The Fold: Recent Episodes
The Spinoff
Conversations about the latest developments in the hectic New Zealand media industry, hosted by the Spinoff's managing editor Duncan Greive. Proudly supported by Vodafone.
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Over the past two years TikTok has risen to become the cultural heart of the internet, for better and worse. And throughout that time, Kate Lindsay has been there to document it. The former staffer with The Atlantic joins Duncan Greive live from New York to spend a very entertaining hour unpacking the current state of the social media nation, and why reporting on social media often feels so weird. She also recaps when she inadvertently became the internet’s main character after popularising the divisive “millennial pause” discourse. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Chamanthie Sinhalage-Fonseka and Victoria Young met at a party earlier this year, and ended up talking deep into the night about their experiences as Asian wāhine working in the fields of communications and journalism respectively. They wondered why they had met so few colleagues with backgrounds like their own, given the burgeoning pan-Asian population of New Zealand. Instead of shrugging and moving on, they started an organisation dedicated to helping both practitioners and organisations increase that representation. They join Duncan Greive to explain what binds the experiences of such a diverse community, and how people can engage with Kiwi-Asians in Media and Communications (KaiMaC). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
She left New Zealand for London 20 years ago, and fought her way into the edges of the music industry the hard way. But a chance encounter with country music a decade ago saw Milly Olykan rapidly become a key figure in unlocking this famously regional music for international audiences. Now she’s VP of international relations for the famed Country Music Association trade group, and she tells Duncan Greive how country music came to sell out Spark Arena – and the lessons for other media forms it contains. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Earlier this year, NZME’s long time managing editor resigned – but instead of going to governance or a competitor, he walked straight across to his newsroom. Shayne Currie became “the media insider”, creating an informed, dishy column which has quickly become one of the most-discussed products in NZ’s media. He joins Duncan Greive on The Fold to talk about the road to the c-suite, what drew him back to the shop floor, and how he balances reporting on his own organisation and its competitors. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
We are now more than a decade into what was once known as influencer marketing, and has now grown into the much more complex and sophisticated creator economy. Wendy Thompson founded Socialites, and recently hired Melanie Spencer as CEO. The pair have been on an acquisition spree, and now have six businesses and almost 50 staff. They explain how they’re taking on major agencies with a singular approach to creative and media. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
A television veteran and co-founder of comedy production powerhouse Kevin & Co, Bronwynn Bakker joins Duncan Greive to talk about the strange media era we're in, the foundational role Jono and Ben played in nurturing a generation of comics and her plans to take that talent to global markets. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
In a spiritual sequel to an earlier interview with Paul Spoonley, Duncan Greive is joined by the head of Growing Up in New Zealand, an extraordinary longitudinal study which gives an unparalleled insight into the world of thousands of kids. Now 13-14, they represent the future of this country, and by extension our media. Sarah-Jane Paine tells Duncan what knowledge the media can gain from this groundbreaking study. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Red Nicholas is the founder of the D*List, a bold new media brand which just launched aiming to provide a salty, raw and exuberant platform for, by and about disabled people. He and editor Olivia Shivas join Duncan Greive to explain the genesis and kaupapa behind this exciting new venture. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Last month Guy Montgomery played four sold out nights at Q Theatre, pulling almost 2000 people in the process, while his original format show Guy Mont-Spelling Bee is a bonafide hit. He’s a decade into his career and has figured out who he is and how to do his jokes. He joins Duncan Greive on The Fold to explain how it all happened. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Duncan Greive addresses the fallout from revelations RNZ has for years been running wire copy altered to have pro-Russia and China slants. He also looks at the legacy of departing Stuff CEO Sinead Boucher, and explains why The Fold will be getting a little less time sensitive for the next while. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
He started on lowest rung at Saatchis in Wellington, in charge of absorbing TV ratings leaving a dot matrix printer. By the time Matt Bale left the agency he started, MBM, in 2022, the media business had transformed. He chose to lean into that, studying AI at Stanford, and joins Duncan Greive to talk about his career, and what the next wave of the generative internet might look like. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
For a very special episode, Duncan Greive analyses the Safer Online Services and Media Platforms, an obscure “discussion document” which contains a bold idea: regulate the internet in the same way we do legacy media. He is joined by The Spinoff staff writer Shanti Mathias to explain the context, then The Bulletin editor Anna Rawhiti-Connell to analyse its implications. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
She’s Tumuaki o ngā Take Pūtea at Irirangi te Motu – the head of funding at NZ on Air – but Amie Mills is also one of the most open and curious minds in our media. She joins The Fold to talk about the challenges manifest in the organisation’s new research into the viewing and listening habits of Gen Z, before talking us through the profound changes NZ on Air has had to make in response to the media merger, which has seen its budget slashed.
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The former NZ First MP is leading the establishment board for ANZPM – the new entity which will run RNZ and TVNZ as they re-merge into a brand new, fit-for-the-future media powerhouse. Because they’re also being given nine figures a year by the government, the merger is causing consternation among private sector media – and Martin is tasked with figuring out how to keep everyone from freaking out.
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She was arrested during the 1981 springbok tour, not long after being announced as head girl of her high school – whatever she does, Janine Morrell-Gunn does it with her whole heart. Since those early peaks, she set off into the TVNZ newsroom of the 80s, before traversing into her life’s work in kid’s TV. She co-founded Whitebait Media, the iconic Ōtautahi studio behind What Now?, The Erin Simpson Show and many other hits, influencing generations of tamariki. She was just bestowed the NZ TV Legend award, and joined The Fold to look back on a singular screen career.
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He’s no stranger to chasing down oddballs on the internet, but Mister Organ saw David Farrier finally meet his match in his second feature length documentary. It began with a story about clamping that became a huge hit saga on The Spinoff, and ended with legal threats flying and some deeply freaky confrontations. Farrier joins Duncan Greive on The Fold to discuss the film, his hit newsletter Webworm and all the fascinating and formally inventive moves he's made over his career.
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She started her career at The Spinoff as a 22-year-old intern in 2016, and became its editor five years later. In between time she wrote two books and became one of the most admired writers of her generation for her wit, intellect and originality. Then she got a job she didn’t even want, becoming one of the youngest editors of a “mainstream” publication ever. Madeleine Chapman sits down with Duncan Greive to reflect on her unconventional path to the role, the early years of The Spinoff and some of her most iconic pieces of writing.
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Consumer has had a big year – driving the conversation around the grocery duopoly in a way which has fundamentally reframed our view of supermarkets. Yet the challenges facing our consumers are big and complex, and the membership base is shrinking. He joins The Fold to explain why Consumer exists, and how it is evolving in the modern media environment.
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One of the most talented creatives working in Aotearoa today, Chris Parker seems to never have met a medium he can’t master. He joins The Fold to talk about his new book, but we also traverse his comedy, his plays, his Instagram, his felting and his extraordinary reality TV appearances. But the most revelatory part of the conversation concerns why he still can’t get his dreams on screens.
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10 years ago, Viva La Dirt League started doing musical parodies of gaming logic. Now, three friends have built out a truly unique YouTube channel with over 3m subscribers and revenue which would dwarf all but a handful of NZ media companies. They join the Fold to explain how they did it.
