Good morning, and welcome to The Bulletin’s 2020 Year in News Quiz. Merry Christmas. It’s back again – The Bulletin’s Christmas Day Year in News Quiz is here, due to popular demand following last year’s edition. If you look around your Christmas gathering this year and remember which of your beloved family got more answers … 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
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
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
The On the Rag team assemble to dissect the previous month in news, media and feminism. It’s somehow the end of February so we’re here to look back at the month in Women’s Stuff. Uniform shorts are sending young women into counselling sessions at a a local high school, but why? How the hell did … Read more
The Spinoff editor Toby Manhire joins Duncan Greive to discuss the RNZ Concert saga, the potential merger with TVNZ and Winston Peters’ new photography hobby on this month’s episode of The Fold. Subscribe via Apple Podcasts, RSS or via your favourite podcast provider.
Good morning, and welcome to The Bulletin’s 2019 Year in News Quiz. How closely did you follow the news this year? To manage this quiz, the answer might have to be extremely closely. 2019 was a dramatic, and often relentlessly terrible year. There were tragedies and triumphs, earth-shatteringly important events, major pieces of law passed … Read more
Good morning, and welcome to the last Bulletin of 2019. Here’s a collection of some of the people and issues who will shape the news in 2020. It’s the end of another year. I’ve got a few thoughts further down the page on that, but to start with, today’s Bulletin will be about looking ahead. Like … Read more
Commercial media, a business that requires public trust and goodwill, is in a tough financial position right now. Gaurav Sharma says that’s in part because of its poor job of reaching immigrant communities, in the first of a new monthly column for The Spinoff. Let’s start with a test, about references to Indian people in … Read more
Where do we watch content, what do we want from it, and how do we view New Zealand news? Here’s what we learned from NZ On Air’s latest survey on identity, culture and the media. We still like to watch free-to-view TV Despite the lingering doom and gloom around linear television, almost three-quarters of respondents … Read more
Emily Writes bravely ventures into the treacherous cavities of online news so you don’t have to. It’s been a week in Princess Diana news despite the fact that she died in 1997. Kevin Costner has said Lady Di once considered starring in a sequel to The Bodyguard. Unsurprisingly, that shit-stirrer Fergie was behind it. If … Read more
A shooting at a mosque in the NZ city, which is reported to have left several people dead, was livestreamed online. Note: this is the original report published at 3.25pm on March 15 2019. It was updated through the day to incorporate developments and responses, including from Facebook. The final updated post from the end … Read more
Livestreams posted on Facebook by our major news organisations have been overrun by an army of anti-1080 activists. Hayden Donnell goes in search of the source of the spam campaign. This post was originally published August 23, 2018 Yesterday the government announced new wheel clamping regulations. As it often does, the Herald posted live video … Read more
It’s the most wonderful time of the year, unless you’re a journalist, in which case Christmas is just another day. So what’s the vibe like in newsrooms on Christmas day? And why can’t journalists just take the day off? A state highway is blocked after a car crash. There’s been a drowning at a West … Read more
Good morning, and welcome to the last edition of The Bulletin for 2018. Well, crikey. It’s the end of the year. I’ve got some thoughts on that down the other end of the page, but you’re here for the news and there’s still heaps to get through here. I thought what might help people out the … Read more
If you’ve felt like this year has been one bad news story after another then you’re not alone. Let’s face it, things have not been great for the environment and the many species that live on this planet for a while now, writes Waikato University researcher Raven Cretney. Over the past year I have collated … Read more
Over the month of December, we’ve been taking suggestions from readers of The Bulletin on what you reckon the best NZ journalism has been. We also took the suggestion to put them all in one place. It’s not really the done thing to say this at the start of a best of list, but this … Read more
The Spinoff partnered with UMR to survey the attitudes of our readers, and the nation as a whole. Today, how are we consuming media, and what do we reckon about it? Previously: Data! Opinions! The results of The Spinoff’s major national survey with UMR With apologies to Maddie Holden, clicks are abundant and low value. … Read more
You’re probably using the term clickbait wrongly, explains Alex Braae. A shocking abuse of language is taking place in media every day, and experts are completely lost on how to deal with it. One word has been so brutally abused, overused and mangled that it is now completely unrecognisable. Do you know this word? Click … Read more
Good morning, and welcome to The Bulletin. In today’s edition: Curbs on cow numbers likely to come, the education minister is pointing to a billion dollar shortfall, and we’ve got an exclusive story about so-called ethical fashion label World. The government might be about to put curbs on further dairy intensification, in order to raise … Read more
The Spinoff recently launched a free daily digest of the most important news from around New Zealand called The Bulletin, and it’s proving to be a big hit. Here’s why you should sign up. Nobody has an abundance of time any more. The idea of sitting down for a leisurely read of the paper every … Read more
Good morning, and welcome to The Bulletin. In today’s edition: Immigration NZ’s racial profiling algorithm slammed by critics, showdown at Select Committee over Radio NZ meeting, and the Christchurch re-repairs cost gets even bigger. Immigration NZ has been piloting a data modelling programme to identify groups of overstayers “who are likely to commit harm in the … Read more
Good morning and welcome to The Bulletin. The CPTPP trade deal is being signed this morning, electoral spending figures show the Labour Party isn’t broke anymore, and a celebrity atheist pulls out of touring NZ amid sexual misconduct allegations. Some time in the New Zealand morning, the Comprehensive Progressive Trans-Pacific Partnership will be signed in Chile, reports Radio NZ. The … Read more
In January, TV3 newsreader Carolyn Robinson read her last bulletin, her job yet another casualty of Mediaworks CEO Mark Weldon’s cuts. She looks back at the “wondrous” newsroom he gutted. I wore white that last time. When it was done I pushed back from the desk. I took off my jacket – my favourite one … 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 in the summer 2015 issue of Barkers’ 1972 magazine. … Read more
Alex Casey talks to Hilary Barry about juggling Paul Henry and 3 News, watching X Factor and playing second banana. When I arrived at TV3 to meet Hilary Barry, I was deeply excited to find out that the interview would take place on the Paul Henry set. “It’s about the only quiet place left in the … Read more