The infamous Daily Blog Media Awards 2025

The NZ Media.

They were always the voice of corporate interest and neoliberal mythology and when everyone was making money from selling each other houses it was fine, but then covid ripped the security blanket from many who fell down rabbit holes and that collective anger turned on NZ media and we’ve been screaming abuse at them ever since.

Newshub gone, the entire news service from Māori TV gone, TVNZ News gone, Fair Go gone, 14 regional newspapers gone, Spinoff is sinking, The Platform on life support, an Alt-Right Culture War Billionaire bought NZME, Māori media gutted and underfunded,  The Centrist Hate Blog is thriving, TodayFm failed, TVNZ is being lined up for sale, somehow Scoop and Standard are still here and Podcasts have become the new current affairs.

The truth is the Fourth Estate in this country is a defanged lap dog rather than guard dog.

The one silver lining was Waatea Digital who managed the jump to nonlinear broadcasting better than anyone else this year and was the only media network that grew.

We now have social media platforms that are suppressing news in favour of conspiracy theory algorithms which are generating an electorate of brainwashed, incel, racist, climate denying,  anti science, feral vaccine cooker cultists who have turned New Zealand into Q Zealand!

We have a Prime Minister more focused on having a Spotify age of your average Taylor Swift fan than actually governing in any meaningful way.

Here are the winners and losers of TDBs infamous annual Media Awards.

Time to crack out those grudges and ensure another year of personal animosity before all the mainstream media outlets collectively fail.

Seasons greetings!

Most Obvious Atlas Network Bias: 6pm 1News

Newstalk ZB political editor Jason Walls was given the top role of Business Reporter at TVNZ 1 News and ever since it’s been a biased bullshit right wing cavalcade of free market mantras in a high squeaky voice with sycophantic coverage of National and ACT. Every time Brooke Van Velden farts, Jason is there to breathe it in and tell the rest of us how glorious that fart will be for jobs and economic growth.  I throw the TV remote at the screen every time this right wing capitalist cretin pops up on screen.

Best News Service: Newsroom

Without question, Newsroom has quickly become the best News Network in NZ. Vigorous intellectual rigour with real depth asking the hard questions that Stuff is too dumb to ask and NZ Herald too right wing to consider. Their columnists are the best opinion leaders in the country and their news coverage is the best.

If you are not waking each morning and checking Newsroom first, you shouldn’t have an opinion on politics.

Worst News Service: Stuff

Their weird gated community which you have to register for to read their copy keeps fucking up. Even though I’ve enrolled a million times, it still doesn’t let you read their news even when you’ve registered a billion times before. Stuff is the last news source I bother checking now because their gated community makes it impossible to read. In one moment of desperation I even tried to buy a subscription to the Post, but Stuff are so lazy and incompetent, their subscription link doesn’t even work, no one seems to have noticed which tells you all you need to know about Stuff.

Biggest Irony: Dr. Bryce Edwards & his transparency campaign 

Poor old Bryce. Campaigning so vigorously on transparency when his own Transparency Project failed and collapsed in a strange swamp of not being transparent…

…I was once a huge fan of Bryce, but his desire to keep calling Chris Trotter left wing and his movement away from sighting the Blogs in his weekly round ups in favour of mainstream media made him less an insightful academic and more corporate intelligence. No one invites him on podcasts anymore. He is in danger of becoming as irrelevant as Scoop, The Standard and The Spinoff all rolled into one which is a genuine pity. Let’s see if we can rescue him and get him on The Bradbury Group next year.

Worst Media Stunt: Taxpayers’ Union Fudge Debate & Hobson’s Pledge Billboard Campaign

All that money wasted on their Nicola Fudge campaign by a Fake Union for a Fake Debate between two of the worst neoliberal architects, must be raising alarm bells for all the dark money funders for the Taxpayers’ Union.To simply waste all that cash for so little gain must be demanding some type of review.

How can they blow all that money and still not have a fucking debate?

Hobson’s Pledge (another client of the Taxpayers’ Union stable of astroturf influencers) had so few Māori mates they had to keep creating them using AI for their Billboards to pretend they weren’t racist.

They are deceitful and manipulative which is maybe the most honest thing that can be said about them.

