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Newsroom
3 hours ago
- Newsroom
Boy in the Water, The Detail win national podcast awards
The Boy in the Water won best true crime podcast and The Detail won best news and current affairs podcast, for the second consecutive year, at the 2025 radio and podcast awards. Held annually, the awards recognise excellence in all areas of commercial and non-commercial radio broadcasting and podcasting. Winning best true crime podcast is another accolade for Newsroom's investigations editor Melanie Reid, producer Bonnie Sumner and editor Dave Filoiali'i. The team also won best podcast and best investigation at last year's Voyager Media Awards. The Boy in the Water examines events surrounding the death of a young boy in the southern town of Gore. Lachie Jones was found floating face-up in the town's oxidation pond by a police dog and its handler in January 2019. He was deemed to have died by accidental drowning but Reid's investigations have spotlighted serious deficiencies in multiple police investigations and the autopsy performed on the three-and-a-half-year-old. Melanie Reid with Lachie's father Paul Jones at the Gore oxidation ponds. Photo: Grant Findlay The podcast has had more than three and a half million downloads and is about to enter its fourth season on Newsroom's podcast channel, Delve. Reid and her team will be in Invercargill on Friday June 13 when Coroner Alexander Ho releases his findings from the inquest he held last year. 'It is great to win this category and have our team recognised for the hard work that has gone into the series. For us, The Boy in the Water is about trying to answer the unanswered questions – it's about system failure, shoddy police work and the dynamics of life in a small town like Gore,' says Reid. The Detail, produced by Newsroom for RNZ, beat a strong field to win best news and current affairs podcast. The Detail team of Amanda Gillies, Gwen McClure, Davina Zimmer, Alexia Russell and Sharon Brettkelly. Photo: Supplied The other finalists were Kim Hill wants to know for RNZ, Front Page for NZ Herald and another Newsroom podcast, Fractured – also produced by Melanie Reid and Bonnie Sumner. The Detail team of Sharon Brettkelly, Amanda Gillies, Alexia Russell, Gwen McClure and Davina Zimmer produce six podcasts a week that are published on multiple platforms including Newsroom, RNZ, Apple and Spotify. The podcast looks at the story behind the big stories making news. Producer Alexia Russell says 'we aim to speak to the person in New Zealand who knows the most about the issue we are looking at; or the journalist who has covered it at length and can offer an over-arching and unbiased view. A comment we received last week, that The Detail was a young person's introduction to good journalism, made us very happy. 'Our hope is that we can contribute to raising the news IQ in Aotearoa.' The Detail's entry included episodes on the sinking of the NZ Navy vessel Manawanui, the growth of controversial Chinese online retailer Temu and a look back at the impact TV3 News had over its 35 years of broadcasting. Both of Newsroom's award winning podcasts are supported by funding from NZ on Air. In May, Newsroom's Jonathan Milne won the Voyager Media Awards honour for best original podcast for his international investigation Powder Keg, with Mike Wesley Smith. He was also named business journalist of the year. In other awards: In the same way it has dominated the commercial ratings, Newstalk ZB had a strong night – winning Station of the Year for the fifth consecutive time. Niva Retimanu won best newsreader and the station's drivetime host, Heather du Plessis Allan won the coveted Sir Paul Holmes Broadcaster of the Year award. RNZ's Alexa Cook won best news journalist and Kate Green won best new talent – journalist. RNZ podcasts took out the honours for best society and culture (Nellie's Baby), and science and culture (Our Changing World). The public broadcaster also won best news story, best documentary for The Last voyage of the Rainbow Warrior and best children's programme for Suzy Cato's Suzy and Friends in a POD-cast and best daily or weekly factual feature for Our Changing World. Best local station went to More FM, Northland and independent station of the year was won by Radio Tarana.
