The Australian legislation is crumby, but the response from Zuckerberg, in contrast to the Google approach, presents all sort of hazards, including to New Zealand, writes Hal Crawford. The widely anticipated yet almost unthinkable happened yesterday when Facebook banned all news links on its social network in Australia. At the same time, Google has been … Read more
Duncan Greive analyses a shocking development in the global pushback against big tech. Subscribe and listen to The Fold via Apple Podcasts, Spotify or your favourite podcast provider. At 7.38am today a short email arrived from Facebook News Partnerships. It contained a total of five sentences, the most important reading: “I am writing to confirm that due to … Read more
On October 17, voters called time on the Labour NZ First coalition government, sending the self-proclaimed “handbrake” of NZ First into the wilderness and returning Labour with enough support to govern alone. In this Herald Premium article, the NZ Herald’s Claire Trevett spoke to politicians and staff about the three years the two parties and … Read more
New Zealanders owe more than ever, but Covid-19 has brought with it a new question: is $120,000 a head too much debt, or not enough to get the economy back on its feet? NZ Herald’s Liam Dann investigates in this Herald Premium article. “There is room to accommodate more debt in the economy,” says Chris Bloor, manager … Read more
Social media giant Facebook has banned a large number of trusted media outlets for posting ‘inappropriate content’. See update at the foot. The Spinoff has seen all current Facebook links removed from feeds, tagged as ‘inappropriate content’ or violating ‘community standards’, at the height of the Covid-19 epidemic. This appears to be impacting news organisations worldwide, … Read more
What does the pandemic mean for an industry already in peril? Duncan Greive surveys an anxious media scene. The rapid global spread of the Covid-19 virus contains a paradox for media. It has generated enormous levels of interest in what is a multi-dimensional and fast-moving story, which has seen ratings and traffic volumes boom. Additionally, … Read more
Senior news executives have reacted with disappointment and anger to a new taxpayer-funded RNZ ad campaign attacking their work and business models, writes Duncan Greive. RNZ has launched a new brand campaign which takes explicit aim at its commercial competition, attacking both advertising-funded and paywalled news sites. The campaign is running on out-of-home media and … Read more
NZME, New Zealand’s largest media company, released its 2019 financial report yesterday. Michael Andrew checks in on the health of huge brands like the NZ Herald and Newstalk ZB. It was apparently a good year for NZME, which yesterday reported a strong financial performance with $19.7m operating profit and the growth in its digital subscriptions … Read more
The 2010s will go down in media history as the Take Decade. Hayden Donnell combed through every single take made in New Zealand in the last 10 years to compose this list of the worst ones. If there’s one overarching media trend from the 2010s, it’s our inexorable move toward a take economy. Look at … Read more
NZ Herald and many other media outlets ran a story on a man whose farts could repel mosquitos, despite the story coming from a satire news site and not being verified in any way, writes Dan Satherly for Newshub. “Man’s farts so deadly he kills mosquitoes in a 6m radius” is a headline difficult to … Read more
After a year spent reporting on and analysing the chaos enveloping New Zealand’s media industry, The Spinoff managing editor Duncan Greive has finally cracked and started a podcast to cover it. Here is a short and necessarily incomplete list of things that have happened in New Zealand’s media in 2019: Three was announced as being … Read more
The trial of the man accused of Grace Millane’s murder is unlike any other in New Zealand history, recounted in micro-beats, each one tweeted and push-notified. Anna Connell asks what it’s doing to justice. It was a story that horrified New Zealand. In December last year, the news of the death of Grace Millane, a … Read more
Its first full-time reporter will lead the project, which includes a dedicated section of its homepage for New Zealand. The Guardian Australia is leading a significant move into New Zealand, confirming that it has hired its first full-time reporter in New Zealand and is introducing a new variation on the homepage specifically served to New … Read more
While researching NZ on Air for a recent history, Duncan Greive noticed a shocking 30 year trend. News broke over the weekend that Love Island NZ, Three’s biggest announcement of the year, will now not screen in 2019, and realistically is unlikely to be made at all now. The fall of a much-discussed, much-critiqued reality TV … Read more