I’m not saying Taxpayer’s Union is a gold digger, b-u-t their byline should read, “Dirty Deeds done surprisingly expensively”.

For Services to Left Wing Political Media: Gerard Otto, Nick Rockel & BHN

In the hollow bones of our once mighty Fourth Estate are people still doing some amazing journalism and holding power to account. The boys at BHN have created a real live online community who will be essential going into the election next year and stalwarts like Gerard Otto and Nick Rockel are online writers who are worth checking out weekly.

The Left need to win back male voters who were ostracised by our woke middle class identity activists, and BHN, Gerard and Nick are doing that!

Hope for 2026 Media Award: Appointment of Tova O’Brian & John Campbell

Breakfast TVNZ is a snooze fest and RNZ is such a wanky Wellington woke poke that no one bothers listening, however the sudden inclusion of Tova and John onto the flagships for the election finally make both programmes must watch media. By God we might actually have a Fourth Estate on our public broadcasters!

Three Bong late night rants Award: Doc Ferris

His infamous late night sectarian double down is very difficult to follow intellectually and the certainty he espouses while articulating it was just as disturbing.

His argument was that people shouldn’t criticise him for attacking migrants because the English language is a colonised force that restricts indigenous rights and you shouldn’t be hating on him when it’s the construct of the language that is problematic???

Don’t hate the player, hate the dictionary?

Allow me to break down his argument.

His argument is that he’s driving a car and hits your dog but you shouldn’t get upset at him about hitting your dog because he didn’t design the car.

Ummmmmmmm.

That’s what I call a 3 Bong Philosophy in that it only sounds meaningful after 3 bongs.

The most bewildering part of his late night rant was the fact that te Pati Māori actually ended up winning the by-election!

Doc moved from ‘Māori First’ to ‘Māori Only’, and it was the first real external indication of the Tikanga factions  moving against Rawiri and Debbie before it all exploded into public.

The Sean Plunkett Award for being a Sean Plunkett 2025: Sean Plunkett

Huge year for the radioactive hate-troll farm that is The Platform. His evangelical Christian backers walked away from him leaving The Platform on financial life support while he claimed pictures of starving Palestinians were faked. This followed his claims last year that Māui dolphins were “the Down syndrome kids of marine mammals” that “deserved to die”.

Charming.

The Platform remains the main reason why your Uncle doesn’t get invited to Christmas Lunch any longer.

I’d call Sean a cunt but he lacks the depth and warmth.

The Chris Trotter Culture War Boomer Media Award for services to political kamikaze suicide: Matt McCarten

Oh, how the mighty have fallen…

When you as a Left Wing Champion are forced to pimp a story on Slater’s hate podcast, and then The Platforms Hate site AND THEN the Centrist Hate Blog, that’s a lot of hate to try and digest.

Slater isn’t the gutter he’s the fucking sewer!

In terms of the legitimacy of the claims, Audrey Young put out the most forensic timeline and it undermines much of the narrative and allegations made by Matt against Willie.

I love Matt, he is a comrade and always will be, I consider myself a protege of the man, but when things get personal as they have between Willie and him, (as we have seen with the  Māori Party meltdown), shit gets cray real quick.

This employment story was first shopped around to Tova and Maiki Sherman  who both dumped it because it didn’t stack up which forced Matt to lower himself to Slater, Michael Laws and the fucking Centrist.

When you dance with the Devil, the Devil doesn’t change, you do.

Matt has done a Chris Trotter to his mana.

This is the saddest political kamikaze suicide of 2025.

Cameron Slater Memorial Bad Faith Media Award: The Centrist

The Centrist is the alt-Right Culture War Hate Blog that alt-Right Canadian Billionaire Jim Grenon (the one who has bought NZME) helped set up.

They are essential in collating the hate smears of Toxic Right Wing Trolls and bringing their foaming spasm of malice into the mainstream and were crucial in the Character Assassination of Benjamin Doyle.

They are as close to MAGA as we have in NZ and their bad faith coverage of every issue is the reason democracy is dying.

Admitting to reading The Centrist is the greatest Red Flag in the world on any Tinder date you go on.

There are not many reasons to ostracise whanau at Christmas, but reading The Centrist is one of them.