Newsroom
22-05-2025
- Politics
- Newsroom
Regional journalism boost at RNZ expense: ‘The bleeding hasn't stopped'
Pipped at the post for community newspaper of the year at this month's Voyager Media Awards, Ashburton Guardian managing editor Daryl Holden consoled himself by chatting with Media Minister Paul Goldsmith. He badgered the minister about the open justice scheme, under which media giant NZME was granted $3 million in 2021 for a dozen specialist court and legal affairs journalists, spanning from Whangārei to Christchurch, as well as editors. The scheme's partners included Otago-based Allied Press, which ran a rival community paper in Ashburton. 'I said how our area and the central South Island, and probably through to the West Coast, had missed out with the existing open justice system,' said Holden, who co-owns the paper. 'It was a little bit frustrating.' Fast-forward to Thursday's Budget, and Goldsmith announced he was expanding the open justice team, and local democracy reporting (LDR), which has 16 publicly funded journos in newsrooms, including the Ashburton Guardian, to cover local councils. 'Well, there you go,' Holden said, post-Budget, with Mid Canterbury understatement. 'We were always confident that the LDR scheme would continue, and that's all the noise we'd heard about it. But the extension of the open justice system, and particularly that emphasis in the press release about regional journalism, that is a surprise, and that is fantastic news for a newsroom like us. 'It can be monumental if we've got sort of funding to be able to fill gaps in our news coverage.' One of the biggest complaints Holden heard about the Guardian before he started in March 2021 was the lack of court coverage. He was asked: Is it too controversial? 'We just couldn't afford to hire anyone,' he said. 'Having that funding to be able to do that is important for democracy. It shows if you do something really wrong, that perhaps it could get covered in the newspaper to show people that democracy is working.' The Government announced $6.4m in new funding, over four years, to boost council, court, and community reporting. 'It will get funding into regional newsrooms so that more local frontline journalists can report on the things that matter to their audiences,' Goldsmith said in a statement. 'If NZME is struggling, and if Stuff is struggling, it doesn't take Einstein to work out that smaller community newspapers must also be doing it tough.' Daryl Holden, Ashburton Guardian Gavin Ellis, the former NZ Herald editor-in-chief, who reviewed the open justice and LDR schemes for the previous government in 2023, said: 'That's a good move, and I think it'll be generally applauded.' There was less cheering, perhaps, for Goldsmith's other announcement – cutting state broadcaster RNZ's annual budget by 7 percent, or $4.6m a year, to $62.3m. 'Government-funded media must deliver the same efficiency and value-for-money as the rest of the public sector,' the minister said, while noting RNZ's annual budget increased $7.3m in 2020, and $25.7m in 2023. The cuts were imposed over four years, for a total of $18.4m. Conan Young is a journalism lecturer at University of Canterbury, who worked for RNZ from 2004 till 2023. His last role there was as local democracy reporting editor. He said the broadcaster spent some of its new money on hiring top journos, like national crime correspondent Sam Sherwood, and strengthening its investigative team. 'You'd certainly say their journalism is a lot more muscular.' But the full benefits were yet to flow through, Young said. 'For RNZ to be on the brink of something quite special and really important, given the state of newsrooms around the rest of the country, to hear about this huge funding cut is really gutting, not just for RNZ, but for journalism in general.' As the MediaRoom column reported last year, RNZ has experienced an online surge, with its monthly unique readers skyrocketing from 422,000 in September 2018 to 1.56m in August 2024. But big media companies – struggling because overseas-owned digital platforms are hoovering up advertising revenue – can see RNZ as a subsidised rival, taking away their online audience. 'There might not be any love lost there,' Young said. Yet RNZ has become a news distributor akin to the now-dead NZ Press Association, funneling free copy to those who want it, including its supposed rivals. In the context of the Government's overall budget, $18.4m is tiny, he said, but it's a huge cut for RNZ, constraining its ability to invest in journalism. 'It seems incredibly mean-spirited, and almost not really reading the room, in terms of where media is at the moment,' Young said. 'There are so many things the Government could be doing to actually make a difference, such as getting tech platforms to actually pay their fair share for the content that they use to bring in their audiences.' The phrase mean-spirited might conjure up memories of last month's abrasive performance on RNZ's Morning Report programme by Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters, who told host Corin Dann: 'The fact is, you're paid for by the taxpayer and sooner or later we're going to cut that water off, too, because you're an abuse on the taxpayer.' After Thursday's Budget, the Act Party trumpeted the cuts in a newsletter to supporters, saying: 'Additional savings have been found in all parts of government: from cuts to 'bilingual cities', more debt collection from legal aid recipients, and a reduction in funding for RNZ.' Ellis, the former NZ Herald news boss, said there may be a political motive behind the RNZ funding cut – 'not by National but by the other coalition partners, I don't know'. Peter Thompson, associate professor in media and communications at Victoria University of Wellington, is vice chair of the advocacy charity Better Public Media. He said the cut 'looks a little bit like political retribution'. 