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In a few short years Joe Daymond went from sleeping on a mate’s couch to selling out Sky City Theatre with his stand-up show, all driven by a very smart and analytical use of social media. But the plan was always to build a TV empire – and with production company West Park, he’s already well on his way. [First released February 2022.]
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After an extraordinary decade with Three, during which she became the zeitgeist face of the press gallery, Tova O’Brien abruptly resigned late last year. After an ugly and public employment relations authority case, she finally got to start a new gig in a new medium with a new station at Today FM. Despite all that, she is crackling with energy as she joins Duncan Greive on The Fold.
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There is a lot going on in New Zealand’s media at the moment, so Duncan Greive takes the mic alone to deliver a solo podcast on the three issues which feel most pressing, including the freaky state of the TVNZ-RNZ merger, an increasingly isolated and aggressive Facebook and how the Queen’s death marked the end of a media era.
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Former National cabinet minister Simon Power was a surprise appointment to lead TVNZ, but his skills as a politician have come in handy with the biggest change at the state broadcaster in decades fast approaching. He joins Duncan Greive on The Fold to discuss the merger – why he believes in the concept but not the current bill, and his vision for ANZPM should he be appointed to lead it.
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The third season of Alice Snedden’s Bad News will be the last – and that’s fine, its creator tells Duncan Greive. Alice Snedden joins The Fold to explain why the show’s over, and how it and her have changed in the five years since it debuted.
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Founded in 2011, The Conversation has risen from Melbourne to become one of the most influential platforms for academic publishing in the world. Its New Zealand editor Finlay Macdonald explains the two crucial innovations which have driven its success, and reflects on his career writing and editing at The Listener when it was in the prime of its societal influence.
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The former ED of Tāmaki Makaurau’s trailblazing venue The Basement, Elise Sterback is currently partway through a PhD on the subject of arts funding. She thinks a lottery would produce more equitable results, and maps the current system and her proposed solutions on The Fold.
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She’s objectively one of the most successful actors this country has produced, in terms of the scale of her roles, yet Michelle Ang is not in it for the fame (she’s currently employed as the Spinoff’s finance person). What she is about is the brilliant tension between the creative and the disciplined, manifest in her wildly varied career, which spans Neighbours, Fear the Walking Dead, McDonald’s Young Entertainers as well four different more intimate productions released this year alone. Most notably Hair Now, an outstanding docu-series dropping weekly on The Spinoff.
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We say it a lot, but this really is a must-listen for anyone hoping to reach the new wave of risk takers and decision makers. Gen Z is making and consuming media in ways and at a pace that can be difficult for older generations to understand. They've never known a world without digital connection at its core and we're on the precipice of massive societal change as a result. New York-based Rex Woodbury writes a tech-meets-culture Substack called Digital Native, and Duncan is obsessed. Also obsessed is Duncan's friend, and real life Gen Z legend, Lucy Blakiston (Shit You Should Care About). This week the pair team up to interview Rex about why we're in the early stages of multiple major shifts and what it all means for media and society as a whole from this very moment on.
After two decades working as an exec at Sky, John Tapu resigned to start Kava Bowl Media. He's already made a rugby league show which has sold into Australia and the islands, with a special eye for talent and distinctive humour. He joins Duncan Greive on The Fold to explain how he did it.
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Freshly-minted media minister Willie Jackson joins Duncan Greive to explain the government’s plans for its merged media platforms – and what that means for NZ on Air. He talks about the Public Interest Journalism Fund and why he believes settlements with Google and Facebook are the right approach to replacing it. In addition, he reminisces on his trailblazing time in the music industry, and reflects on his one big regret.
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After being let go from her radio job in 2020, Brodie Kane made the brave decision to build her own podcast company just as the pandemic hit. Now Brodie Kane Media has a smash hit on her hands in The Girls Uninterrupted, and a growing stable of related podcasts that marks her as a media entrepreneur to watch. She joins Duncan Greive to talk about her new business, her career in broadcasting and her inspirational run on Dancing With the Stars.
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Alex Braae was the founding editor of The Bulletin before joining TVNZ's flagship politics show Q+A as executive producer. He and its host Jack Tame have embarked on a thoughtful reimagining of the show and its role this year, largely doing away with panels and heading out into the field more. They join Duncan Greive on The Fold to discuss the role of political current affairs shows, and how to capture younger audiences in the Tiktok era.
She started a Twitter account for the Auckland Theatre Company, and within a few years was running social for one of New Zealand’s biggest banks; thus becoming one of the first wave of social media experts in Aotearoa. Now she’s largely abandoned the platforms in taking a new role as the author of the Bulletin – and now head of newsletters for The Spinoff. Anna Rawhiti-Connell explains her fascinating professional journey to Duncan Greive.
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The relationship between media and museums is stronger than you might expect. Courtney Johnston is the youngest Tumu Whakarae / chief executive in Te Papa’s history. She oversees a staff of 600 and an institution with an unresolvable complex mission: one national museum to serve all our peoples. Yet Johnston gets a massive kick out of her big, unruly and fascinating job, and agrees with the thesis that museums were the original media.
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Peter Newport founded Crux to address the fact that the big west coast towns of Te Waipounamu had no major newspaper serving them. Four years on, Crux has endured the usual startup travails, but also become a key voice in the region’s journalism. He joins The Fold to tell Duncan Greive why and how he did it.
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Known for weird and highly original TV shows, Leigh Hart is also a wildly innovative business person. In a rare earnest and out-of-character interview, he explains how he has built the singular Moon TV universe, and the way beer and chips have naturally grown out of his approach to funding his escapades.
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Sometimes I just get to indulge in pure fandom on this show, and this is one of those times. Henry Cooke has been in the press gallery for just five years, but had a lightning fast rise to the role of chief political reporter. He writes brilliantly about all aspects of our politics with verve and a sense of the institution that belies his years (he’s 29). As he leaves on his OE, I got to ask him about one of the most fascinating jobs in journalism.
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It’s 30 years since Shortland Street debuted on our screens, and in that time Aotearoa has transformed. The daily soap opera is a maligned format, but the way Shortland Street does it, it really shouldn’t be. Where many soaps are fundamentally conservative, Shortland Street has been consistently and impressively progressive. The show’s producer, and one-time star, Oliver Driver, comes on The Fold to explain how they get it done.
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Able is the home of the captioning and audio description services which make television accessible to hearing and vision impaired New Zealanders – and it’s about to lose the only leader it's ever had. Outgoing chief executive Wendy Youens tells The Fold about her haerenga, the importance of Able’s work – and why the same services barely exist on New Zealand’s streaming services.
Read the full transcript: https://able.co.nz/news/the-fold-duncan-grieve-wendy-youens/
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She has produced television for decades, from every conceivable angle. Now, Irene Gardiner has taken on the presidency of producers’ guild, Spada, at the most fascinating and complex time in the sector’s history.
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A second conversation with press gallery wonk, Bernard Hickey, about his newsletter / podcast product, The Kākā. It’s just 18 months old and only six months into its paywall, but already has become financially sustainable. Now he’s landed on a quixotic plan to grow it – make it free, to hundreds of thousands more people.
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The first of a new quick response format to big breaking media news featuring host, Duncan Greive, tackling two huge media stories of the past week. This week: Netflix’s big miss and Elon Musk taking Twitter private.