Biggest Media Quisling Award for services to Sucking the Bosses dick: Shayne Currie

No one at NZME sucks up to their new Alt-Right Canadian Billionaire owner Jim Grenon quite like dear old Shayne Currie.

You can barely hear a word he says because Jim Grenon’s cock is so far down his throat.

The ease with which Shayne picks up alt-right talking points from Jim Grenon’s hate blog, The Centrist, and then covers them in his media column as if they are actual news highlights how quickly a Rat knows when to jump ship.

Stick near Shayne Currie, like a cockroach, he’ll know when to scuttle towards a new protector quicker than you can say, “I hate Jacinda, da Trans and da Maoris'”.

Best Columnist 2025: Verity Johnson

Verity Johnson is one of the best political columnists in NZ. She represents educated middle class Auckland who are lefty by simple virtue of being a decent human being who has compassion for her fellow Aucklanders.

Her critiques of the Government from a very Auckland perspective will be the biggest gauge of what chance Labour have of winning back the city in next years election.

She is a must read columnist who manages to humanise politics from the fringe extremes of us activists into the very normal.

She does more to unpack right wing myths than the entire mainstream media combined.

AND she runs a cabaret bar!

So fucking cool.

Her column talking about how she didn’t have any money in her account was courageous, brilliant and hit a real nerve amongst many Kiwis during a cost of living crisis.

She is uniquely Auckland and Auckland should be proud of her.

Worst Columnist 2025: Jonathan Ayling

We must remember the virtues of Western civilisation – Jonathan Ayling

Uhmmmmm.

Why was Jim Grenon’s pet fascist allowed to pimp his private interest in the NZ Herald and pretend that was an opinion column?

Before we get to that question, let’s just take a moment to consider a charter school for Western Values.

A white African lecturing on Western Values?

The satire writes itself right?

What amazing classes will this new fascist youth Western Values Uber Alles Charter school in Wellington be teaching?

Guest Lecturer Damien Grant – Why can’t white rich Libertarians get a break?

Guest Lecturer David Seymour – Why Israel is the greatest country ever and if you say otherwise you hate Jews.

Guest Lecturer Don Brash – Honky and Cracker are hate speech 

Guest Lecturer Charlie Kirk – A special seance for Year 13 students where the class gets to speak to Charlie Kirk about why white christian nationalism is the only way to stop Liberal Satan.

Guest Lecturer Sean Plunkett – Bitches, am I right?

Guest Lecturer Jordan Williams – The right way to burn a cross.

Guest Lecture from the NZ Initiative – How to love Corporations with all your heart while shitting on Unions

Guest Lecture from the Taxpayers’ Union – How to steal from Māori and get away with it.

Guest Lecture from Federated Farmers – Identifying a socialist at night to justify self defence shootings 

Guest Lecture from Ani O’Brien – How to smear Politicians as sex offenders and write it off as a tax deduction

Your blessed little white child needs the freedom to expand their horizons and not be judged for their privilege.

At Altum Academy all students are free to use the N word anytime they like while throwing stones at poor children from public schools.

Because there is no climate change, students don’t need to learn science.

School teams perfect the skill of taking food out of the mouths of others while singing, ‘The white man marches on‘.

Each week students get to pick a book from the library to burn and our facilities are greater than any other school.  We have two swimming pools, one for the coloured and one for the whites.

At Altum Academy, it’s the Land of the Wrong White Crowd all day, every day.

But back to the original question, why was Jim Grenon’s pet fascist  allowed to pimp his private interest in the NZ Herald and pretend that was an opinion column?

Best Trainwreck Interview: Chris Luxon vs Mike Hosking

What the Christ was wrong with Luxon?

How can he fuck up an interview with Mike Hosking of all people?

Mike bleeds blue FFS, if you are a National Party Prime Minister who falls out with him you are as popular as an Intersectionist Feminist at a Trump rally!

Look how bad this interview went...

Hosking: Would you – because you’ve got yourself into the usual trouble with you being too nice – would you have sacked him [Bayly] if he hadn’t offered to resign?

Luxon: Well, [that’s] hypothetical, he did resign.

Hosking: No, I know that, but just answer the question. Would you have sacked him?

Luxon: Well, he didn’t meet the expectations of a minister.

