The Garden Party: 10 things to look forward to at Wellington’s new festival

A selection of highlights from the upcoming Garden Party Festival, presented by Verb Wellington and The Spinoff.  What are you doing next weekend? Want to come to a party? If you’re in Wellington February 20-21, consider yourself invited to The Garden Party, a brand new summer festival presented by Verb Wellington and The Spinoff. Held … Read more

A year like no other

The Spinoff was in mortal peril in late March, before its members came to the rescue. Managing editor Duncan Greive takes a look at what those members made possible in this most memorable year. Illustration and design by Ezra Whittaker and Lauren Maree Stewart. I’m writing – exhausted and, if I’m entirely honest, with a … Read more

We’re hiring: The Spinoff seeks an intermediate web developer

If you love The Spinoff and are an experienced developer, we want to hear from you. The Spinoff is looking for an intermediate developer to join us in our Morningside, Auckland office to take ownership and responsibility for the development of the full Spinoff site. This includes writing extensible and robust full stack code in … Read more

The Spinoff is hiring

Three new permanent staff positions and casual shift work available.  We entered the level four lockdown in the unfortunate position of having lost a few key senior staff in recent months, without yet having found their replacements. Now, with the white-hot first phase of the story starting to ebb, we’re recruiting some much-needed reinforcements. Our tight, … Read more

48Hours Lockdown Showcase: It Was Sol

The 48-hour film festival is back, self-isolation style. While the judging panel is deciding the winners, The Spinoff is showcasing seven films from the competition. We’re sharing one a day in the lead-up to the one-hour awards special, airing on TVNZ2. Today we’ve got It Was Sol from team Piwaiwaka. A family heirloom is broken, but … Read more

NZ’s largest guerrilla film-making competition gets a lockdown twist

Itching to pick up the camera even though you’re in lockdown? We’re excited to announce that 48Hours is back this weekend, self-isolation style. So what’s the festival? For the past 18 years, 48Hours has been an annual festival celebrating the best in fast, furious film-making, and even though the country is in lockdown, this year … Read more

The Fold podcast: Covid-19 is smashing NZ’s media just when we need it most

The Fold podcast returns for March into a media world transformed by the impact of Covid-19. Host Duncan Greive records a monopod to assess its impact. In last month’s edition of this podcast, The Spinoff editor Toby Manhire and I discussed RNZ’s Concert debacle. At the time, it was the biggest story in media; now … Read more

A note from the managing editor of The Spinoff on our Covid-19 coverage

How The Spinoff is dealing with the evolving crisis – and what’s driving our work. On Monday morning I had coffee with Toby Manhire, The Spinoff’s tireless (but also very tired) editor, at a cafe underneath our Morningside office. He had worked all weekend, filing stories at midnight on both Saturday and Sunday, as Covid-19 … Read more

Announcing a new six-month paid internship at The Spinoff

Attention: aspiring writers and reporters. Today The Spinoff announces a brand new internship, running for six months and paid the living wage, for writers without newsroom experience who would like to join our Auckland-based team. The successful candidate will spend six months based at our office, gaining experience across reporting, feature writing, editing, video production, … Read more

Want to work at The Spinoff? The Spinoff seeks business journalist

The Spinoff is seeking applications for the role of business journalist, starting February 2020. The Spinoff is seeking a journalist to run our business section. Primarily a writing and reporting role, they will also commission and edit from within our (we think) excellent group of staff writers, and occasionally outside the room too. Our business … Read more

Announcing The Spinoff Money

After years of trying, The Spinoff today launches Money – its newest section, one aimed at demystifying and making accessible the world of money. For decades, the relationship between most New Zealanders and money was broadly stable, baked into a set of milestones it was assumed all aspired to and would achieve if they strived. … Read more

On punching up – and all the things The Spinoff made me do

Today The Spinoff Book launches itself keenly into the world, replete with many of the best reads from five years of The Spinoff, plus a host of freshly written material and lashings of new illustrations by Toby Morris. Here’s a taste of the new stuff: an essay by the inimitable Madeleine Chapman on her time … Read more

Announcing The Spinoff’s local elections pop up 

Two months of sustained coverage of the local elections, all around New Zealand – brought to you by The Spinoff Members. Plus, a week concentrating on climate change. A month ago, we launched The Spinoff Members – a new initiative to enable our readers to contribute to our work both financially, and with editorial guidance. … Read more

Announcing The Spinoff Members

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

The best of The Spinoff’s Voyager Media Awards-nominated work

Tonight the nation’s journalists, photographers, videographers, reviewers and columnists gather at Auckland’s glamorous Cordis Hotel for the most glittering night in media, the Voyager Media Awards. Read a selection of The Spinoff’s rip-roaring 17 nominations here. Website of the Year Please discover more of our great content at the following link: thespinoff.co.nz Best First-Person Essay … Read more

The Bulletin: Haumaha to keep job despite criticism

Good morning, and welcome to The Bulletin. In today’s edition: Wally Haumaha to keep job despite criticism in IPCA report, state of the immigration system in focus, and quarterly stats show economic slowdown. The appointment of Deputy Police Commissioner Wally Haumaha has been a festering sore of a story over much of the year. From the criticisms raised by … Read more

Cute news! The Spinoff readers really love having friends a lot!

The Spinoff partnered with UMR to survey the attitudes of our readers, and the nation as a whole. Today, how social are The Spinoff readers? And how much do we suck at chores? Turns out The Spinoff readers love having friends more than anything else in this tumultuous journey we call life – including having … Read more

Shock news: The Spinoff’s readers are extremely online

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

Data! Opinions! The results of The Spinoff’s major national survey with UMR

The Spinoff and UMR this year undertook a major research project, surveying 1000 readers and 1000 general population on a range of contemporary issues. Each day this week we’ll release a different set of data, beginning with Alex Braae analysing five graphs which collectively give an overview of scope of the project. Earlier this year, … Read more

The flour and the glory: The Great Spinoff Bake Off

We lured an official judge from The Great Kiwi Bake Off into the offices to critique our cakes, and it was an emotional rollercoaster.  Here at The Spinoff, reality TV is kind of a big deal. So when a new show comes out, we really put our heart and soul into it. Alex Casey and Sam Brooks … Read more

Sad: The Spinoff TV ends tonight at 10.45pm on Three

It’s our hour-long finale with live music, numerous guests and hot, hot curry. What could possibly go wrong?  We’ve arrived at the grand finale of The Spinoff TV! If the last 15 weeks have been a roller coaster, tonight’s episode is the big twisty corkscrew part where all the money falls out of your pocket … Read more

Announcing Spinoff Politics 2.0, with thanks to Flick Electric

A year on from the last election, and barely a breath before the next, we’re rebooting our politics coverage. Toby Manhire explains. A wave of recent-past nostalgia has washed over New Zealand in recent weeks. The anniversary of the elevation of Jacinda Ardern to the leadership of the Labour Party amid a helter-skelter campaign. The … Read more

The real ratings of NZ’s news sites shows some have a big problem

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