From a piqued interest in high school leading him hustling into radio work, Nathan Rarere's journey in broadcasting began doing the overnight shift. Most recently finding himself as the host of First Up on RNZ, over his history as a broadcaster, Nathan has been a part of many cultural pinpoints across the spectrum. Nathan joins the pod to chat his extensive path to First Up, how an early gig became a TV pinnacle of alt youth culture, and how to make good media.
At the height of a global pandemic (thus in an amplified and tense state), being new to the media world is no easy task. However, taking it in his stride and coming from a large breadth of diversified roles, his decades of experience elsewhere have lead Don Mann to his current position as CEO of the Pacific Media Network. Although each pinpoint in his working career are seemingly different, Don sees and implements their core similarity as a driving force: serving community. Today, he joins The Fold to speak on representation in the media of Aotearoa, diversity development, and the complexities of his role in its relationships to both the media, and community.
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She started her career in journalism in her hometown of Ōtautahi, three months before the quakes. Four years later she left and effectively restarted from scratch in Canada, only to do that all over again a few years later in New York. This combination of doggedness, ambition and a willingness to humble herself in pursuit of true greatness has now landed Olivia Carville at Businessweek, the flagship of global business media giant Bloomberg. She tells her incredible story to Duncan Greive, and gives a masterclass in how to get to the top of longform journalism along the way.
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10 years ago, Viva La Dirt League started doing musical parodies of gaming logic. Now, three friends have built out a truly unique YouTube channel with over 3m subscribers and revenue which would dwarf all but a handful of NZ media companies. They join the Fold to explain how they did it.
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Crypto, NFTs and web3 have an impressive ability to prompt one of four core reactions: fury, greed, idealism or "????" Glorious is a web3 company from Aotearoa which has started in fine art and with a focus on how to improve outcomes for artists. Co-founder and CEO Tim Harper has a specific and differentiated view of how the space will evolve – and how it will create its own lane.
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After two decades overseas in major roles at the Financial Times and Washington Post, Anna Fifield returned home in 2020 to edit the Dominion Post. One of the biggest challenges she's faced in the new job has been deliberately obstructive communication work from the public service – and so she's made it her mission to try and change that culture.
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It started as just this side of a joke, in a caravan, calling what was one of the worst ever Black Caps sides. Just eight years later the Black Caps are world test champions and the Alternative Commentary Collective has become one of the most interesting and powerful innovations in New Zealand’s media. Co-founder Mike Lane explains how it happened, and what’s next.
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A research fellow with Te Pūnaha Matatini, Sanjana Hattotuwa has been studying information disorder for two decades. He’s spent the last month watching the occupation at parliament spread and outrate the mainstream media in venues like Facebook Live and Telegram, and explains why Aotearoa has to view this as a sign of things to come.
One year on from taking on a Substack Pro deal, Emily Writes finds herself able to live as a full-time writer for the first time. She joins Duncan Greive to explain how it happened, what it’s done for her life and why writers need to get more comfortable straight up asking for money.
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New observational documentary series Takeout Kids (watch now on The Spinoff) follows the day-to-day lives of four young people growing up in takeaway shops and family-run restaurants. Director Julie Zhu joins The Fold to talk about making the series, how representation alone is not enough and the need to break away from the “exceptional immigrant” narrative.
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In a few short years Joe Daymond went from sleeping on a mate’s couch to selling out Sky City Theatre with his stand-up show, all driven by a very smart and analytical use of social media. But the plan was always to build a TV empire – and with production company West Park, he’s already well on his way.
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After abruptly leaving Magic Talk last year, veteran broadcaster Sean Plunket did something unusual: he started his own radio station. The Platform will be all digital, and has recruited some high profile stars, including Michael Laws and Martin Devlin. What unifies them is a sense that they all feel like the debate in New Zealand has grown too narrow for their taste – and a belief that there is an audience for views which have become far less visible on our major media platforms.
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As the director of news and talk at MediaWorks, Dallas Gurney is responsible for overseeing the launch of Today FM, the company’s new talk radio brand set to replace Magic Talk and, they hope, offer a viable alternative to talk radio giant Newstalk ZB. He joins Duncan Greive to talk about why MediaWorks decided to scrap Magic Talk, the long-term vision behind Today FM and the contentious ERA decision keeping Tova O’Brien off the air until mid-March.
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The Fold is taking a short break over summer. We'll be back with new episodes soon, but until then here's one of our favourites from 2021.
Emma Espiner is a writer, commentator, podcaster and doctor. She won Opinion Writer of the Year at the Voyager Media Awards in 2020, the same year she completed her medical degree – her podcast about that final year as a Māori med student navigating New Zealand's inequitable health system, Getting Better, was then named Best Narrative Podcast at the 2021 Voyagers. In this episode she talks with Duncan about making Getting Better, the way the media interacts with healthcare and how it’s been starting out as a junior doctor in 2021.
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The Fold is taking a short break over summer. We'll be back with new episodes soon, but until then here's one of our favourites from 2021.
Lucy Blakiston is one of three young New Zealand women behind Shit You Should Care About, a media company built around an Instagram account which was started in 2018 to break down the barriers of entry to news and issues. The account now has over three million followers, and the company is branching out into podcasts and the new web series Extremely Online.
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The Fold is taking a short break over summer. We'll be back with new episodes soon, but until then here's one of our favourites from 2021.
While most press gallery journalists go to sleep and dream of politics, NZ Herald's Derek Cheng has another true love: climbing. Duncan first met him at a press gallery party, where he was barefoot, cooking up sausages on a barbecue, and since learning of the journalist’s intense passion for climbing, has been intrigued to find out more. In this episode Derek talks about his climbing, a serious injury that brought him back home to New Zealand and why Covid-19 was such a fascinating time to be in the beehive.
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Hosted by Gone By Lunchtime’s Toby Manhire and featuring representatives from The Real Pod, The Fold, Nē? and Dietary Requirements, SUPERPOD 2021 is the crossover podcast event we’ve been waiting all year for. Join us as we relive the highs and lows and heroes and villains of the longest, shortest year in living memory.
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In the final episode for 2021, The Fold enters monopod formation as Duncan Greive attempts to summarise the last 12 months in the New Zealand media industry. What were the biggest stories, strongest trends and most significant changes, how have all the big players been performing and what does it all mean?
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Comedian Guy Williams became a household name in New Zealand off the back of his regular appearances on Jono and Ben, and has remained on television in a “volunteer journalist” capacity on his own show New Zealand Today. That show now has a spinoff podcast of the same name, which Williams is co-hosting with former guest Karen Hill of viral “wants her $20 back” fame. He joins Duncan Greive to talk about making the show, why a podcast is his logical next step as a “mediocre white man”, and his friendship with Karen.
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Former Wheel Blacks captain Dan Buckingham started out as a researcher and presenter for TVNZ’s long-running disability docuseries Attitude in 2008. Now he’s the CEO of Attitude Pictures and chair of The Attitude Trust, which hosts the annual Attitude Awards. He joined Duncan Greive to talk about on screen representation for disability, which has been described internationally as the “forgotten diversity”, and about Attitude’s new primetime series Down For Love coming to TVNZ next year.