Hosking: So was it a sackable offence?

Luxon: Well, I think given how clear we’ve been on the first instance …

Hosking: Why can’t you just answer the question? This is why you get yourself reputationally in so much trouble. Would you have sacked him? Yes or no?

Luxon: I could say he didn’t meet the expectations I have of ministers.

Hosking: So you would have sacked him.

Luxon: I didn’t need to, because he resigned.

Hosking: See what you’re doing here?

Luxon: Well, you’re talking about a specific case, right, which is, have I done a good job of laying down expectations of my ministers? Yes. Crystal clear.

Hosking: The next step is really simple: ‘I’m glad he offered to resign because I tell you what, if he didn’t, I would have sacked him.’

Luxon: He wouldn’t have met my expectations as a minister.

Hosking: Why are you saying it that way? I don’t understand.

Luxon: Well, that’s what I mean. If he hadn’t resigned, I would have made an intervention.

Hosking: Why is this so bloody hard? ‘I would have sacked him.’

Luxon: No, no, but there’s an issue here …

Hosking: What is it?

Luxon: The issue is that most importantly, the standards are really clear of my ministers. They know the standards I operate within. Whenever we have any personnel issues, I think we’ve acted incredibly decisively but what I’d say in this case is I laid down, after the last instance, crystal-clear expectations, he reassured me there wouldn’t be another incident. He knew there was an incident. He then actually made that decision himself. It didn’t meet my expectations, it didn’t meet his.

Hosking: Count how many words you’re using to explain this. This is why you’re in trouble in the polls. People want something decisive. And look, if you wouldn’t have sacked him, say so. Either way, I don’t care, but people want from you, the Prime Minister, to go: ‘This is my expectation; I’m glad he resigned because if he didn’t, I would have sacked him.’

Luxon: Well, that’s exactly what has happened here though, isn’t it? I mean, he has resigned, and I’ve said to him, he hasn’t met his own expectations, which is important, right? I want ministers to understand. I saw examples …

Hosking: He came to his own conclusion, fantastic, good on him for doing that. But are you the sort of person that would have sacked him if he had not come to that conclusion?

Luxon: I think you’ve seen me act very decisively on personnel issues. That’s something I’ve done all my life, you know. It’s critical.

Hosking: No, that still doesn’t answer that. I don’t want to get bogged down on this. Why can’t you be decisive enough to simply say ‘I would have sacked him’, or not?

Luxon: In this case, he resigned. If that hadn’t happened, I would have been involved with that and would have made a decision to say he didn’t meet my expectations.

Hosking: Which would have led to what?

Luxon: It would have led to him losing the role anyway.

Hosking: So he would have been …?

Luxon: He would have been demoted.

Hosking: Demoted?

Luxon: The ministry would have been taken away.

Hosking: Right, sacked.

Luxon: Yeah, you can call it sacked.

Hosking: You’ve made a complete meal of this.

…he is incapable of giving a clear answer because he just wants the whole story to disappear which suggests we don’t actually have the full story here.

Luxon doesn’t seem to hear himself when he speaks and his KPI double talk works in a Corporate setting, but not on live radio with the biggest Breakfast Radio Right Winger in the game!

Biggest Media Coward 2025: Chris Luxon

Luxon refused to appear on Q+A all year.

He refused to appear on Moana all year…

…but he turns up to blow this prick weekly…

…all the while the Taxpayers’ Fake Union promotes a fake debate between two of the worst neoliberal architects of social carnage and pretends that is meaningful discussion!

This isn’t a functioning Fourth Estate, these are enablers of propaganda.

Chris Luxon is a coward who won’t front critical media and his ilk shun anyone who will challenge their lies.

When he can fuck up a Mike Hosking interview, you know he’s got all the charm if a road accident.

Best TV Interview 2025: Q+A Professor Welby Ings

Incredible interview with Professor Welby Ings on Q+A this year.

He’s a NZ Education Academic  with a very holistic view of public education that was riveting, intellectual, smart and only found on public TV!

This is the sort of inspiring interview that only TVNZ has the luxury of producing, it was smart, passionate and paradigm shifting.

