Compiling the best reading from your friendly local website. David Farrier: ‘Hello, my name is Ally’ – how children are being exploited by YouTube predators “Josh believes it is highly unlikely Ally & Maddie are two young female YouTubers. He believes the account is run by an adult male. His suspicions are based on the … Read more
Compiling the best reading of the week from your friendly local website. Toby Manhire: This stunning map shows that six faults – at least six – ruptured in the big Kaikoura quake “To be clear, that’s six faults that have ruptured? At least. On our initial flight we only flew down the coast and straight … Read more
Compiling the best reading of the week from your friendly local website. Mark Jennings: When Paul Henry let rip that obnoxious Herald rant he was already through with TV3 “The signs have been there for some time. Henry, whose reported departure Mediaworks has refused to confirm, has been openly saying he was sick of the … Read more
Compiling the best reading of the week from your friendly local website. Scotty Stevenson: 48 hours drinking with rugby’s greatest losers “I walked into the sheds soon after, to sit and drink with losers. I walked down the long concrete corridor under the main stand, past the North Harbour changing room. Inside they were belting … Read more
Compiling the best reading of the week from your friendly local website. Ally McCrow-Young: What’s the deal with denial? A NZ Chinese woman on ‘Kiwi-ness’ and casual racism “When I’ve told anecdotes about casual racism – like when people put on a fake broken English accent when speaking to me – I can almost guarantee … Read more
Compiling the best reading of the week from your friendly local website. Kristina Hard: In defence of Warriena Wright: an open letter to a slut-shaming newspaper columnist “‘He had made his intentions clear before she set foot in his apartment. She was a willing accomplice‘ She was a willing accomplice in her plan for consensual … Read more
Compiling the best reading of the week from your friendly local website. Natalya King: Aaron Smith got screwed – and Stuff could end up getting sued “In the legal sense, an invasion of privacy is the “highly offensive” disclosure of private facts. That is, if Aaron had a reasonable expectation of privacy in the facts … Read more
Compiling the best reading of the week from your friendly local website. Tim Murphy: A final Pokarekare Ana and a punch in the air: post-mayoricide, Len Brown goes out on a high “This is not a tabloid story, taking things out of context and boasting a headline like: ‘Sex Scandal Made Me a Better Mayor’ … Read more
Waiting for an egg to boil? Sitting through a long ad break? Be a cool reader and take our cool survey. The Spinoff exists because a small family of amazing brands like what we do and pay to sponsor us as a business. They’re also paying to keep us doing good work because they value you … Read more
Compiling the best reading of the week from your friendly local website. Deborah Mahuta-Coyle: ‘You’ll never undo the hurt.’ A Māori woman’s open letter to Don Brash “You see, Don, when you talk about Māori privilege, you say you’re referring to the Treaty, or to water rights, or to all these “special privileges” that Māori … Read more
Compiling the best reading of the week from your friendly local website. The Spinoff: The Spinoff announces its mayoral endorsement “The Spinoff’s War for Auckland psy-ops division has emerged from their underground bunker with their picks for Auckland mayor. – Click here – to discover on whom The Spinoff has bestowed its coveted mayoral seal of … Read more
Compiling the best reading of the week from your friendly local website. Don Rowe: The most divisive man in New Zealand sport explains himself “He writes with such anger, blaspheming the patron saints of the punters, week after week. Before the 2015 World Cup, Rattue penned his own Satanic Verses, calling for the sacking of … Read more
The Spinoff continues its sprint to become a proper grownup company by hiring Kerryanne Nelson to become its first GM. Duncan Greive explains why this matters – and why she’s the perfect fit. Today, less than a week after our second birthday, I’m psyched to announce that we’ve recruited a GM to help co-parent the … Read more
Compiling the best reading of the week from your friendly local website. Alex Casey: Good news: The Chiefs scandal didn’t really even happen!!! “As has been observed on Twitter, The Chiefs are hugely embarrassed and disappointed about all the nothing that happened. They hope to rebuild from all the nothing to make a… something… but … Read more
On the occasion of its second birthday The Spinoff editor Duncan Greive brings you this update on what we’ve done, and more importantly what we’re about to do. (Please read to the end.) Two years ago today, The Spinoff first appeared on the chilled out global chat room we now call “the internet”. Back then, we were … Read more
