They think you're stupid.

"overwhelming defeat" is when you lose by a point and a half (historically narrow) www.nytimes.com/2025/11/06/u...

Seriously pretending to have an opinion every day must be the worst part of that job.

Mike's Minute: Did Luxon just have a leadership-defining moment?

Mike Hosking is doing so much wanking over Luxon his columns should be labelled as pornography

NewstalkZB: "The Leighton Smith Podcast: Guy Hatchard shares insight on the COVID-19 vaccine; "Biotech cannot be allowed a right to secrecy" THE LEIGHTON SMITH PODCAST Newstalk ZB,Wed, 22 Apr 2026, 9:35am"

This is your reminder that a) NZME continues to promote anti-vaccine views and b) Leighton Smith is not dead.

Remember: Tucker Carlson was too extreme for *Fox News*. And yet we have our biggest media site just casually telling you to watch his show and legitimising his views.

I can't wait for some poor Stuff columnist to wonder how so many Kiwis have gone down a conspiracy rabbit hole.

Stuff: WATCH: Tucker Carlson drops Trump bombshell during podcast April 21, 2026 • 5:07pm The former MAGA loyalist says he is "sorry for misleading people' to vote for the US president as their rift deepens."

Stuff continues its trend of promoting right-wing extremists, this time with Tucker Carlson's podcast.

The "bombshell" the mention appears to be either him apologising for endorsing Trump, or questioning a donor giving Trump 250m if he'll run for a third term, something Trump admitted to in Dec.

Far North councillors vote to expand controversial Māori liaison committee More than 100 people, many carrying flags and home-made banners, gathered outside the Far North District Council chambers in Kaikohe ahead of the vote.

Yes an Act party candidate. And this is only a ‘scandal’ in the view of right wing media (via Duncan Garner’s podcast) who’ll do their best to try to make it one, even as the public comes out in support of it.

www.rnz.co.nz/news/te-manu...

Articles about Jared Kushner's diplomatic role with Iran that mention Kushner has received billions from the Saudi government (2/28-4/19):

NYT: 5 of 58
WashPost: 1 of 43
WSJ: 0 of 40
AP: 0 of 26
CNN Wire: 0 of 18
NY Post: 0 of 17
Chicago Tribune: 0 of 4
LA Times: 0 of 4
Boston Globe: 0 of 2

"Mike's Minute: The issue the Govt promised to address ON AIR Mike Hosking ,Tue, 21 Apr 2026, 10:46am You'll be aware of the Far North Council and their unelected Mãori voting plan. It is of course a scandal, but more importantly it is part of the overall de- Mãorification of the economy this current Government, in one form or another, promised to address."

Mike Hosking, who regular opens his mouth and Shane Jones' words come out, unsurprisingly doesn't take the opportunity to call out Jones' racism today and instead indulges in some more himself.

What is this framing my times?!

NZ Herald: "'I have the numbers': Luxon adamant he has support of National caucus Christopher Luxon may face a difficult two weeks back at Parliament."

Sorry, but this is just journos wanting to show off their savviness. We get it, you've got good gossip, but it's not actual reporting, is it? I don't see the benefit to the public of every political journalist spending time on this rather than, say, the policies affecting their lives.

Kiwi founded shoe company Allbirds pivots to AI Codon Dann, Business Editor A local tech commentator says Kiwi founded Allbirds' surprise pivot from making merino shoes to AI chips is not as crazy as it sounds.

NZ media has a sort of reverse Tall Poppy syndrome when it comes to kiwi businesses and celebrities, being way too forgiving and lenient if they’re perceived as “doing well overseas”. This was such an obvious scam and RNZ acted like it was legitimate.

Derek Cheng, NZ Herald: "It's unknown how many lost their jobs because of the vaccine rules, or were excluded from social or school activities, or felt coerced into getting vaccinated, or were ostracised as conspiracy theorists or anti-vax for not wanting the jab due to known - but rare - health risks."

So lacking evidence the vaccines were harmful, Cheng and the Herald are left to focus on the effects of the 3-month you-can't-socialise mandate. So we get more "unknowable" opinions like this in what is meant to be a fact-driven story.

NZ Herald: "The number of 12- to 17-year-olds who suffered from heart inflammation because of a second or third dose is also unknown. A Herald analysis of the Medsafe data suggests there were dozens of cases in 2022, though whether they were caused by the vaccine is unclear; a Covid infection is generally considered more likely to cause heart inflammation than the vaccine. One 13-year-old died of myocarditis in a case where the coroner could not rule out the vaccine as the cause. It’s also unknowable how many young people might have avoided such inflammation if they’d had no doses, or only one. This hasn’t stopped some parents from believing their heart-inflamed children would never have got sick if they’d avoided a second dose."

See how "dozens of cases" from Cheng's earlier story –which meant hardly any, as it was out of up to 400,000 – now implies "lots of cases" here. And while it's "unknowable" how many people might've avoided illness (I assume less than dozens), what is knowable is more died without it.

NZ Herald: "Ashley had been unable to partake in her usual sporting and social activities: playing tennis at an indoor venue, or joining friends at the Dunedin cinema, swimming pool or ice-skating rink. Ashley’s mother, Paula Beulink, had done her own research and didn’t want Ashley to get the jab because of the risk of heart inflammation. But she respected Ashley’s decision when her daughter decided the social and sporting costs were too great. “The next morning [after dose two], she woke up complaining that her chest was really sore, like the stitch when she breathed in,” Beulink told the Herald. “It was radiating up into her neck and her jaw.” Ashley was eventually diagnosed with vaccine-induced pericarditis, missing school for most of the first term in 2022, heading to the ED when the pain heightened, and becoming one of the 1740 successful ACC claims for vaccine-related injuries. The incentive – or coercion, as some described it – was similar for the teenage sons of Wellington-based teacher Marie Butel."