 

Best Business Journalists: Dita De Boni & Maria Slade

Both are amazing business journalists who manage to thread deeply human stories into their business journalism and have a skill to highlight deeper issues inside the NZ economy.

They are must read journalists, Maria from Businessdesk and Dita from Stuff, who provide a deeper truth to the glib business headlines we are used to seeing.

If you want to understand what is actually happening in the economy, read these two.

Best Independent Political Economic News: Bernard Hickey, The Kaka

Without a doubt, the single most important source of Independent Political Economic News in New Zealand, if you are going to donate to any independent news in NZ, make it The Kaka!

Bernard’s incredible real time oversight and insight to political economic news is one of the very few bright spots in a dying Fourth Estate landscape.

His analysis is some of the best in New Zealand.

If you are not reading him, you can’t have an opinion on the Economy!

Worst thing to happen to Sunday Current Affairs: Adverts on Sunday

Why the living Christ must we have corporate dick rammed down our throats on Sunday mornings and why did Labour help feed that corporate dick down our throats???

Can’t we have broadcasting on Sunday morning’s and Public Holidays on State media where we don’t have advertisers ramming their dicks down our throats?

WHY CAN’T WE HAVE MEDIA SPACE WHERE ADVERTISERS AREN’T CHOKING US OUT ON THEIR CONSUMERISM?

How much fucking shit do you people need two Constar buy to fill that beak hollow sadness in your empty lives?

We are citizens, not fucking consumers, having space in the media where the hawking arseholes of consumerism aren’t screaming into our face every single second is a blessing.

The Spinoff  Media Award for Wank: RNZ Lifestyle Section

The review into RNZ was 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.

Best Interview: The infamous ‘Blessed be the fruit’ interview with Hannah Tamaki: The Bradbury Group Podcast

All I did was show voters what and who she truly is. It was up to voters in the Tāmaki Makaurau by-election to decide what they wanted to do with that insight.

They gave her 175 votes.

Best Podcast: The Bradbury Group Podcast

If you didn’t think I’d nominate my own Political Podcast for best of the year, you haven’t been paying attention!

Award winning political podcast, The Working Group was cancelled this year by the Free Speech Champion Right because I wouldn’t self censor criticism of Israel or the Atlas Network on The Daily Blog, which saw the creation of The Bradbury Group this year.

The Bradbury Group was played on Sky TV, Waatea Facebook, YouTube, Rova, Spotify and Māori Radio giving us 4 times the audience we ever had on The Working Group.

Damien Grant’s new podcast on the other hand is watched by approximately 7 people.

We are bringing the podcast back for the Election next year with some new surprise guests.

Best Political Columnists: Andrea Vance, Lloyd Burr & Matthew Hooton

Vance is the only reason you would buy a subscription to the Post. She is fearless and her criticisms are the sharpest in NZ, she’s an incredible writer without peer.

Hoots is the best reason to buy a subscription to the NZ Herald, he knows where all the bodies are buried because he’s buried most of them himself, and Lloyd Burr has become a must read because his well researched intelligence on issues always surprises.

Best NZ Music: Lorde 

I really like Lorde.

I think her music is really cool and I think her coolness as an artist impacts everything she does.

When she speaks she roars.

Her stance against Israel’s war crimes was real courage.

The power of Lorde’s voice online managed to project from the netherworld of cyberspace and tear into the real life as she sent out a treasure hunt for Melodrama that saw Aucklanders ripped from their lounge rooms and rushing around town in a confused and curious friction.

The rupture in the space time continuum spewed out Matrix green and scribbled notes.

 

She followed this up with a very clever guessing game for the name of her album.

Ever.

I liked Solar Power when I saw the songs live.

I thought appearing in Central Park and using that footage immediately for her new video was very cool.

Her private gigs inside toilets were clever.

I like the new songs, she’s pure Guerrilla Culture, her ability to disrupt and hijack our attention is real power.

The music is just the victory lap.

All hail, Lorde!

Best NZ Doco 2025: Prime Minister

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please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please,please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please,please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please,please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please,please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please,please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please,please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, let Jacinda’s Documentary ‘Prime Minister’ get nominated for Academy Award – just to hear Hosking & anti-vax Redneck Crackers scream!