Compiling the best reading of the week from your friendly local website. Disclaimer: This week The Spinoff celebrated ‘Hosking Week’, in appreciation of the great Mike Hosking. As much as we would love it, not all weeks will be this Hosk-heavy. Liam Fernandez: Hosking Week: A comprehensive look at Toni Street trying to speak on Seven … Read more
Just before Christmas, 2012, hiker Alistair Levy disappeared forever in the Kahurangi National Park. In the latest issue of New Zealand Geographic, Naomi Arnold retraces his steps, and speaks with the last people to have seen Levy alive. Here she talks about writing, getting lost, and how to justify a story that is guaranteed to … Read more
Compiling the best reading of the week from your friendly local website. Duncan Greive: Real Housewives of Auckland is brilliant and utterly appalling “How you respond to the show will depend entirely on whether you can ignore the grotesquerie it represents for long enough to revel in the very real pleasures it provides. My gut … Read more
Compiling the best reading of the week from your friendly local website. Duncan Greive: Stuff Circuit and the weird dance we do around publicly funding journalism “There are dozens of reporters capable of this kind of important work. But there aren’t hundreds. And there are fewer working with each passing year. And while I seem … Read more
Compiling the best reading of the week from your friendly local website. Alex Casey & Leah Damm: Looking back on a total shitter of a week for women in New Zealand “Perhaps the deepest burn of all came from Margaret Comer, not only a certified woman but also a standing member of the Waikato Women’s … Read more
Compiling the best reading of the week from your friendly local website. Michele A’Court: Stop saying dumb shit, and other top tips for all the Kevins of the world “I reckon I might be able to throw a bit of light on this. I actually think you do get it – you come close to … Read more
Compiling the best reading of the week from your friendly local website. Duncan Greive: Announcing the War for Auckland So for the first time we’re opening up the opportunity to contribute to The Spinoff financially via our PledgeMe campaign. We’re asking for money for this specific project, from both businesses and individuals, to chip in … Read more
Peter Wells expands on his recent, pathetically small Listener review of What Belongs to You by Garth Greenwell to say exactly why he thinks it’s a masterpiece. Once upon a time, and comparatively recently, gay fiction provided a window not only into how gay men lived, but also a portal into the eroticism and interior of our … Read more
Today The Spinoff officially turns off comments. Here editor Duncan Greive explains his reasoning behind the decision. As of today, as of exactly right now, The Spinoff is turning off Disqus, the comments engine we’ve used since we started in September of 2014. The motivations are simple and twofold. First, comments make us no money but … Read more
Resident Spinoff float master Don Rowe gets deep with Billy T James award winning comedian David Correos in the first installment of Tank Talk, a partnership with Float Culture. David Correos waved as he ran across the courtyard, a towel draped over his shoulders. “Don,” he said, stepping into my girlfriend’s Ford Laser. “Mate. Do I need a … Read more
Compiling the best reading of the week from your friendly local website. Geoffrey Palmer: The political elites foisted a new system on ordinary Brits. Little wonder they’re grabbing it back “So when the people have an opportunity to decide they reject it. Their fear about jobs and their sense of insecurity about immigration are entirely understandable. They … Read more
Compiling the best reading of the week from your friendly local website. Josh Drummond: New Zealand’s absurd gardening ban once again makes us the laughing stock of the Internet “Our prisons are bursting with middle-aged white people, who make up a disproportionate number of victims of our punitive and ageist anti-gardening legislation. Only recently a Kaikohe … Read more
A weekly feature at the Spinoff Review of Books: The best-selling books at the Wellington and Auckland stores of Unity Books. THE BEST–SELLER CHART FOR THE WEEK JUST ENDED: June 24 UNITY BOOKS AUCKLAND 1 In Love with These Times: My Life with Flying Nun Records (HarperCollins, $37) by Roger Shepherd Number one for the third week … Read more
Compiling the best reading of the week from your friendly local website. Alex Casey and Hayden Donnell: This article about terrible millennials is quite sexist and dumb “The article – written by the usually great feature writer Mike White – is mostly a collection of rheumy-eyed reminiscings for an imaginary bygone age, where men were men, … Read more