A herbalist anti-vaxxer on Morning Report? I’d laugh if I weren’t so bloody furious

RNZ needs to do some serious soul-searching about its decision to give a platform to non-scientific nonsense, writes Dr Siouxsie Wiles As I write my blood is boiling. I’m in a rage. There is a measles outbreak going on in the Waikato region, with over 20 confirmed cases. It looks as though the virus has … Read more

The NZ print media mega-merger is coming, and it fills me with despair

Opinion: The marriage of Fairfax NZ and NZME may make sense in commercial terms, but it’s bad for depth, diversity and democracy, writes Paul Brislen If you want to know about a burning platform that’s forcing change, talk to a journalist. “Do 10% more with 10% less” has become the new strategy. And that’s in … Read more

In defence of Mark Weldon, MediaWorks’ $700 million man

The Spinoff has been accused of being anti-Mark Weldon and his work from time to time, so we thought we’d get one of his defenders to make the case for him as a misunderstood visionary. Here is ZenithOptimedia’s Stuart Rutherford, arguing Weldon reshaped MediaWorks for commercial success at a time of great upheaval in the sector. Seven hundred … Read more

Click here for HeraldStuff.co.nz – on messy media divorces and a newspaper marriage of convenience

Amid reports of NZME and Fairfax NZ being carved off from their Australian owners, former Herald editor-in-chief Tim Murphy considers the prospects for a merger between NZ’s two big newspaper groups DitchMe. AbandonMe. MarryMe off to Fairfax. The Australian owner of the New Zealand Herald and NewstalkZB and a clutch of lesser radio stations, websites … Read more

Power ranking the 10 people incriminated in the Panama Papers who (probably) did nothing wrong

Opinion: Publishing the names of thousands of people who have dealt with Mossack Fonseca irrespective of wrongdoing is reckless, unfair, and worthy of Kafka’s The Trial, argues Ben Thomas. The internet loves lists. “The 28 Most Unfortunate Names In Sport”; “23 Friends Quotes That Never Stop Being Funny”, “17 Delicious Salads You Should Pack For … Read more

A point-by-point rebuttal of Tony Veitch’s terrible column

Yesterday the Herald previewed its admirable #betterthanthis series on domestic violence by attempting to address the elephant in its room: Tony Veitch. Unfortunately the broadcaster used his column to paint himself as the real victim, says Delaney Mes. New Zealand has the highest rate of family and intimate-partner violence in the world. New Zealand Police … Read more

Tony Veitch’s decade in denial

Michael Field covered Tony Veitch’s original trial and reported on the release of his police file. He writes that the broadcaster’s column yesterday was just another instance of his abdicating responsibility for his actions. A long time ago I sat in a court as a judge pulled a black handkerchief over his white wig and passed a sentence … Read more

The column Metro wouldn’t publish: Steve Braunias on the time he got sacked for calling a cop a c***

As a kind of prequel to Tim Murphy’s excellent court transcript story on the Spinoff yesterday, Steve Braunias exhumes a previously unpublished  2011 column on his own c***-related tribulations. It was originally written for Metro magazine, but editor Simon Wilson refused to publish it.  Last Christmas [2010] I landed myself in another fine mess when I pressed SEND. Claire … Read more

Mandatory story celebrating our Canon Awards nominations while mysteriously ignoring all other media companies

The Spinoff is shocked and awed to have received 11 nominations across nine categories in the 2016 Canon Awards. Finalists for the annual awards were announced yesterday afternoon, with The Spinoff vastly improving on its previous record of zero nominations. It received a nod in the prestigious “Website of the Year” category. Judges have to … Read more

A reasoned response to the unreasonable Mark Reason, who is bad

Spinoff editorial intern Madeleine Chapman accidentally inspired Mark Reason to write a terrible column about women’s cricket. She responds to his backward views. Three nights ago I wrote a story highlighting the double standards between the men’s and women’s Twenty20 World Cups, happening simultaneously in India right now. My stance was simple: if men and women are going to play in … Read more

Watch this space: ODT takes the paywall plunge

The Otago Daily Times has called time on the great online giveaway. The big New Zealand publishers will be watching closely, writes Tim Murphy, former editor-in-chief of the NZ Herald. Its masthead describes it as the “Independent Voice of the South”. Others, affectionately, call it the Oddity. Now the Otago Daily Times lives up to … Read more

Means to an Ends: in praise of ridiculously short press releases

Five shining examples that reveal the glories of a super-succinct media statement. In a world of bottomless coffee, endless online scrolling, and prose that goes on much longer than it needs to, winding circuitously around corners and over bridges, as if crying out desperately for an editor or a blowtorch, much like this sentence, thank … Read more

Spinoff exclusive – Newshub institutes scandalously sensible style guide

We write about MediaWorks’ new style guide in the style of the Herald. MediaWorks spent last year unpacking a Russian doll of disaster. The company dealt with public backlash over show cancellations, flagging ratings, and its gossip site Scout’s transformation into an internet version of an elephant graveyard. It should have been breathing a sigh … Read more

On all that Susan-Devoy-Wants-to-Ban-Christmas Bullshit

Tis the season to be frothing at the mouth over beat-up stories about the PC brigade wanting to throw children’s Christmas stockings into a pit of fire. Beat-ups about do-gooders wanting to “ban Christmas” have become a mainstay of the leadup to the festive season the world over. This year in New Zealand, the target … Read more

The Flag: The Australians Prepare to Vote on the NZ Flag

The NZ flag debate is fomenting confusion throughout the international press. Voting forms for New Zealand’s flag referendum have been dispatched by the legions of androgynous orange workers at the Electoral Commission, and the debate has returned to entertain and curse us. One point on which almost everyone, or at least those who favour a … Read more

Anatomy of a Corporate Disaster – Inside Weldon and Glucina’s Gossip Site Scout

MediaWorks launched gossip site Scout amid much fanfare just two months ago, yet today it appears to be hanging by a thread amid resignations and troubling news stories. Duncan Greive spoke with a number of former Scout staff members and MediaWorks employees, and was given access to a large cache of correspondence, recordings, data and other documentation to create … Read more

Facebook: Dislike? Sure. And We’d Like These New Buttons, Too

The Mighty Zuck, His Zuckness of Zuckerberg, announced this week that plucky startup Facebook was giving some serious thought to introducing a “dislike” button, for users who didn’t exactly “like” the post they were reading, but felt utterly obliged to click something. Good idea. And why stop there? Here are a bunch of other buttons … Read more