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Cate Slater is the director of content at TVNZ, which last week held its upfronts announcing what’s in store for next year. She joined Duncan Greive to talk about the organisation’s Aotearoatanga journey, a 2022 content schedule with an emphasis on local drama over international reality TV franchises, the rise of digital and OnDemand and the legacy of outgoing CEO Kevin Kenrick.
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Glen Kyne is the SVP and general manager of Discovery ANZ, the new owners of Three. Last week the company had their first ever upfronts revealing what the channel and its wider ecosystem will look like in 2022 and beyond. He joins Duncan to discuss all the big talking points.
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In a very special The Fold / The Real Pod crossover episode, Duncan is joined by Jane Yee to delve into the first ever Discovery upfronts, in which Three’s new owner just announced a bunch of new shows, two new channels and a very reality TV-heavy new direction.
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Though he's lived in New Zealand for more than two decades, Ahmed Osman (Third Culture Minds) struggles to remember ever seeing anybody who looked like him on the screen here. The Somali-New Zealander joins Duncan Greive to talk about how diversity and representation are handled when it comes to media funding, the flow-on consequences that has and the opportunities we’re missing out on as a result. They also discuss Kelvin Taylor’s recent story on The Spinoff: How it feels to be an African-Kiwi on NZ screens.
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Rudy Kokx is the director of Coffee News New Zealand. In this episode he joins Duncan for a chat about how this ubiquitous publication gets made, and their recent decision to get off Facebook.
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Bailey Mackey is the CEO of Pango Productions, the production company behind last Saturday’s eight-hour live Vaxathon. He joins The Fold to tell the story of how they pulled it all together in a little over a week.
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Returning guest Hal Crawford (Crawford Media) joins The Fold for a discussion about Facebook in light of the Wall Street Journal’s recent Facebook Files investigation. What did they reveal, and what can be done about it?
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Tim Worrall and Miriama McDowell are two of the key creatives behind Head High, a critically acclaimed and pioneering drama which just wrapped its second season on Three. The weird news is, instead of discussing where the series might go next, we’re talking about why it just got cancelled.
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Toby Morris’s comics (The Side Eye, The Pencilsword) have been making an impact in New Zealand for some time, but his collaborations with Dr Siouxsie Wiles communicating public health messages around the Covid-19 pandemic went truly global. Released under Creative Commons, these illustrations have been used by governments worldwide and ultimately the World Health Organisation. At the same time as all this, along with becoming The Spinoff’s creative director and starting Daylight Creative, he also managed to write a book: Dad Man Walking. In this episode he tells Duncan Greive about the book, the Covid-19 illustrations and how he has developed his distinctive style of comics journalism over the years.
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Samson Samasoni started his career as a journalist in the 1980s, went to work for the Ministry of Pacific Island Affairs, then had a long and fascinating career in communications around the world, working in locations as diverse as Saudi Arabia and Tokelau before returning home to specialise in communicating to Pasifika. In this episode, we discuss NZ on Air's Where are the Audiences research, the Covid-19 vaccine rollout and how government and media can better communicate with modern Aotearoa.
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Janet Wilson is an experienced journalist and public relations consultant who last year took on the role of chief press secretary for the National Party during their ill-fated election campaign, working first under the leadership of Todd Muller, then Judith Collins. In this episode she joins Duncan Greive for an explosive interview in which she discusses Collins' leadership as a threat to the party's very existence, and assesses both the bizarre 2020 campaign (the prayer, the Ponsonby Road walk) and the way the party has ignored the lessons of its drubbing in favour of an autocratic focus on loyalty tests.
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MONOPOD! An in-depth look into some shocking new audience data – and what it means for all of us. Duncan Greive goes solo this week, taking a deep breath before diving into the latest edition of 'Where are the Audiences?', a fascinating annual piece of research commissioned by NZ On Air. It's 46 gushing minutes which seek to try and understand what has happened to our media consumption over the last seven years.
The Fold couldn’t be made without the support of The Spinoff Members. Find out how to join at members.thespinoff.co.nz
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Dylan Cleaver is one of New Zealand’s most acclaimed sports writers, with over 25 years experience at the NZ Herald. A couple of months ago he left the Herald to start The Bounce, a new thrice-weekly sports newsletter, via Substack. He joined Duncan Greive over Zoom this week to talk through the move, how sports journalism has changed in recent years and his investigations into the hidden toll of head injuries in rugby.
The Fold couldn’t be made without the support of The Spinoff Members. Find out how to join at members.thespinoff.co.nz
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Danyl Mclauchlan is a Wellington based writer. He wrote politics blog The Dim Post back in the blogging era and now writes regularly for The Spinoff, where his recent review of Andrey Mir’s book Postjournalism and the Death of Newspapers. The media after Trump: manufacturing anger and polarization was published. In this episode he joins Duncan Greive over Zoom to discuss the concept of postjournalism, engaging with the world of effective altruism, Simon Bridges’ new book and more.
LINKS
Things fall apart: why journalism might not survive what’s coming next
Communism by stealth: notes on conservatism, neoliberalism, social investment, and a UBI
Tranquillity and Ruin (VUP)
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Jon Wild was the series producer and director of The Apprentice Aotearoa – an old-fashioned one-night-a-week series in the era of multi night reality behemoths, and one of the most fun-to-watch New Zealand reality TV series in a long time. In this episode he tells Duncan Greive about making that show, as well as New Zealand's Next Top Model and The Bachelor, the importance of casting and the way the New Zealand character feeds into our reality TV.
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Emma Espiner is a writer, commentator, podcaster and doctor. She won Opinion Writer of the Year at the Voyager Media Awards in 2020, the same year she completed her medical degree – her podcast about that final year as a Māori med student navigating New Zealand's inequitable health system, Getting Better, was then named Best Narrative Podcast at the 2021 Voyagers. In this episode she talks with Duncan Greive about making Getting Better, the way the media interacts with healthcare and how it’s been starting out as a junior doctor this year.
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Dan Ahwa is the creative director at Viva magazine, the NZ Herald’s fashion, beauty, food and wellbeing publication. The title has been running since 1998 and stands out among other newspaper-inserted magazines for how well-crafted and curated it is, with its own distinct aesthetic and values. In this episode, Dan talks to Duncan about surviving the pandemic cutbacks last year to launch a new glossy quarterly publication, holding space for lifestyle content within a predominantly news-focused organisation and being a Samoan New Zealander working within fashion and mainstream media.
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Musician and actor Troy Kingi is half way through an ambitious mission to release 10 albums in 10 different genres over 10 years. He joins Duncan Greive on The Fold this week to talk about the project and making his latest album Black Sea Golden Ladder, his mixed feelings about appearing on The Masked Singer NZ earlier this year, the changing music economy and what it’s like being an artist during this era of closed borders.
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Lucy Blakiston is one of three young New Zealand women behind Shit You Should Care About, a media company built around an Instagram account which was started in 2018 to break down the barriers of entry to news and issues. The account now has over three million followers, and the company is branching out into podcasts and the new web series Extremely Online.
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Qiane Matata-Sipu is a journalist, photographer, podcaster, entrepreneur and activist. In 2019 she launched Nuku Women, a multimedia project with the ambitious goal of interviewing and photographing 100 indigenous wāhine. As one of the founders and spokespeople of SOUL (Save Our Unique Landscape) she has also played an important role in occupying and protecting Ihumātao. In this episode she reflects on what she learned being on the other side of the media equation and what makes Nuku such a hard but rewarding project to work on.
