Someone at NZME needs to check on Mike Hosking, who up until now has only extolled the noble corporation's pursuit of profit, is now admitting the banks make too much money. He even says he's "increasingly moving towards accepting I'm wrong" and Adrian Orr (!) might have been right.

What's funny about the BBC resignations over the Trump/Capitol Jan 6 riot edit is Trump used the word "fight" 20 times, along with all sorts of violent imagery and threats, and said "peacefully" once. His intent was so clear only a bad-faith newspaper like the Telegraph could pretend this was bias.

Yes really — the “we asked this guy. He doesn’t actually know jack shit but he’s rich” model of reportage really needs to go

This must be the most pure form of Betteridge's law of headlines, considering *no one* won, which the NZ Herald knew before writing this.

Um, @variety.com? That’s…not what that means. 😳 variety.com/2025/music/n...

Our political editors went from defending their job of attacking the gap between a politician's "word and deed" to mysteriously jumping off their high horses straight after the last election. Look at all the words and deeds they could compare!

Well that's one way to kill a newspaper. (Via NZME's Shayne Currie, hence the unabashed glee and describing a guy who said Ian Taylor was "sucking up to the left Māori​ loving agenda" as "robust")

As a millionaire who never leaves his luxury car or office endorses the forced removal of homeless people from Auckland's CBD, a reminder that crime there is down 35%. (Ironically Hosking's column is about how "we don’t deal with emotive stories well, because of fear")

Change in Headline

As always, the worst part of The Spinoff is its founder. jenniferkshields.nz/newsletter/i...

"Turn the volume up" From Stuff, who's owner claims they don't do clickbait.

[the NY Post scrambling to make a last-ditch scandal:] "umm, uhhh, his aloof wife Rama Duwaji secretly ran the campaign"

One of my favourite things is this absolute misery guts spending his life bitching & moaning about everything except whatever fuckery the coalition govt is doing & then wondering why the plebs are complaining all the time. You might be doing fine, Mike, but perhaps you're a bit out of touch.

The media will play this "Labour refuses to rule out working with the extremists" song up until the election but will never once ask Luxon if he's comfortable working with the extremist parties he's currently working with. In fact, they make excuses for him, saying he can't control ACT and NZF MPs.

You laugh, but this is how the exododus went extinct

NZME's Thomas Coughlan once again rushes to scare-monger about a tiny percentage of edge cases while ignoring the actual, current govt policies that are negatively affecting the majority of people.

NZ Herald's Jamie Ensor – who literally just wrote an opinion piece about how Luxon's meeting with Trump was a "big win" – now says "Luxon may have something to say about [tariffs]" about the SAME meeting – BRO HE HAD A CHANCE AND DIDN'T SAY SQUAT. At what point do you criticise dear leader?

In a glowing write-up on how great the Luxon/Trump meeting went, the NZ Herald's Jamie Ensor claims Trump is "known for his energy and for working long hours", which really reveals the news sources he's reading.

The Wall Street Journal has run more than four dozen op-eds attacking Zohran Mamdani since June. www.hamiltonnolan.com/p/local-pape...

If your newspaper is giving Donald Trump softer headlines and gauzier coverage than People Magazine, that should be a bit of a wake up call.

Brief: We’d like an op-ed criticising the capital gains tax, but try not to make it sound like you are landed gentry

Hi serious editors who run the NZ Herald: can’t help but notice you repeatedly mention the bus was electric and just wondering what relevance that has to it hitting a tunnel?

Fuck remember when John Key played golf with Barack Obama??? Fuck that was so epic man. So cool. Man I wish we could go back there when everything was awesome and we both had awesome leaders who CARED about their people. Not like now. Now sux. Anyway, I'm Tova O'Brien and I get paid for this.

Meanwhile NZME's Jason Walls (whose story got taken down but never apologised) got rewarded with a job at TVNZ.

Two very thorough reports that talk about causes like youth unemployment, economy, and climate change – and actually says social media can be *good* for youth – is given the Herald headline treatment of "social media bad!" because it aligns with the government trying to ban it for under 16s.

Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos has donated to the ballroom.

Here's the thing: the job of a political reporter is not to inform the public about the merits of policy. Their job is to report the conflict, and the truth not only has nothing to do with it, it actively gets in their way of their utopian 'both sides are equal' framing.

Facts are personal now I guess.

I am sure NZME will be already working tirelessly to clear up any misconceptions and confusion around the scope of the propsed Capital Gains Tax for tomorrow's edition

I'm glad Labour's CGT has finally been announced, because we get to now watch every political journo in the country simultaneously proclaim it's the biggest deal worthy of a hundred thinkpieces and also it'll barely bring in any money so what's the point.

The New York Post is owned by Lachlan Murdoch, solely because his daddy bought it and passed it on to him. And it's backing Andrew Cuomo, a meathead whose whole career in politics stems from his daddy being good at it. But *Mamdani* is the nepo baby, because his mom was a filmmaker? Sure.

I think this is really smart: rather than waiting for trust to return to old establishment media, train up the content creators people are already trusting to be better at journalism – newscreatorcorps.org

Disinformation is so easy if the media is on your side, isn't it? Step 1: Tell teachers meeting to bring agenda items that aren't related to pay or working conditions. Step 2: When teachers do so (including issues relevant to their students!) sit back and let the media blast them for it.

NZME-owned NewstalkZB continues to pump out climate change denialism.

From the news site that claims it doesn't do clickbait! (the answer is a weather balloon)

Now Tim Jago is back in the (non-NZME) news, here's my write-up on it from Feb 2025: dailyindignation.tumblr.com/post/7746083... (TL;DR: the bias is in the lack of saturation coverage or opinion, the NewstalkZB crowd being silent, the absence of any "What did Seymour know and when did he know it?")

This is funny framing because the 'drivel' was aimed at Labour's policy by Luxon, but the 'lazy' was aimed at the media by Hipkins.

Trump posted an AI video last night of him wearing a crown, flying a jet and bombing protesters with shit. Yes, shit. Many U.S. media have ignored this latest example of Trump’s mental instability. Others have downplayed it. The response says a lot about why we’re in this mess. 🧵 1/

Despite the question mark, Stuff's Lloyd Burr's "analysis" doesn't attempt to address the alternative: he simply quotes the opposition & makes the searing insight Wayne Brown also has something called a "Future Fund" (who doesn't even return Lloyd's calls). Job done, knock off for the day, Lloyd.

Great to see The Post finally celebrating Wellington’s progress. It’s amazing what a difference a week makes! 😂

I’m sure the Herald will break out the red ink front page editorial about this attack of democracy any day now.

Lol hey turns out if you read the Herald and their constant fear-mongering disinfo it gives you absurd results like this

As usual for right-wingers like Mike Hosking, every accusation is a confession.

Well that’s certainly the headline the government wanted when they drew it up on the whiteboard, cheers NZME, job done.

The US president watching Fox News and thinking that it’s an accurate representation of reality (leading to him invading Portland), is a bit like the NZ Prime Minister listening to NewstalkZB and thinking he’s doing a great job. In both cases, the media knows exactly how influential it is.

Hopefully the whole Bari Weiss thing and Ezra Klein thing starts waking people up to the fact that corporate media is mostly populated with mediocre people who have made millions and gained unbelievable influence because they threaten nothing and tell wealthy people exactly what they want to hear.

Whether it’s Joe Biden attending weekly mass or Donald Trump’s ICE agents shooting a priest in the face with a pepper ball, presidents of both sides have directly engaged with the Catholic faith.

Headline vs reality.