Please God, let her doco get a nomination, just so the small minded who turned on her could feel real shame because the only way the gauche in NZ feel embarrassed is if they are judged externally.

Best NZ Film 2025: Pike River Mine

Brooke Van Velden managed to bury workers again on Pike River anniversary.

Rolling back safety standards on the anniversary of the Pike River disaster is truly sociopathic behaviour.

Just as the Pike River movie shocks and disgusts NZers at the way those miners were trapped, Brooke Van Velden buries those workers again with vast changes to worker safety laws that allow the Bosses tom once again murder their workers with impunity.

What have we become by voting in this terrible Government?

How bitter and malformed with hate must Kiwis be to elect ideological sociopaths like Brooke Van Velden into power because Jacinda had the temerity to save 20 000 lives during a once in a century pandemic?

Top 5 NZ Books 2025: 1985, Invisible Intelligence, The Enemy Within & The Anthropocene, Global Capitalism and Global Futures & A Different Kind of Power

These are the NZ Books you must read over Summer:

1985 by Dominic Hoey – I think Dominic Hoey is one of the most important Gen X writers NZ has. His beautiful 1985 is set amongst the decaying dying bones of NZs Egalitarian state as Pacific Island workers are forced out of Grey Lynn. I lived in the exact area on Surrey Crescent that much of 1985 was set a decade later, so there is an intimacy to the story I loved. Hoey is a lyrical genius, there are about a dozen sentences in 1985 that are so pure, so bare and so stripped naked to the truth that you seek them out through the tiny chapters.

Invisible Intelligence by Professor Welby Ings – As the NCEA changes are being pushed, NZ Education academic Professor Welby Ings releases his incredible book, Invisible Intelligence – Why your child might not be failing.n It is a must read for every Teacher, every Parent and every Principal over the summer. Ings’ argument is that educational philosophies and pedagogy that prioritise time stressed testing of students for quick problem solving using a myopic focus on reading, writing and arithmetic is inadvertently failing many kids.

The Enemy Within by Maire Leadbeater – Look, this came out December 7th last year, so technically not a 2025 release, but it is so good it makes the 2025 list. We forget what a fascist little Police State NZ was in the 1920s, 30s, 40s, 50s and 60s, this book reminds us.

The Anthropocene, Global Capitalism and Global Futures by Professor Wayne Hope – Professor Wayne Hope is one of the last great NZ Public Academics who called the late Bruce Jesson a peer. Bruce Jesson was the intellectual Godfather of the NZ Left whose piercing brilliance helped unmask how psychopathic NZ Free Market Capitalism truly was. Professor Hope was a compatriot of Bruce’s and he has continued the Jesson tradition of impeccably researched arguments that are impossible to refute and incapable of countering. Professor Hope’s latest work is perhaps his greatest to date and as far as I am concerned, you can not claim to be on the Left and engaged on climate change and Capitalism without reading this incredible work. Wayne’s deep dive into the impact of exploitative fossil fuel capitalism uncovers an economic DNA of commercialisation, finacialisation and globalisation of exploitative fossil fuel infrastructure that is up against the biosphere’s C02 capacity and tipping points that lead to catastrophic climate collapse is a stunning academic achievement.

A Different Kind of Power by Jacinda Ardern –  A reminder of what we lost in the hate cult against Jacinda. I believe the last election was decided by voters embittered post Covid who had gone from being the team of 5 million into a cult hating on Jacinda. The disinformation, misinformation and naked misogyny that infected our debate still carries the scars today.

A Different Kind of Power is a powerful reminder of how bloody hard Jacinda worked to protect us all from a once in a century pandemic and reminds us just how well she did despite the tsunami of rage that swept her away…

New Zealand’s royal commission on lessons learned from the pandemic published its first report this summer and in comparison with the British Covid inquiry’s withering “too little, too late” verdict on the Johnson government’s handling of the pandemic, Ardern emerges practically glowing. Her “be strong and be kind” strategy, which involved sealing borders early to keep the virus at bay, was judged effective in public health terms, holding back infections until a vaccine was ready and allowing the country to spend less time in strict lockdowns than others around the world.

…we forget the successes of Jacinda’s handling of the pandemic by focussing on the mistakes and this myopic fury allowed voters to elect National, ACT and NZF without comprehending what those 3 Parties would do.

