last week that recommended Māori news be centralised into a single service at Māori Television was received poorly by many in the sector. It … Read more
For years, people have been sending David Farrier photos of his stock model doppelgänger – a man who appears in every advert under the sun, from gynecological practices to 3-for-1 pizza deals. So Farrier decided to track him down. Every week I get a message from at least one person: “David, is this you in … Read more
As the American media giant comes under fire for its treatment of POC contributors, it’s time to talk about the whiteness of food media in Aotearoa, say Jean Teng and Charlotte Muru-Lanning. A wave of consciousness around racism is sweeping the globe at the moment. Protests that started in response to the death of George … Read more
Following a lengthy review, a government review of the Māori media sector has recommended news be centralised at Māori Television. Many in the sector are deeply troubled by the idea, writes Duncan Greive. A proposal to amalgamate all the diverse Māori news media into a single entity has drawn a furious reaction, with several industry … Read more
Until the sudden closure of Bauer Media in April, Simon Farrell-Green was the editor of HOME, New Zealand’s oldest architecture magazine. Here he explains what comes next. Being the editor of a major architecture magazine was the best job I ever had. I got it in 2016, after a career spent between Metro and freelancing … Read more
The Herald reported this morning that MediaWorks was on the verge of selling its TV assets to US TV giant Discovery – but an internal email and senior source suggest the story may have been premature. A senior MediaWorks source has emphatically denied a report in the NZ Herald that a sale of Three to … Read more
In 2014, Duncan Greive was invited to interview Dan Carter on the back of the All Black’s spokesmodelling gig for Jockey underwear – a meeting that would eventually lead to Greive co-writing Carter’s autobiography, My Story. To celebrate today’s big Dan Carter news, we republish that original Metro story here. In 2003, when Dan Carter … Read more
Noel Edmonds is a British TV legend with a 50 year career in broadcasting. So why did he move to Matakana and launch a radio station? Like an over-excited Mr Blobby, Tara Ward gave him a call to find out. When Noel Edmonds answers the phone from his home north of Auckland, he’s multitasking like … Read more
Todd Scott made millions as a sales genius, and bought New Zealand’s best-known business publication. Then he lost his house. Duncan Greive profiles the country’s most enigmatic owner, and hears some blunt criticisms from the old friend he bought the paper off, Barry Colman. When Sinead Boucher bought Stuff for $1 last week, it brought … Read more
This week, parliament’s Education and Workforce Select Committee has been hearing submissions on the Screen Industry Workers Bill. Equity New Zealand president Jennifer Ward-Lealand explains why the actors’ union supports it. The Screen Industry Workers bill rolls back some of the worst aspects of the 2010 Hobbit Law, and we believe this will lead to … Read more