Find Qiane's work at nukuwomen.co.nz and qiane.co.nz
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Duncan Greive speaks to comedian James Roque about filming his hugely ambitious crowdfunded stand-up hour Boy Mestizo. He is unashamedly trying to sell it to Netflix, and believes its examination of his identity as a Filipino New Zealander will have appeal far beyond these shores. He also talks about being part of the guessing panel on The Masked Singer NZ, the absence left by Jono and Ben – and why New Zealand needs its own late night show.
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Duncan Greive sits down with Metro editor Henry Oliver, art director Kelvin Soh and food editor Jean Teng to discuss the resurrection of the legendary title. The team just released the third and best issue since its independent revival after the dramatic collapse of Bauer. They talk about the extraordinary new design scheme, reimagining the tense school rankings, how Auckland's cafe scene is changing and a pleasingly buoyant ad market.
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On this week’s episode of The Fold, Duncan Greive talks to the New Zealand Herald’s deputy political editor Derek Cheng.
While most press gallery journalists go to sleep dreaming of politics, Derek Cheng has another true love – climbing. Duncan first met him at a press gallery party, where he was barefoot, cooking up sausages on a barbecue, and since learning of the journalist’s intense passion for climbing, has been intrigued to find out more.
In this episode Derek talks about his climbing, a serious injury that brought him back home to New Zealand, and why Covid-19 was such a fascinating time to be in the belly of the beehive.
So far this year on The Fold, Duncan Greive has spoken to a number of the media's top dogs, gaining insight into how the media runs from a business standpoint. Today we're changing the scope with the launch of our Creator series, featuring conversations with the people on the ground, the ones actually making the media we all consume.
First up, Duncan talks to Kirsty Johnston, senior writer at Stuff. Kirsty is known for her investigative journalism, writing in-depth about domestic violence, abuse in state care and education over the last decade.
In this episode she talks about the mayhem of working in the New Zealand media industry, why she's passionate about telling stories at an individual level and why writing behind a paywall didn't work for her.
It's been two years since the NZ Herald website launched its premium offering, the first New Zealand media brand to do so. In that time head of premium Miriyana Alexander has learnt a lot about what New Zealanders want from their news, and she joins Duncan Greive to talk about it on this episode of The Fold. They also discuss why The Herald chose their particular hard paywall model and whether that's something they've ever considered changing, the end of the front page, how social media is changing the way traditional media functions and more in a wide-ranging conversation.
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In this week's episode of The Spinoff's media podcast The Fold, Duncan Greive talks to TVNZ CEO Kevin Kenrick about the much talked-about RNZ/TVNZ merger, and Kenrick hints at a paid subscription offering for the TVNZ OnDemand service that could be hitting the market soon.
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Rachel Zhou and Angelina Del Favero were just 14 when they started publishing imPower magazine. The first two editions – focusing on family harm and modern slavery – were sent to every secondary school in the country. Now 17, they're working on a third all about body image.
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In this week's episode of The Spinoff's media podcast The Fold, Duncan Greive talks to Special Group founder and CEO Tony Bradbourne about the changing world of advertising, going global and making a Superbowl ad.
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This week on The Fold, Duncan Greive talks to broadcasting and media minister Kris Faafoi about funding journalism, putting the audience first and a public media merger.
We get to talk with a lot of people in the centre of New Zealand's media industry on this podcast, now we speak to the man representing the media in the Beehive. Kris Faafoi took over the broadcasting and media portfolio after the resignation of Claire Curran in 2018. Duncan Greive talks with the minister on this episode of The Fold about taking up the portfolio and the work he's done in the media industry since.
They talk about Māori and Pasefika representation, the public interest journalism fund and the proposed RNZ/TVNZ merger. Faafoi also talks about media consumption and the rapid shift from linear television to on demand and international online offerings that are now taking over viewing habits.
This week on The Fold, Duncan Greive talks to Jason Paris, Vodafone's CEO.
After pulling their advertising from Magic Talk in the wake of John Banks' racist comments airing, Vodafone developed an entire policy for ethical advertising. Their CEO Jason Paris tells Duncan Greive about that decision and how it happened so quickly, as well as their new-ish policy on honouring the Treaty.
He and Duncan also talk about the 5G rollout and what it will actually mean for most people, and how Vodafone TV is simplifying the streaming experience.
In this edition of The Spinoff’s media podcast The Fold, Duncan Greive talks to Cam Wallace, MediaWorks' CEO about Magic Talk, The Rock and the future of commercial radio.
Cam Wallace worked at Air New Zealand for almost two decades before he left last year amid the turmoil of Covid and all it brought upon the travel industry. Just months later as ex-MediaWorks CEO Michael Anderson announced his departure from the role, Wallace was revealed to be the next-in-line.
Just three months into his new job, Wallace has already made some waves in the company, kicking John Banks off air after Banks made racist comments on Magic Talk and now dealing with allegations of sexual abuse made against workers at various stations under MediaWorks.
He talked to Duncan Greive about his move into media and how radio just keeps surviving, this week on The Fold.
In this episode of The Spinoff’s media podcast The Fold, Duncan Greive talks to ex-head of news at Mediaworks, Hal Crawford, who's just completed a review into the NZ Media Fund.
The NZ Media Fund was introduced by New Zealand On Air in 2017 to cover television, radio, music and online media, in hopes that it would more successfully represent the growing diversity of media than past funds. Now, three years later, former Mediaworks head of news Hal Crawford has conducted an independent review into this fund, hoping to grasp the industry's feelings about how the money is being spent. He joins The Fold today to talk about what he learnt about New Zealand's unique media landscape and why this review was important.
Today on The Fold, Duncan Greive talks to The Spinoff's Justin Latif about reporting from South Auckland.
Through his career Justin has developed a passion for reporting stories from his home in South Auckland. He chats to Duncan about where that passion came from, why his role is so important and whether the media has been fair on South Auckland communities in the past.
Justin also ponders whether the Local Democracy reporters' scheme will make a difference to regions with low media coverage and reflects on the many roles he's held in the industry, and out of it, since he started at Fairfax in the mid-2000s.
Today on The Fold, Duncan Greive analyses a shocking development in the global pushback against big tech.
Facebook has made the monumental decision to block all people and publications in Australia from posting news content, after a long battle between the Australian government and the social media giant.
The implications of this action are already being felt as many Australian-based Facebook pages are shut down, and the potential implications could change how people around the world access news.
On this episode of The Fold, Duncan Greive explains how it got to this point, and what could happen next for Australia's news media.
In this episode of The Spinoff’s media podcast The Fold, Duncan Greive is joined by Hamish McKenzie, co-founder of Substack.
For years, the media landscape has been filled with publications making money by filling up ad space. While an effective mode of funding for the already underfunded sector, Hamish McKenzie saw an alternative. Alongside co-founders Chris Best and Jairaj Sethi, McKenzie developed Substack, an online platform for writers to send newsletters directly to paying subscribers.
In the three years since its inception, the platform has become host to some of the most well-known names in New Zealand and international journalism, including Vox co-founder Matthew Yglesias and local writer David Farrier, and some writers are making a lot of money from subscriptions.