We now have a hard right anti-Māori, anti-Treaty, anti-disabled, anti-beneficiary, anti-worker, anti-renter and anti-environment Government who are strangling the common good for their donors interests.

We have allowed Crony Capitalism to replace the common ground between us as citizens all because hating Jacinda has become a cult on the right.

It’s heartbreaking that she will never be able to liven NZ with her family without security again because so many feral anti-vaxxers wish her harm.

She is hated for having the temerity to save 20 000 lives and for putting public health before private profit.

This is who we is now. This is what we have become.

Rupert Murdock Award for perverting Fourth Estate Journalism: alt-Right Canadian Billionaire, Jim Grenon

Quietly, surely, the spider creeps as he prepares for editorial domination of NZME before next years election…

NZME shareholder Jim Grenon lifts investment in media firm

…Former Herald Editor Gavin Ellis has made the point earlier this year at the Better Public Media AGMA that within NZ News media the cultural convention inside the NZ Fourth Estate was a clear demarcation of power between the Editor’s Independence and the  Owners interests.

I believe Grenon’s increase of share holdings is timed far next years election so he and his pet spiders can implement a radical editorial overhaul in time for next years election.

The Fourth Estate is there to challenge the powerful, it is not there to be used as a means of control by the powerful.

 

Final word:

I’ve been in the NZ media critiquing politics for over 30 years now, and over that time I’ve noticed the things you can and can’t say in the NZ media landscape. Here are the list of topics that you simply are NOT allowed to discuss on NZ mainstream media.

Palestine: You can not talk about the brutal occupation of Palestine by Israel in NZ media. It’s just not allowed, any discussion has to be framed as ‘Poor Israeli’s being terrorised by evil angry Muslims’, there is never focus on the brutal occupation and when it ever does emerge in the media it’s always insinuated that any criticism is anti-Semitism. Watching Israeli apologists bleat this phrase or that phrase is antisemitic when a hundred thousand Palestinian dead blot out the sun from war crimes and ethnic cleansing is gasp inducing at its audacity and sophistry. Mentioning Israel has committed war crimes so extreme that they technically are genocide will ensure you are forever black listed by mainstream media in NZ.

Child Poverty NEVER adult poverty: We only talk about child poverty because they deserve our pity. Adults in poverty can go fuck themselves. Despite numbering around 800 000, adults in poverty are there because they ‘choose’ to be there. The most important myth of neoliberalism is that your success is all your own, as is your failure. If an adult is in poverty, neoliberal cultural mythology states that is all on them and we have no obligation to help. That’s why we only ever talk endlessly about children in poverty because the vast majority of hard hearted NZers want to blame adults in poverty on them so we can pretend to be egalitarian without actually having to implement any policy. 600 000 Kiwis need food banks each month, we NEVER talk about that.

The Neoliberal NZ experiment: You are never allowed to question the de-unionised work force that amputated wages, you can never question selling off our assets, you can never criticise the growth uber allas mentality, you are never allowed to attack the free market outcomes and you can’t step back and evaluate the 40 year neoliberal experiment in NZ because you remind the wage slaves of the horror of it all.

Class: You can not point out that the demarcation line in a capitalist democracy like NZ is the 1% richest plus their 9% enablers vs the 90% rest of us. Oh you can wank on and on about your identity and your feelings about your identity in a never ending intersectionist diversity pronoun word salad, but you can’t point out that it’s really the 90% us vs the 10% them class break down because that would be effective and we can’t have effective on mainstream media when feelings are the currency to audience solidarity in an ever diminishing pie of attention.

Immigration: It must always be framed as positive. It can never be argued that it is a cheap and lazy growth model that pushes down wages and places domestic poor in competition with International student language school scams and exploited migrant workers. Any criticism of Immigration makes you a Xenophobe and because the Middle Classes like travelling and have global skills for sale, they see any criticism of migrants as an attack on their economic privileges.

Hyper Tourism: We are never allowed to ask ‘how many is too many you greedy fucks’. The tourism industry that doesn’t give a shit about us locals, live for the 4million tourists who visit annually. We are not allowed to ask why that amount of air travel is sustainable, we are not allowed to ask why selling Red Bull and V at tourist stops is somehow an economic miracle and we are certainly not allowed to question why these tourists aren’t directly being taxed meaningfully for the infrastructure they clog.