'I'd really like to believe that's not the case but, really, National is showing its true ideological colours. It really doesn't seem to like public media.' A responsible Budget, as the Government tried to paint it, wouldn't have undermined public media when the industry was in crisis, he said. To muddy the waters somewhat, Young, the university lecturer, doubted Peters had a hand in the funding cut. 'Everybody knows that he actually loves the media, and he would love nothing more than to come on Morning Report and be interviewed – in fact he does, quite regularly.' (Newsroom asked Peters' office for comment on Thursday evening.) Goldsmith, the Media Minister, told Newsroom: 'Funding decisions are made by Cabinet as part of the usual annual Budget process. Budget decisions are not made by individual ministers.' Despite RNZ 'operating in a period of tightened fiscal constraint' – which, several commentators said, was actually a political choice – Goldsmith expected the public service broadcaster to improve audience reach, trust and transparency. Ellis responded: 'It's rather counterintuitive to think that you could do that by cutting budgets.' The broadcaster would try to protect its newsroom, he believed, but given its tight budgets, and little wiggle room, it may have no choice but to leave vacancies unfilled. 'Over the four years that this is supposed to be enforced, it will have the effect of cutting their newsroom resources.' Young, of the University of Canterbury, said he would be surprised if journalist jobs were lost as a result of the cuts. In a statement, RNZ board chair Jim Mather said: 'While we are naturally disappointed with a funding reduction, we acknowledge the Government's fiscal challenges at present as well as the headwinds affecting the wider media sector. We will now carefully review our plans to ensure we continue to strengthen trust with audiences and provide outstanding public media that matters for New Zealanders.' Merja Myllylahti, a senior lecturer at the AUT research centre for journalism, media and democracy, co-authored the recently released Trust in News report, in which RNZ was perceived as the country's most trusted brand. While the minister demanded value for money, RNZ was already showing value, Myllylahti said. 'It's expanding online quite rapidly, and it has become a major news hub for the online news as well. Personally, I feel it's not the right time to cut [funding].' When budgets were cut, spending reduced, and that hit newsrooms, she said. 'Normally it's journalism and journalists who suffer.' She believed more should be invested in public service journalism. In Finland, where Myllylahti is from, the public broadcaster, Yle, employed 3000 staff and had an annual budget of about €600m ($NZ1.15b), for a country of about 5.6 million people. Right now, however, its funding is being cut, and hundreds of jobs might go. Lara Greaves, an associate professor of politics at Victoria University of Wellington, said cuts to RNZ, or media funding in general, stretched already thin resources, to the benefit of politicians. But it wasn't just media funding being chopped. Greaves noted cuts to research and academia, including 'those who criticise the Government as a routine part of a healthy democracy'. 'Taken together, this is all quite worrying.' Thompson, of Better Public Media, said the $18.4m cut to RNZ should be viewed in the context of RNZ's funding freeze under John Key's National-led government. 'Much of the extra funds that it received under Labour was really putting right a much, much longer structural problem.' For years, Better Public Media has been advocating for the Government to impose a small levy on digital services, expanding the telecommunications levy. For example, Thompson said, if there was a 1 percent levy on roughly $2 billion of digital advertising that would generate $20m a year for journalism. Thompson said strong public media supported democracy, and an informed public, by creating a media entity not beholden to advertisers and mass audiences. Publicly funded media could fill gaps not covered by struggling commercial businesses. One supposed solution to the industry's funding woes was Labour's Fair Digital News Bargaining Bill, but Thompson preferred the levy model. It's hard to predict the Government's next move. While in opposition, the National Party called Labour's bill a shakedown, but then, in July last year, Goldsmith said the coalition would make changes and pass it by the end of the year. Except it didn't. Progress on the bill was paused before Christmas. On Thursday, Goldsmith said 'modern legislation' would ensure the media sector was financially sustainable for years to come. 'I am considering submissions from the recent consultation on media reform.' More information would be released 'in the coming months'. Let's return to Ashburton Guardian's Daryl Holden, who was relishing the prospect of applying to NZ on Air for more funding. Last year, he told Parliament's economic development, science and innovation committee the media industry was bleeding to death. Since then, TV3's Newshub closed its newsroom (Stuff now provides its bulletin), and there's been a wave of newspaper closures, and layoffs. 'The bleeding hasn't stopped,' Holden said, after the Budget. 'Let's put it like this – if NZME is struggling, and if Stuff is struggling, it doesn't take Einstein to work out that smaller community newspapers must also be doing it tough.'