Today on The Fold, McKenzie joins Duncan Greive to talk about a new era of publishing, driven by readers, not ads.
In this edition of The Spinoff’s media podcast The Fold, Duncan Greive is joined by Ali Mau, Stuff senior journalist and creator of New Zealand's own MeToo movement.
In 2017, the MeToo movement brought some of Hollywood's elite crashing down under allegations of serious sexual abuse and misconduct. One year later, journalist Ali Mau brought the movement to New Zealand when she launched #MeTooNZ with a team at Stuff.
Her goal was to bring to light stories of misconduct and abuse within our own borders, and in the three years since she's reported these stories from victims in many industries, from fast food to academia.
In this episode of The Fold, Ali Mau joins Duncan Greive to explain how her career has led her to the point she's at now, defend talkback radio, and praise the bravery of those who allow her to tell their stories.
The Fold is taking a break over the summer. We'll be back with new episodes soon, but until then we're republishing some of our favourite interviews of 2020. This week: Duncan talks with Bernard Hickey.
First published November 6, 2020.
Working at the intersection of politics and economics, Bernard Hickey is one of the most interesting and unique journalists in New Zealand today. As you’ll hear in this episode, he possesses a rare ability to make even the most mysterious or boring-sounding topics within these areas feel urgent, exciting and accessible.
His latest venture in a long career (he’s one of the founders of Interest.co.nz, has held senior roles in the Fairfax/Stuff Business team and was one of the founders of Newsroom, and that’s just the tip of the iceberg) is The Kākā, a daily email which allows him to respond to unfolding stories in close to real time.
To talk about why, as well as get stuck into government policy toward the media and the New Zealand media market, the wage subsidy, Stuff’s recent acquisition and more, he joined Duncan Greive in the studio for a no-holds-barred, boots’n’all episode of The Fold.
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The Fold is taking a break over the summer. We'll be back with new episodes soon, but until then we're republishing some of our favourite interviews of 2020. This week: Duncan talks with Stuff CEO Sinead Boucher after she bought the company for $1 back in May.
First published June 24, 2020.
The chaotic couple of weeks which finally saw the end of the Stuff-NZME saga were riveting and strange, replete with stock exchange announcements, legal challenges and finally the acquisition of New Zealand’s most-viewed news platform by its CEO for just $1.
Six months after she appeared on the very first episode of The Spinoff’s media podcast, The Fold, I had Stuff CEO – and now Stuff’s sole owner – Sinead Boucher back to the show. She recounts those extraordinary few weeks, from the collapse of Bauer NZ, to just how brutalised ad revenues got in lockdown, the bailout package and the strange forces impacting journalism during level four.
Sinead casually reveals what happened behind the scenes during those hectic times, and plots out the future for Stuff – New Zealand’s biggest employer of journalists, and the closest thing to a truly national news network that exists in this country. For those in and around the media, who watched the maneuvering of our two print media giants with awe and popcorn, it’s a pretty fascinating hour.
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The Fold is taking a break over the summer holidays. We'll be back in the new year, but until then we're republishing some of our favourite interviews of 2020. This week: Duncan talks with Gaurav Sharma from The Indian Times about the communities NZ's media doesn't serve.
First released July 7, 2020.
I first met Gaurav Sharma in the aftermath of March 15. New Zealand and the world has gone through so much trauma since then that it feels much further away than the 15 months which have elapsed since. He was there for another meeting, but afterwards a colleague said we had to meet, and we spoke for a half hour or so, and he talked to me about the impact of the attacks on the migrant community. Sharma edits the Multicultural Times, which grew out of the Migrant Times, each one a newspaper dedicated to telling stories about and for a community which he argues persuasively for being underrepresented in New Zealand’s media.
His own story is a microcosm of that – an engineer by training, he switched to journalism 12 years ago in India. He arrived in New Zealand five years ago, and found its society and his chosen profession entirely closed off to him. Hence starting two businesses.
He’s now associate editor ofThe Indian News, a weekly newspaper which he has broadened to include coverage of other immigrant communities within New Zealand. I asked him up to The Fold, my monthly podcast covering media within New Zealand, to talk about his own journey within New Zealand journalism, March 15, and his considered and powerful critique of New Zealand media. It’s a confronting conversation at times, but I think one which Pākehā like me within the New Zealand media need to hear to help us understand who we’re creating journalism for, and who we’re missing out.
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The pandemic put unbearable pressure on New Zealand’s media this year, but also saw it gain larger and more engaged audiences than ever before. In a year-ending monopod, Duncan Greive wraps his head around what it all means.
I've tried to capture the sweep of this incredible year by drilling into the news organisations, journalists and other players in the ecosystem. Broadly it felt like a year in which, under some of the most extreme duress imaginable, journalism rediscovered its purpose, and both the public and government felt that too. So for an hour I went solo, taking the monopod format and going deep on the following topics:
- Google and Facebook’s epic battle with Australian regulators, and what that means for New Zealand.
- Sinead Boucher and Stuff’s triumphant year, from buying the company for $1 to the historic apology and everything in between – while still having questions over its future.
- The contrasting strategy of NZME, which is clearly more focussed on business than editorial at this point.
- The continued rollercoaster that is Sky, which started the year by buying Lightbox and ended it by losing its CEO (while gaining a very promising new one).
- A holding pattern for RNZ, which tried to change and found New Zealand’s most powerful NIMBYs camped on its lawn.
- TVNZ deftly using its dominance to huge advantage – owning the local space, becoming the unquestioned winner of the free VOD platforms and positioning itself to be the main player in the suddenly-back-on RNZ/TVNZ merger.
- A series of coups for Mediaworks, selling the TV arm to Discovery and installing Air NZ’s Cam Wallace as CEO of the new radio and outdoor company.
- The unexpected vitality of the indie media space after the collapse of Bauer.
It’s all hyper-nerdy, but if you are, tragically for you, into this sort of thing, then there’s a solid hour of me talking at you about this heart attack year for our media. Merry Christmas, I guess?
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Pour yourself some eggnog and join the hosts of The Spinoff’s podcast network for our annual Superpod round up of the year that was.
Representing Gone By Lunchtime, Dietary Requirements, The Real Pod, Papercuts, The Fold and On The Rag our hosts dive into the key events, issues, heroes and villains of 2020.
From National’s botched election campaign to Ben Thomas’ take on TikTok, via the collapse of Bauer, the rise of oat milk, with a detour through controversial frozen grapes and Simon’s Sausage Spot, there’s something for everyone in this year’s Superpod. Featuring special guests producer T and Covid-19.
The outgoing director of grassroots community campaigning organisation ActionStation joins Duncan Greive to talk about a busy few years in the job.
ActionStation was formed in 2014, but it feels like they’ve been around much longer than that. The independent, crowdfunded community organisation has led a number of highly visible and successful campaigns across a wide range of issues during the last six years, thanks in no small part to the energy and forward thinking of its outgoing director Laura O’Connell Rapira.
In her time the group has carried the conversation on everything from mental health to making Matariki a public holiday in a way that feels distinctly modern, online and media-savvy. To talk about what’s worked, what hasn’t, the highlights of the role and what’s next, Laura O’Connell Rapira joined host Duncan Greive on this week’s episode of The Fold.