Dairy as a Sunset Industry: We are never allowed to point out that the millisecond the manufactured food industry can make synthetic milk powder, they will dump us as a base ingredient and the entire Dairy Industry overnight will collapse. With synthetic milks and meats here within a decade, it is time to radically cull herds, focus on only organic and free range sustainable herds and move away from mass production dairy forever. No one is allowed to mention the iceberg that is looming up in front of the Fonteera Titanic.

The Trans debate: This debate is so toxic and anyone asking any question gets immediately decried as transphobic. I’ve seen nuclear reactor meltdowns that are less radioactive than this debate. I’m so terrified I’m not going to say anything other than ‘please don’t hurt my family’ for even mentioning it.

It’s never climate change for this catastrophic weather event: Catastrophic weather event after catastrophic weather event but it’s never connected to global warming! It’s like the weather is changing cataclysmically around us but because it’s not 100% sure that cigarette you are smoking right now is the one that causes that lump inside you to become cancer, so we can’t connect this catastrophic weather event with a climate warming model that states clearly that we will see more and more catastrophic weather events.

Scoops: No NZ media will ever acknowledge another medias scoop despite a united front being able to generate more exposure and better journalism.

Te Reo fanaticism: You are not allowed to point out that barely 5% of the population speak Te Reo and that everyone who militantly fires up about it being an ‘official language’ never seem that antagonistic about the lack of sign language use. Look, my daughter goes to a Māori immersion class and when she speaks Te Reo it makes me cry joyfully and I feel more connected to NZ than any other single moment, but endlessly ramming it down people’s throats seems woke language policing rather than a shared cultural treasure. You can still be an ok human being and not speak Te Reo.

Māori land confiscation: Māori suffer losing 95% of their land in less than a century, they were almost decimated by disease and technology brought via colonisation, they endured the 1863 Settlements Act, they survived blatant lies and falsehoods devised to create the pretext for confiscation and saw violence in the Waikato. Māori have lived throughout that entire experience and still get told to be grateful because Pakeha brought blankets, tobacco and ‘technology’.

The Disabled: Almost 25% of NZ is disabled, yet for such a staggeringly huge number of people, theire interests get sweet fuck all mention in the mainstream media.

Corporate Iwi: You can’t bring up that the corporate model used for Iwi to negotiate settlements is outrageous and has created a Maori capitalist elite who are as venal as pakeha capitalists.

Police worship: One of the most embarrassing parts about living in NZ is the disgusting manner in which so many acquiesce to the fucking cops. It’s never the cops fault when they shoot someone, it’s never the cops fault when they chase people to their death, it’s never the cops fault for planting evidence, it’s never the cops fault for using interrogation methods that bully false confessions out of vulnerable people. I think there is a settler cultural chip on our shoulders that always asks the mounted constabulary to bash those scary Māori at the edge of town because we are frightened of what goes bump in the night. We willingly give Police total desecration to kill and maim with very little in terms of check and balance. It’s sickening.

House prices must increase FOREVER! Too many middle class folk are now property speculators and they must see their values climb to afford the extra credit cards the bank sends them. We can never talk about house prices coming down. They must never fall. Fuck the homeless, fuck the generations locked out of home ownership and fuck the working poor. Buying a house is only for the children of the middle classes now. Fuck everyone else. Boomer cradle to the grave subsidisations that didn’t extend to any other generation uber allas baby! Free Ben and Jerry Ice Cream for every Boomer forever! ME! ME! MEEEEEEEEEEEE! You’ll also note that because so many media are dependent on real estate advertising, there’s never been a better time to buy!

The media industry faces more challenges as the new hard right Government turn off the funding taps and the social media platforms strangle off their appearance in newsfeeds.

Podcasts look like the only vehicle left to be able to actually debate the issues without cancellation or censorship.

We are privileged to be able to enjoy free speech in this country and we hope that The Daily Blog adds to the zeitgeist of our collective debate.

Increasingly having independent opinion in a mainstream media environment which mostly echo one another has become more important than ever, so if you value having an independent voice – please donate here.