Despite very few cases, Cheng manages to find two families and build his story around their experiences. Which is fine, but not representative of what most people went through. And he doesn't make it clear enough in this story imo that the vaccine was overwhelmingly safe.

NZ Herald: "How risky has it been? A Herald analysis of how the myocarditis risk materialised over time suggests that only a tiny proportion of the 12-17 age group - dozens out of up to 400,000 - were affected. The Herald looked at the period from the start of 2022, the earliest time that policy changes might have been made, had the right advice gone to the right people at the end of 2021. The period ends at the end of November 2022, the most recent available data in the latest Medsafe Covid-19 vaccine safety report. For the 10-19 age group (there is no breakdown for the 12-17s), there were 33 cases over this period following a second or third dose of the Covid vaccine: 17 for myocarditis, 16 for pericarditis (inflammation of the sac surrounding the heart). This paints an indicative picture, not a definitive one. There may be cases that were never reported, and of those that were, there may not be any causal link between the second or third vaccine dose and the myocarditis/pericarditis."

I normally rate Derek Cheng but the issues with his story is he's reeeeally trying to stretch a scandal out of nothing. As he admits in an earlier story, there were very few cases of myocarditis or pericarditis, and we don't know how many of those were even caused by the vaccine.

NZ Herald: "Ostracised, angry and heart- inflamed: Families vent over Covid vaccine rules"

I thought for a moment the NZ Herald was re-running some of their old Covid material but no, this is new, and another attempt to try and smear Hipkins and Labour before the election.

The Post: "Business Left-wing lobby group sets out case for sweeping tax reform Tom Pullar-Strecker"

Oh are we identifying the ideology of lobby groups now? That's great! I look forward to the NZ Initiative, Free Speech Union, Taxpayers' Union, and every bank economist being called right-wing in the headlines of their numerous self-generated stories from now on.

They tried so hard to make this headline shorter but there just wasn’t a way to do it.

It's up from last year, so it's arresting a trend, but yeah, it's silver lining stuff. The survey authors caution NZ's trust levels are still appallingly low (international average is 40%).

Yeah it started out as a digital news report based on Reuters' one so they could compare NZ with the rest of the world, so it was just Stuff originally. It's expanded quite a bit. This was the original result from the 2020 survey.

Full report here: www.jmadresearch.com/_files/ugd/a...

Shayne Currie, Media Insider, NZ Herald: "In two years, the Herald has leapt from fourth spot to the No 1 position as a news source after respondents were asked which news brands they had used in the previous week. The Herald (52%) headed off Stuff (51%), TVNZ (50%), RNZ (35%) and ThreeNews (21%). ThreeNews’ percentage has more than halved since 2024." Graph showing NZ's most popular news sources

NZME's Shayne Currie (ironically) attempts some spin here, focusing on NZ Herald's uptick as a news source.

Unsurprisingly, NZ Herald has picked up some of Newshub's audience, considering they hired their key talent like Ryan Bridge and Sarah Bristow (Newshub's director of news) when that closed.

Table 1: Trust (0-10) for Aotearoa New Zealand news brands by mean score, with RNZ, Otago Daily Times and TVNZ at the top.

The Trust in News survey once again reveals the most trusted media in NZ are state-owned or independent. And 43% of respondents say their trust in the media would decline if owners/boards or managers were to interfere with editorial decisions.

Again, not great news for the NZMEs of the world.

Figure 1: Proportion of New Zealanders trusting "most of the news most of the time" Trend: Trust news "most of the time" Strongly agree/tend to agree 53% 48% 45% 42% 37% 33%* 32%. 2020 2021 2022 • Strongly agree/tend to agree 2023 2024 2025 Trend: Trust news "most of time" 2026

The Trust in News survey shows trust is up slightly, with one cause being AI slop leading people back to trusted news sources. Also people don't like AI-produced journalism.

Of course NZME and Stuff are using AI right now. So they can't really crow about the results.

I'd urge Mike to imagine if his "offshore children" had to evacuate his home because of a cyclone the media warned him about, maybe then he could exhibit some empathy.

Of course, if Mike was capable of empathy he wouldn't be as successful in right-wing media as he is.

Mike Hosking, NewstalkZB: "Part of it is that nothing happens, which is why one of our offshore children was telling us how ridiculous this country looked to him and his mates this past week melting down about the cyclone that wasn’t. Not the actual weather, or the bits that got hit, but the mad buildup. The endless, angst-driven hyperbole as day after day the media told us to take action, run for our lives, pack a go-bag, duck for cover and change our travel. From the other side of the world, they could not believe what too many were turning this into. His conclusion is we are so small and literally nothing happens, so we need to invent stuff and upon receipt of some weather we went to town on it. "

You might remember Mike Hosking & his wife Kate Hawkesby downplayed the "hysteria" about Cyclone Gabrielle (which people died in) but if you thought they felt any guilt about that, guess again: here's Mike today complaining about the "hyperbole" of Cyclone Vaianu (which also caused a lot of damage)

NYT Covers Iran War With No Reporters in Iran The New York Times' lack of on-the-ground coverage in Iran has directly resulted in slower coverage and confirmation of US/Israel culpability for deadly strikes.

NYT Covers Iran War With No Reporters in Iran - fair.org/home/nyt-cov...

I still find it funny that the logic behind these stories being "news" seems to be "See? It's possible to buy a house! (if you have wealthy parents/can live rent-free for years)".

At a certain point that's no longer news or there's an entirely different story you should be telling.