A high profile defamation threat recently cast a young New Zealand satirist into the public eye. Te Waha Nui talks satire with some of the genre’s leading practitioners. On April 23 Conservative Party leader Colin Craig threatened defamation over an article published in an online satirical newspaper, The Civilian. The article falsely quoted the conservative [...]

For writers Joanna Mathers and Lucy Mullinger, freelancing is a fun and flexible alternative to the nine-to-five office shift. They join a growing number of journalists pitching their ideas to magazines or working on commission for international clients, as media organisations look to outsource the feature articles that were previously prepared by staff writers. Freelancing [...]

Musician and mental-health worker Johnny Matteson’s latest album has been sent to community radio stations around New Zealand to help fight ongoing stigma towards people with mental illness. With the help of the Like Minds, Like Mine education programme, Matteson’s biography and the album Songs of the Streets have been posted to 33 community radio [...]

Despite expert predictions that newspapers are in demise, the New Zealand Herald’s figures are showing growth in its print edition readership. The Herald’s editor, Shayne Currie, says readership increased from 531,000 daily readers to 539,000 in the first quarter of this year. Mr Currie says it is encouraging to see people are still including the [...]

Contradiction in children’s films today made it very difficult to see the sexism behind them, says a psychology lecturer from the Auckland University of Technology. Dr Pani Farvid said because of the second wave of feminism a lot of films would incorporate feminist ideals into their characters, but they would still maintain their “heterosexual desirability”. [...]

There’s a ute driving around Auckland that might have caught your attention. It is Terralink’s StreetCam3D in action, a vehicle with a space age sensor that’s mapping your street in three dimensions. Terralink, a land and property information provider, imported the technology from the USA. It is the first mobile 3D mapping unit in New [...]

As an AUT graduate becomes one of the latest targets of suspected anti-media violence, media rights advocates are calling on journalists in New Zealand to better appreciate their privileged position. Samoa Observer reporter Lanuola Tusani Tapufia was among three female journalists threatened while reporting on a traffic accident, the newspaper reported on Thursday. One of the three [...]

Investigative journalists are calling for new models of funding to fill a gap in the industry where the private sector has failed. Nicky Hager, author of The Hollow Men and Other People’s Wars, says there is not enough support for investigative journalists in countries like New Zealand. “I hope that one day there will be [...]

A former AUT journalism student working for Māori Television says it is “awesome” the broadcaster is sending her back home to Hawkes Bay to broadcast local stories. Aroha Treacher, who reports for the station’s nightly te reo news programme, Te Kāea, will begin presenting stories from Heretaunga, starting July 8. “Now that I’ve spent so [...]