MEDIAWATCH: As someone banned from RNZ for life, here’s what they should be doing
The review into RNZ is scathing.
Look.
What do I know?
I was banned for life from RNZ for supposedly defaming John Key.
What do I know?
I predicted the end of Today FM and Newshub.
What do I know?
I am Editor of the largest Left Wing blog in the country and am an award winning Political Podcaster.
But what do I know?
Here’s what I know.
RNZ is an important and vital structure in the Fourth Estate obligations of our Democracy and as a cultural taonga needs to be properly funded to perform those obligations.
The killer insight to the report is the belief from them all that live listening is a sunset industry, which is the same mindset for TV.
They forget their power is as live.
The truth is that the bland safe mediocrity they serve up isn’t worth listening to live.
Here’s what should happen.
RNZ focuses on being a live news network the way the BBC is.
The pips at the countdown to the news should become the entire advertising campaign.
Remind everyone that it is hourly agenda setting .
They do live news reports on the hour for half an hour with the remaining 30minutes interviews or 30 minute programs.
These interviews and programmes can be loaded up onto their social media feeds.
Lean into live and make what you are producing important enough to listen live.
On the hour live news bulletins breaking down what is happening makes RNZ worth listening to.
RNZ’s news gathering is its strength, make that the focus rather than the shows which are bloated ego wanks at the best of times.
This is what the BBC do and they make it an incredibly powerful driver, you know on the hour you are getting a live bulletin of the most important events happening right now.
Make the content appointment listening, set the agenda for Christ’s sakes, have some fucking ambition you pampered Wellington fucks!
You can see why I was banned for life.
They believe everything is purely for the downloadable.
It’s not news, it’s stories Welington’s middle class elite tell themselves that are the narratives.
Look at their online downloadable content and it’s a middle class wank where politics is an aesthetic.
It’s a lifestyle section for the perpetually present and mindful.
A depoliticised space of property owning middle classes lost in an ever diminishing viewership because the only pricks who want to be present are the middle classes living in leafy suburbs.
I’m waiting for the next podcast to be a vegan guide to feminist ethical non monogamous cycle etiquette in Te Reo.
News not stories.
Hold the powerful to account, that’s the job of RNZ and live is their advantage.
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Well, a main-stream news agency providing comprehensive breaking news and meaningful analysis is certainly a field without competition.
Solid suggestions that will be ignored and instead we will be subjected to someone being interviewed for being a one-legged Cook Island albino lesbian vegan.
Are you predicting or fantasising JB? These days it is often the same thing. I think that we have so many great people around Kiwiland who we should know about but the gummint doesn’t want us to meet them because ‘when two or three are gathered together’ you don’t know what marvellous ideas might arise for change.
KJVKing James Bible: For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.
A big problem is the quality of the presenters. Gone are the genuine authoritative tones – we now have the poor pronunciation of Corin, the mind numbing boredom of Jessie and the grating, annoying faux-colloqiualness of Lisa. I miss the old RNZ.
Not to mention the insipid tittle tattle prattle from Ingrid
You are getting predictable, have another thought?
I try not to spend time reading or listening to airy fairy actors in politics and writers of bumf. Wondering what you are Jack.
Here’s a brilliant article on the state of this government, I say this because it most certainly isn’t “our”…
https://newsroom.co.nz/2025/08/23/anne-salmond-who-is-this-government-working-for/
nah just repeating stories from the wire services and NZ Herald while firing their only employees with any spine (Mick Hall) should work well, it’s got them this far
RNZ should be hands off from politicians as as we have seen from ACT and NZ LAST ,if they point out that the government has fucked up ,they are defunded .That is not free speech .Being able to openly report what is happening in our world should not be at the behest of a couple of wankers who represent 10% of the population .
Doing that takes on ZB, however, they’ll choose comfort, and kiwis will just choose ZB
Since when was the colour of the princess of wales hair a major world news story ,shows how shallow we have become .While the country is being destroyed bit by bit the best main stream media can come up with as a headline is the color of some ones hair .Fuck me are we so desperate ?
RNZ’s slow demise began three decades ago when two Australians and then ex-journos ran the show. There was no room for careerist broadcasters with years of know-how. Now it has reached the stage when it may well die – or sold off.
Probably on CoC’s list of state assets they’ll sell if re-elected.
NZ’s Public Radio looks like going the way of American Public Radio, courtesy of Trump.
Willie J had his chance of reviving it, but muffed it!
All very, very sad!