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This is episode one of Coming Home, a new five-part podcast series from The Spinoff podcast network, in partnership with Kiwibank. We're sharing it with you here because we think if you like The Fold you might find this interesting too. Have a listen and subscribe on your platform of choice to hear the rest of the series. New episodes arriving weekly.
Coming Home delves into the phenomenon of high achieving New Zealanders returning to Aotearoa in the era of Covid-19. Join hosts Duncan Greive and Jane Yee as they seek to find out who these returnees are, why they left New Zealand in the first place, the reasons for their homecoming and what their arrival means for all of us. Featuring Peter Gordon, Julia Arnott-Neenee, Paul Spoonley, Jarrod Kerr, Rachel Morris, Joel Kefali, Polly Fryer and Mahoney Turnbull.
NZ Rugby is in a fascinating situation at the moment, with some big calls to be made over the coming years. The man in charge of making them joins Duncan Greive on this week’s episode of The Fold.
Mark Robinson probably has one of the most complex jobs in the country. As CEO of NZ Rugby he’s effectively the boss of everything from the All Blacks and Black Ferns to the clubs, the head of an organisation that has many, many different stakeholders.
He only came into the job about nine months ago, which meant he was just getting his feet under the desk when Covid hit and threw the whole rugby season a massive dummy. The pandemic didn’t just disrupt the match schedule – it seemed to bring a lot of the sport’s underlying issues to the surface as well.
This obviously makes the CEO’s a much harder one than it would have been even a few years ago. NZ Rugby is in a fascinating situation, and decisions made under Mark Robinson’s tenure could make or break the sport’s future in New Zealand.
To discuss this situation, as well as talking about Match Fit and what he admires about the NBA’s marketing model, he joined Duncan Greive for this week’s episode of The Fold.
This week on The Fold, journalist Bernard Hickey joins host Duncan Greive for a wide-ranging chat about the challenges faced by New Zealand media and why he’s launched a new subscription-only daily email.
Working at the intersection of politics and economics, Bernard Hickey is one of the most interesting and unique journalists in New Zealand today. As you’ll hear in this episode, he possesses a rare ability to make even the most mysterious or boring-sounding topics within these areas feel urgent, exciting and accessible.
His latest venture in a long career (he’s one of the founders of Interest.co.nz, has held senior roles in the Fairfax/Stuff Business team and was one of the founders of Newsroom, and that’s just the tip of the iceberg) is The Kākā, a daily email which allows him to respond to unfolding stories in close to real time.
To talk about why, as well as get stuck into government policy toward the media and the New Zealand media market, the wage subsidy, Stuff’s recent acquisition and more, he joined Duncan Greive in the studio for a no-holds-barred, boots’n’all episode of The Fold.
From winning two world cups with the Black Ferns to heading up TVNZ’s sports and events department, Melodie Robinson’s career has been one full of remarkable firsts. She joins host Duncan Greive to talk about it on this week’s episode of The Fold.
When the Ministry of Education decided to start a children’s educational channel during the first lockdown earlier this year, the job fell to the TVNZ department that had just found itself with not a lot of work on – sports and events. General manager Melodie Robinson and her team threw together the prop, got the contract and ended up setting up the entire channel in about 10 days.
That’s just one remarkable story in a career full of them. Robinson started out in journalism as a press gallery reporter for Mana News, before moving into sports production at XtraMSN. She broke barriers as a rugby commentator presenter during a long career at Sky Sports, before moving into a new role at TVNZ.
It’d be fair to say Robinson has seen some things and faced some challenges in her time at these institutions – and has some of the best stories in the business to show for it. She’s been a dream guest for The Fold since the podcast began, and we’re delighted to finally get her on for a chat this week.
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The Spinoff’s new(ish) political editor Justin Giovannetti joins Duncan Greive to share his impressions from a hectic first six months on the job – and in New Zealand.
When Justin Giovannetti interviewed for the job of political editor at The Spinoff, from Canada, the world was quite a different place. In the time it took for him to work out his notice with national newspaper The Globe and Mail, a global pandemic shut borders, grounded flights and threw everyone’s plans for the year into disarray.
How Justin made it to New Zealand at all is a story for another podcast. This week on The Fold he joins Duncan Greive to talk about the baptism under fire that has been reporting on New Zealand politics for the first time in the middle of an election year, in the middle of a pandemic.
New Zealand’s press gallery and political reporting style is pretty different to Canada’s – so what have been the weirdest things he’s had to get his head around, and what are his main impressions, as a newcomer, of this punishingly long election campaign?
Former NZ Women’s Weekly editor Sido Kitchin joins The Fold’s Duncan Greive to talk about starting School Road Publishing and launching a whole new stable of magazines following the collapse of Bauer Media.
Sido Kitchin loves telling New Zealand women’s stories. An important figure in the magazine industry, she edited the New Zealand Women’s Weekly until earlier this year, when the collapse of Bauer Media brought it and a lot of other popular titles to an abrupt end.
The six months since have been a period of regeneration for the magazine industry, with a number of new independent publishers, titles and websites blooming. Perhaps no one has moved as hard and fast as Sido Kitchin, who has set up School Road Publishing and established not just one but four new titles – Woman, Haven, Thrive and Scout.
She joined The Fold host Duncan Greive in the studio this week for a chat about this tumultuous year, what it was like starting with a blank canvas and why the first issue of Woman is more true to her vision than any magazine she’s ever edited before – plus what it was like being a TV publicist in the golden era of big budget broadcast television.
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The Fold host Duncan Greive speaks to NZ On Air’s new chief executive Cameron Harland about his first six months in the job and the findings of the recent Where Are the Audiences? report.
Cameron Harland started his new job as the chief executive of NZ On Air in March, the week before the country went into level four lockdown. Duncan has wanted to get him on The Fold to pick his brain about the ins and outs of NZ On Air’s unique funding model ever since.
In a follow-up to the previous episode of The Fold, which looked at the highlights of NZ On Air’s recent Where Are the Audiences? survey, Cameron Harland joined The Fold via Skype from Wellington this week to talk through the findings of the survey, how NZ On Air is adapting to serve increasingly fragmented audiences, and the challenges of operating through Covid-19.
Christmas has arrived early for The Fold host Duncan Greive – this week NZ On Air released Where are the Audiences?, a biannual survey of audience behaviour in New Zealand media.
The report is unique in the way it attempts to measure the behaviour of such a diverse set of audiences across all media consumption. This year’s edition shows New Zealand at a crossroads, with digital media overtaking traditional media in largest daily audiences for the first time.
It goes without saying that Duncan has already read the whole report from cover to cover. In this monopod edition of The Fold he picks out the most interesting data points, and discusses the seismic change it represent for the New Zealand media landscape.
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One of New Zealand’s most voracious consumers of local news media joins Duncan Greive to reveal the secrets behind his popular daily newsletter.
Most days Alex Braae starts work at approximately the same time as a dairy farmer. But instead of hopping on a quad bike to go and milk a shed full of cows, he sits down at his computer to read a figurative shed full of news. The end product is just as important to a lot of people’s morning routines as a cold bottle of blue top milk – it’s The Spinoff’s daily newsletter The Bulletin.
