It Looks Like the Herald is Going Paywall

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#2080339 28-Aug-2018 16:06

quickymart: Sad really, as Mike Hosking didn't used to be like that.

People have to be polarising to get ahead these days. Few people want common sense, middle ground or consensus. Contention between polar opposites is the name of the game. All manner of discrimination is dressed up as advocacy, opinion and debate.

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#2080367 28-Aug-2018 18:11

I remember him on the Radio New Zealand commercial days (yes, I'm showing my age here) early in his career, and he definitely wasn't like he is today. A pity really.

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#2081281 30-Aug-2018 11:12

I get so bored with the overly simplistic trashing of both Stuff and NZH, and of the apparent complete lack of quality journalism in NZ, on this site - this thread is a classic example.

There are good journalists that work for, and there is good reporting that come from, both of these companies' newspapers and websites.

That this content is typically lost and therefore difficult to find - particularly on the websites - amongst the rest of the content seems to leave people with the impression that nothing of value is produced by either company. That's just cr@p.

Whether there's enough good (so-called 'premium') content produced by the NZH to justify a paywall for such content is a different matter - and I'm sceptical that there is enough such content, especially given the sense as to what they'll charge for this compared to the charges of truly quality sites like the NYT.

I also think the Herald needs to shoulder much of the blame for the impression it is totally without any quality content, given its new website has to be one of the worst media sites around - and, to my impression, is day-by-day increasingly dominated by click-bait headings of such drivel that the site and app are just not worth using. I find it's a much better experience reading the actual paper - which I do so for free via using the PressReader app (access provided by the local library).

And, for those who whinge about the lack of good journalism in NZ, how about checking out the sites of, and signing up for the daily emails, from Newsroom and The Spinoff? (The latter includes links to interesting content from other sites as well). Or the less frequent email from Noted (includes articles from The Listener, North and South etc)? Every day I read a number of decent articles or opinion pieces linked to from these emails - if not immediately, I just save them for later reading via Pocket. And of course there's RNZ.

So, yep, there's decent content out there - and it's not hard to find. But, then again, that would remove one of the favourite topics of NZers to whinge about...

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#2081288 30-Aug-2018 11:20

+1 for The Spinoff

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kryptonjohn

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#2081361 30-Aug-2018 13:38

SaltyNZ:

+1 for The Spinoff

It seems more magaziney than newsey. The self description screams out the same problems as the Herald and Stuff:

"Launched in 2014 The Spinoff is New Zealand’s fastest growing online media brand producing content that’s smart, funny and provocative. "

I'd prefer "accurate, topical and informative" and can leave out the "smart, funny and provocative".

... and "We’ve assembled a team of agenda-setting journalists and critics, working across text, audio and video to create a true 21st century media brand"

No no no. I don't want critics nor journalists setting agendas. I just want the news please. Every time they bleat "brand" I get cold.

networkn

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#2081364 30-Aug-2018 13:45

-1 for The Spinoff. I just tried to read some articles, my eyes hurt.

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#2081627 30-Aug-2018 19:02

kryptonjohn:

It seems more magaziney than newsey.

It is more of a magazine than a daily newspaper and it is slanted more towards opinion than straight fact reporting, but it has quite insightful articles often written by guest experts in the field. Opinion articles are not automatically worthless dreck merely for being opinion articles.

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#2081634 30-Aug-2018 19:31

I don't really find the Spinoff to be a news site.

It's more a magazine-style platform full of opinion pieces from social justice warriors.

Which has a place in the wider media universe I guess. But I'm more interested in informative news than opinionated babble.

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#2081635 30-Aug-2018 19:37

The Newsroom seems more like a news source than the Spinoff.

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#2081651 30-Aug-2018 20:16

Newsroom is a great site for news, and it's a real tragedy that it doesn't seem to be attracting much of an audience. interest.co.nz also has some great financial and political coverage, although I find the ads on that site quite intrusive and I think people who contribute to their crowd funding should be exempt from the ads.

The Spinoff is not a news site, but for magazine style content I find it well delivered even though I disagree with a lot of what they publish. It is very much left leaning, but I try to consume a range of sources across the political spectrum.

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#2081658 30-Aug-2018 20:32

IMHO the negative comment of journo's is wrong. Say there was an air crash, or a meteor soars over Russia, Yellowstone magma chamber erupted, thats all news fed to our local websites, its real. Stuff will have that. So read it. Stuff may also have articles on the Kardashians, so read that too, unless you want real news. so dont read it. News sites are now like magazines. Read the news and dont read the "magazine" news. If aliens landed here, the news will be the same from CNN as it will from Stuff, its imported. But CNN may well not have the treehouse issues from a few weeks ago... or that a cycle lane hurt a cat.

Time to get a bit real, read the news you want to, even CNN has trivial infotainment.

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#2081661 30-Aug-2018 20:35

Or if you want non fake news, Fox Extra.......:-) That should be regulated to be TV, not news

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#2081693 30-Aug-2018 22:25

jonathan18:

I get so bored with the overly simplistic trashing of both Stuff and NZH, and of the apparent complete lack of quality journalism in NZ, on this site - this thread is a classic example.

There are good journalists that work for, and there is good reporting that come from, both of these companies' newspapers and websites.

That this content is typically lost and therefore difficult to find - particularly on the websites - amongst the rest of the content seems to leave people with the impression that nothing of value is produced by either company.

I largely agree with you. David Fisher's recent piece on justice reform (published on a Sunday a couple of Sundays ago I think) was excellent. That said, the really good investigative pieces are so few in number. As an illustration, load up the Stuff app and note how the piece on Gail Maney has consistently lived on the home page for over a month.

IMO, the general news report of the Herald and Stuff, beyond the obvious fluff pieces, are passable but barely. They can't hold a candle to serious newspapers overseas but probably aren't as terrible as they are made out to be. Some of the critiques about the Herald and Stuff (and the posters from whom those come) are particularly ironic when one notes that large leaps of logic that are frequently seen in those posters' posts.

I would also say that the likes of Newsroom, RNZ and The Spinoff are (IMO) filling the gap for more intelligent investigative pieces and opinions nicely.