We’re launching a brand new membership programme, inviting readers to support new journalistic endeavours and help shape our editorial direction. Today The Spinoff enters a new era with the launch of The Spinoff Members. It will support our growth in a way which ensures our work remains free to all, while also allowing us to … Read more
Good morning, and welcome to The Bulletin. In today’s edition: More questions around lobbyist’s role in Ardern administration, Hong Kong protesters look to NZ, and more progress made between govt and teachers. Further questions are being raised about the role of influential lobbyist GJ Thompson in the Ardern government. It concerns the time he spent as PM … Read more
Good morning, and welcome to The Bulletin. In today’s edition: NZ Herald digital subscriber numbers reach first major milestone, Forest and Bird drop two major stories, and maternity wards lacking overnight cover. An exciting story broke yesterday for those who follow news about news. The NZ Herald put this one outside the paywall – releasing that the company had … Read more
The NZ Herald today launched a new, wide-scope documentary into the effect methamphetamine has on small town New Zealand. Alex Braae talks to one of the journalists involved, Jared Savage, about the process of getting it made, and how his views on the meth trade have changed over his decade reporting on it. Perceptions of … Read more
This is a big deal for NZ journalism, writes Toby Manhire. What will be paywalled and what won’t? And have they got the price right? New Zealand media push notifications cannot often be accused of downplaying news, but the Herald’s announcement this afternoon of “one of the biggest New Zealand media moves of 2019” was … Read more
Good morning, and welcome to The Bulletin. In today’s edition: Social housing list balloons amid heavy demand, bizarre development in NZ-China relations takes in former PM, and another species of foreign fruit fly found. The social housing waiting list has cracked 10,000, and is steadily rising all the time. Newshub reports that is an increase of 73% on … 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
Good morning, and welcome to The Bulletin. In today’s edition: Radical restructure of Māori TV’s news announced, key City Rail Link firm goes bust, and Kiwibank responds to branch closure criticism. A sweeping restructure of Māori TV’s news service has been announced, with the loss of four major news programmes. Te reo news show Te Kāea will finish … Read more
As Marcus Lush reveals ‘outrage about the NZME Christmas Party’, we launch our crowd-sourced investigation into the contemporary reality of the festive work do. Last night Newstalk ZB’s evenings host Marcus Lush blew the lid on a major New Zealand media scandal for the festive season. The issuing of invitations to radio and publishing giant … Read more
A lawsuit has revealed Facebook inflated its video statistics for years, inspiring the ‘pivot to video’ which made thousands of journalists redundant. Duncan Greive looks at its impact on New Zealand. So Facebook’s been lying again, at least according to a suit filed last week. Days after admitting that its new portal device would eavesdrop … Read more
A just-released cache of Nielsen data shows the impact a series of Facebook algorithm changes has had on New Zealand’s online media (spoiler: it’s not great). “How’s your traffic been?” a friend who works at one of the big media companies asked me recently, and even in asking we both knew the answer. It was … Read more
Could it really cost less than a cup of coffee to power your home for an entire year? Mark Hanna investigates the New Zealand Herald’s extraordinary claim. Yesterday afternoon, the New Zealand Herald broke a huge story about something that, if true, could revolutionise our way of life and possibly even solve climate change. It … Read more
NZME journalist Georgina Campbell has created a new podcast about the #metoo movement. She speaks to Alex Braae about how media coverage of sexual harassment and abuse has changed in the months since the Weinstein stories broke In the first episode of Speaking Secrets, a new podcast series about the Me Too movement, journalist Georgina … 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
No matter how well-intentioned, articles like the Herald’s ‘One week, three kids, how hard can it be?’ do no favours for anyone, writes Angela Cuming. It was just after 7am on a Monday and my husband was simultaneously making breakfast and lunch for each of our three pre-school aged children. That’s six meals. And then … Read more