The Spinoff
20-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Spinoff
The Fold: Winners and losers from the Voyager Media Awards
Recapping the Voyager Media Awards, the latest developments in the NZME saga, a big financial boost for movies, and The Spinoff's own major editorial news. Glen Kyne joins Duncan Greive on The Fold to recap a significantly smaller but somehow considerably better Voyager Media Awards. (Apologies to Gulf News and NZ Geographic, each of which had notable wins which didn't get mentioned). Next they discuss the latest, potential the final developments in the NZME board coup saga, before addressing a big financial boost to inbound movie subsidies – and The Spinoff's own major editorial news.
Otago Daily Times
16-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Otago Daily Times
Campaign ‘journalism at its best'
Otago Daily Times editor-in-chief Paul McIntyre (left) accepts the award for best editorial campaign or project from host Jeremy Corbett at last night's Voyager Media Awards in Auckland. The ODT had a successful night, also winning metropolitan newspaper of the year as well as individual wins for illustrations editor Stephen Jaquiery (best photography — news) and reporter Matthew Littlewood (local journalist of the year). PHOTO: SUPPLIED Thehas won four awards at the Voyager Media Awards, including metropolitan newspaper of the year. The ODT also won best editorial campaign or project, illustrations editor Stephen Jaquiery won best photography — news and Matthew Littlewood was named local journalist of the year at the awards ceremony in Auckland last night. Editor Paul McIntyre said he was "immensely proud" of the results and that it was testament to the exceptional work from the newsroom over the past year. "Above all, I'm immensely proud. You can't win these awards without the hard work from our team of dedicated journalists across the region — it's a real team effort. "Our focus is on providing readers with the stories that matter across a range of topics. We are part of the community and we want to celebrate as well as challenge what is happening in the community." The judges said: "The Otago Daily Times has traditionally been very strong with regional news, and this continues in a time of constrained newsrooms. It matches this with excellent coverage of major news events, including the October floods, the Dunedin hospital decision, and very sensitive reporting of the bus stop stabbing. A clear winner." Mr McIntyre was particularly pleased with the best editorial campaign win for the "Our Health is Priceless" campaign entry, which the judges described as "campaigning journalism at its best". "The day of the march against cuts to the new Dunedin hospital when 35,000 took to the streets was a reminder that the media has the power to move people and make a difference. Our coverage in the year prior to the march and online throughout the day ensured our readers were aware of the proposed cuts to the new hospital," Mr McIntyre added. The judges said: "In a tightly-contested category, 'Our Health is Priceless' had the edge for its laser focus on holding the government to account over the future of Dunedin Hospital. Bold front page treatments and scoop after scoop kept locals informed, and the community was mobilised to march in the streets." On the wins for illustrations editor Stephen Jaquiery and reporter Matthew Littlewood, Mr McIntyre said their portfolios of work proved they were worthy winners in their categories. Judges praised Mr Jaquiery's work and said they felt he "best demonstrated the overall skill of a news photographer". For Mr Littlewood's entry, which included stories on the new Dunedin hospital, the judges said, "this is excellent local reporting with national impact". — APL
Newsroom
16-05-2025
- Business
- Newsroom
Newsroom's Jonathan Milne wins two national media awards