Since it started in 2018, The Bulletin has developed a loyal following among its more than 25,000 subscribers by collecting and distilling all the most important stories from across the New Zealand news landscape into a single email that hits inboxes at 7am every morning. But exactly how Alex does it remains a mystery to even his closest colleagues.
He joins The Fold host (and his boss) Duncan Greive on this month’s edition of The Fold to explain the process behind the curation and creation of The Bulletin, discuss the state of New Zealand journalism (as someone who consumes more of it than most) and delve into the obsession with local democracy and minor parties which led him to embark on a Jucy campervan tour of the regions before Lockdown 2.0 hit.
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The associate editor of The Indian News joins host Duncan Greive to discuss his belief that New Zealand’s media ignores the quarter of our population not born here – and why both parties lose as a result.
I first met Gaurav Sharma in the aftermath of March 15. New Zealand and the world has gone through so much trauma since then that it feels much further away than the 15 months which have elapsed since. He was there for another meeting, but afterwards a colleague said we had to meet, and we spoke for a half hour or so, and he talked to me about the impact of the attacks on the migrant community. Sharma edits the Multicultural Times, which grew out of the Migrant Times, each one a newspaper dedicated to telling stories about and for a community which he argues persuasively for being underrepresented in New Zealand’s media.
His own story is a microcosm of that – an engineer by training, he switched to journalism 12 years ago in India. He arrived in New Zealand five years ago, and found its society and his chosen profession entirely closed off to him. Hence starting two businesses.
He’s now associate editor ofThe Indian News, a weekly newspaper which he has broadened to include coverage of other immigrant communities within New Zealand. I asked him up to The Fold, my monthly podcast covering media within New Zealand, to talk about his own journey within New Zealand journalism, March 15, and his considered and powerful critique of New Zealand media. It’s a confronting conversation at times, but I think one which Pākehā like me within the New Zealand media need to hear to help us understand who we’re creating journalism for, and who we’re missing out.
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It will justifiably be lost in the tumult of Covid-19, but the chaotic couple of weeks which finally saw the end of the Stuff-NZME saga were riveting and strange, replete with stock exchange announcements, legal challenges and finally the acquisition of New Zealand’s most-viewed news platform by its CEO for just $1.
Six months after she appeared on the very first episode of The Spinoff’s media podcast, The Fold, I had Stuff CEO – and now Stuff’s sole owner – Sinead Boucher back to the show. She recounts those extraordinary few weeks, from the collapse of Bauer NZ, to just how brutalised ad revenues got in lockdown, the bailout package and the strange forces impacting journalism during level four.
Sinead casually reveals what happened behind the scenes during those hectic times, and plots out the future for Stuff – New Zealand’s biggest employer of journalists, and the closest thing to a truly national news network that exists in this country. For those in and around the media, who watched the maneuvering of our two print media giants with awe and popcorn, it’s a pretty fascinating hour.
He started as a journalist, became a producer, and is now one of NZ’s most successful TV creators. Bailey Mackey joins Duncan Greive on The Fold.
This month’s episode of The Fold, The Spinoff’s media podcast, features host Duncan Greive in conversation with Bailey Mackey, a TV producer with one of the most interesting CVs in the entertainment industry. Mackey grew up in and around Gisborne, and got his start in broadcasting on Radio Ngāti Porou, before hitching to Auckland to audition for Te Karere. When he arrived he wore a suit two sizes too small, and saw Julian Wilcox auditioning for the same job. They both got the job, with Wilcox becoming an on-screen legend, while Mackey gravitated towards production, and eventually to reality TV, where he learned from the master – Julie Christie.
Mackey was then a highly successful head of sport at Māori TV before launching his own businesses, first Black Inc and latterly Pango, which aims to take Māori storytelling to the world. His career has been stunningly successful, with the creation of hit shows in New Zealand like the huge but unjustly maligned The GC and Sidewalk Karaoke, a format sold to Fremantle, along with a slew of other shows created here and watched globally. Greive spoke with him about how you sell a show, what New Zealand does right and wrong in the screen trade, and the business as it is right now, decimated by Covid-19, but boiling with opportunity too.
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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 it seems, like so many things, a quaint concern from a different time. The impact of Covid-19 has been so vast that there is no other news agenda – simply 'how the virus is impacting X'. Even Thursday's decision by the Christchurch mosque terrorist to change his plea to guilty had a notable Covid-19 dimension, as his victims were largely unable to face him in court – and thus what would have been the biggest story of any other month felt like it flashed by.
Yet for all the global pandemic's power as an engulfing news story, it's the impact on the media business I discuss on March's The Fold. There's a huge paradox in its relationship to the media, in that all of us are seeing record ratings, which in normal times would lead to big revenue spikes – but because almost no client is advertising, the opposite is happening. Journalists are working harder than ever, serving bigger audiences than ever, but the bottom is falling out of the business in a completely unprecedented way.
It's also making our work different: instead of being in our podcast studio in Morningside, I recorded it under a towel at home. And instead of a guest, I simply relayed my own thoughts. Literally everything has changed in our society now, and the media has had a supply, demand and operational shock up there with the best of them.
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In episode three of The Spinoff's media podcast The Fold, host Duncan Greive speaks with Toby Manhire about the RNZ Concert fiasco and whether there's space for another youth-focused media brand in New Zealand.
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In episode two of The Spinoff newish media podcast The Fold, host Duncan Greive conducts an exit interview with Hal Crawford, the departing head of Newshub.
Hal Crawford landed into a TV3 newsroom in crisis in 2016, just after Campbell Live had been axed, and Hilary Barry had resigned. He had been hired by Mark Weldon, the much-maligned CEO who oversaw a transformation at MediaWorks, from a news-first organisation, to one whose schedule was increasingly dominated by reality TV – but Weldon himself resigned before Crawford even started.
He was born and raised in Perth, cutting his teeth in print before going on to lead 9MSN, at onc ethe most-read news site in Australia, and one away from the swaggering centre of Australia news media. At TV3 he had a brutal learning curve, coming from a purely digital newsroom out of the public eye, to lead a TV-centred team with big stars and personalities. He oversaw the creation of the Newshub brand, the launch of The Project and The AM Show and an increasingly desperate atmosphere as he and his CEO Michael Anderson pleaded for government intervention to save the channel and newsroom.
So far, no dice – the channel is officially for sale, and while there are rumoured to be a number of strong bidders, no announcement has been forthcoming. Crawford describes his time there was essentially a long series of crises, but almost grew to enjoy the adrenalin of it.
Beyond MediaWorks, we discuss the rise and evolution of Facebook, whether ad-funded media has a future and what has happened to TV ratings over the past ten years. Few people in our media are smarter, or speak more freely – listen below or through your favourite podcast provider.
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Host Duncan Greive is joined by Stuff CEO Sinead Boucher to discuss the media monster's growth from an experimental website, to its queasy peak and the current more purpose-driven iteration. Along the way she revealed a number of fascinating insights into the reality of running a news organisation at scale in 2019, including the fact that of the 150,000 comments readers attempt to post each month, a full third are rejected for violations. This brutal task is accomplished by human moderators – in striking contrast to the laissez faire attitude of Facebook. Plus her thoughts on the sale of Three, the ComCom decisions and the proposed RNZ/TVNZ merger.
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