Senior Newsroom journalist Jonathan Milne has won two standout honours at the national Voyager Media Awards – declared business journalist of the Year and winner of best original podcast for his international investigation PowderKeg. Milne, who is managing editor of the Newsroom Pro subscriber newsletter and section, won praise from judges of both awards for his investigative and story-telling talents. Those judging best business journalist said: 'Jonathan's entry shows he can break big stories, develop and use a wide range of contacts, and write a great article. But we were particularly impressed by his podcast, Powder Keg, which saw him chasing a story – and a recalcitrant high-flying Kiwi CEO – from Invercargill to Colombia and finally a Mexican beach resort.'xxxxx Milne edits the daily Newsroom Pro newsletter 8 Things, an essential morning briefing on policy, the economy, business and politics. He has broken major stories on infrastructure, water, construction, local government, primary industries and resources. Milne accepting the award for business journalist of the year. Photo: Fox Meyer A separate panel of Voyager judges for best original podcast – one of the most significant awards in this era – said: 'Powder Keg starts with curiosity and ends with an investigation spanning continents and making global news. Jonathan Milne with Mike Wesley-Smith meticulously researched every angle of the compellingly told AG1 nutritional supplement story. His efforts uncovered local scams, led to the resignation of the CEO, revelations that it was not 'Made in NZ', and complaints to the US Food and Drug Administration. Indeed, Jonathan put his 'body on the line' by taking the product as part of the investigation. This podcast has international impact and exposes the supplement industry.' PowderKeg was co-reported/produced by Mike Wesley-Smith and edited by Dave Filoiali'i, and Megan Cumberpatch, the project overseen by Newsroom co-editor Mark Jennings. The podcast was made possible by a generous grant from the Brian Gaynor Foundation, supporting public interest business journalism. The 11-episode Powder Keg series, which launched on Newsroom's Delve podcast platform late in 2024 has had more than 410,000 downloads. You can listen to it, now open to all, here. It investigates the $1.2b supplement company AG1 and its elusive founder 'Chris the Kiwi' Ashenden, now resigned, his criminal past and business dealings. It also examines the company's use of social media influencers and the lack of scientific evidence behind the marketing of the nutritional supplement. Powder Keg was lauded by a Fortune magazine writer as 'brilliant' and 'meticulously reported'. Milne, a highly regarded former political editor and editor of the Sunday Star-Times and Cook Island News, regards the podcast as 'the best thing I've done in 28 years in journalism.' He says it's important those using the $100-a-month superstar-backed supplement are aware of its questionable science. Mike Wesley Smith and Jonathan Milne accepting the Best Original Podcast award from host Jeremy Corbett. Photo: Fox Meyer Powder Keg won from a field including finalists Juggernaut by Toby Manhire of The Spinoff and Uncut Diamond Daniella by Daniella Smith and Dane Giraud, for RNZ. The two other finalists for best business journalist were Nicholas Jones, now of Stuff, and Nikki Macdonald of Stuff. Newsroom political reporter Fox Meyer was a finalist for the up and coming journalist award, won by Bonnie Jansen of the NZ Herald. Industry awards included: Best digital platform – Newspaper of the Year – Herald on Sunday Best investigation – Darleen Tana saga, Stuff Scoop of the Year* – Darleen Tana saga, Stuff Best current affairs video (short-form) – Children of Prisoners, TVNZ, Indira Stewart The main individual awards: Reporter of the year – Anusha Bradley, RNZ News journalist – Michael Morrah, NZME Sports journalist – Dana Johannsen, RNZ Political journalist – Andrea Vance, Stuff Photographer – Iain McGregor, Stuff Feature writer – Charlie Mitchell, Stuff Columnist – Joel McManus, Spinoff Video journalist – Zoe Madden-Smith, Re-news/TVNZ One finalist for the Scoop of the Year award was withdrawn, late, by media firm NZME after legal issues with NZ Herald stories submitted about a Tipene Funerals employee convicted of interfering with human remains and obtaining by deception.
