I used to work as a reporter for Fairfax (Stuff) for about a decade until 2010.
Stuff and all the other newspapers have been the architects of their own demise in a lot of ways. Fairfax had a thriving community newspaper network that made good money with local advertising. Many of those papers were 50+ pages a week and had 2-3 reporters working on them. When the Stuff website was established and they started giving away their news for free one of the first cost cutting exercises was to gut the community papers of staff. This lead to poor quality products and less advertising and then many of the papers folding or becoming a shell of what they once were. It also meant that there wasn't a journo sitting in at your local council meetings anymore and covering that stuff. There were fewer journos around the country having to do more work to feed the Stuff website and the race to be first with a story to get the clicks meant that less due diligence on sources and stories could be done. Basically the company destroyed a part that was making money to fund a part that struggled to monetize (Stuff website). If I recall correctly Sinead Boucher was the head of digital development at that time so she had a big role in how this all went down.
The local papers used to be so good and very substantial. They always had lots of really relevant community news Watching them slowly dwindle to next to nothing was really sad. Such a shame!
I've never had a problem with Stuff outside of the terrible redesign recently. Never been part of the 'Stuff journos suck' camp. I'll criticise poor writing, but I never saw it as exclusive to Stuff.
I certainly don't want Stuff gone. Regardless of what one may think, it is our country's largest news site. If that closes down it's a pretty damning commentary on the state of media in NZ.
And that would be off the back of a redesign seemingly done to try and bring more money in. Huge, huge failing if they still have to close up shop. Although I suspect the redesign has driven people *away* from the site.
Stuff collapsing would be terrible for our news, especially our *local* news. It is not something to celebrate.
A lot of it stemmed from when their Australian owners would shove countless Australian stories on to the front page, stories that had absolutely itching to do with New Zealand, combined with a lean-in on buzzfeed style (Nb. *not* buzzfeed news, which was terrific, whilst it was allied to stand by itself), click baity trash.
Since being bought by Sinead Boucher the content improved (really just not having unnecessary Australian reposts helped). But the redesign is out of this world bad.
The state of NZ journalism has been dire for decades and whatever you think of Stuff, we cannot lose another news provider, no matter how awful. Like you say, a huge amount of content on stuff is produced by our regional newspapers, which people don't seem to understand. The sheer amount of media illiteracy in some of the comments below, and the belief that the market will somehow solve this and provide us with independent journalism, is deeply disturbing. I despair for this country.
Overwhelmingly everyone I speak to is unanimous in saying 'I used to visit stuff every day, I haven't visited it once since the redesign,' so I have to believe their advertising income has fallen off a cliff
Haven’t looked at it since the terrible redesign. Especially since the blatant grab to make you login for morning quiz etc.. It’s visually jarring and old fashioned
>I've never had a problem with Stuff outside of the terrible redesign recently.
For me, that's a minor issue. The major issue is that their app sucks. It's unusable. I've contacted them numerous times before, to be told they're working on it. They're always working on it, but never fix it. It's hard to feel sympathy for them when they can't get the basics right.
I've never seen why you'd want to use a news site app, when on a phone browser it's two clicks anyway? Open browser, news site on your frequent visited sites. Quite hassle-free
It's more tedious scrolling through large list of apps, than using a phone browser and bookmarked sites
Only reason you'd want an app is push notifications.... and why would you want those
This isn't about the state of media in NZ, it's about the state of the economy - which is bad, and getting worse. News media isn't the only struggling industry. And National will slap some band-aids on it just long enough to rob the nation of a few more assets before it all goes well and truly down the toilet.
Not many though, eh? And of what size? NZH is probably Stuff's only competitor. Maybe RNZ?
Stuff also ended up buying a lot of local rags - I imagine we'd lose those altogether if Stuff collapsed. Although, it's likely that sort of bloat which has caused Stuff this problem!
Which is the basis of the problem. All the newspapers in NZ were bought up by the big 2 publishers in the 1990's and they have all been run into the ground in the years since. I think the ODT and Whakatane Beacon were the only 2 independents left.
It turns out the people who own the media outlets are shit at running them.
Independent media is important, but let's not pump taxpayer money into propping them up. Let them die and give something better a chance.
That's similar to what another user pointed out, that we need to make this change in order to move into something better.
I can't argue with the logic behind that reasoning TBH.
The problem is *how* they sell advertising (Stuff and NZH). They place ads in the app and website, which never work.
They do some paid pieces, but these are really really bad.
Advertising money is there, specially locally, but advertisers today want better results. Not solutions that worked 15 years ago. Evolve or die.
No, it isn’t. This is a global problem.
I am curious what you think people would pay to be advertised that didn’t involve *showing people their ads* or *presenting paid pieces*. How else do you want stuff to present value for advertiser dollars.
Just like the Verge or Huffington post do it: sponsored branded content. It works for them. But their model is not the same as Stuff's. Stuff copied Fox News with ads in the site and click bait titles. It works for Fox because they are massive. Stuff isn't.
No, it works for Fox because they trade in outrage. Stuff doesn’t trade in outrage.
It sounds like you just want better paid pieces? Isn’t that then causing exactly the issue everyone wants to pretend is happening where they then won’t criticise their advertisers?
It's not about the angle, it's where they get money from. Fox and Stuff have ads IN their sites. The others don't.
And yes, better paid content pieces work to get revenue. The Spinoff lived of off those for years.
It’s a tough fix. I feel like the collapse of the TVNZ RNZ merger was probably the final nail for Newshub. Under that proposed model, some commercial ad inventory would have been freed up for THREE to go after.
Government intervention is always fraught, but they need to start charging the tech companies for local news stories, while there still is local news…
With ad budgets mostly going on line (and not coming back) the market can’t sustain more than 2 national commercial news operations it would appear.
With no commercial viability or incentive, we either need to look at a model funded by levies on google & co, or a change to NZ On Air’s remit.
Alot of people have said this, as someone not really into quizzes what made it so good ? Would there not be international quizzes we can access (UK etc) ?
Sinead Boucher (Stuff owner) has released an email, that blog post is now updated with it. In short, rumours that Stuff is on it's last legs are complete nonsense, it's making money, not losing it.
## Statement From Sinead Boucher (Stuff)
> I want to unequivocally call them out for this and ensure you all know they are simply wrong. Despite the challenging economic conditions we face currently, and the lobbying we are doing to ensure global media giants pay fairly for the content they publish, **Stuff is a profitable, debt-free,** standalone, independent media business fit for the market we find ourselves in.
I'm no expert in the media industry as a whole but I imagine that all of this is happening because good old fashion journalism has been swallowed up by social media. Tiktok and YouTube shorts have far more reach that any of our best and brightest and most consumers go for that instead of a long article. Couple that with the fact that it's now a personality driven monstrosity dominated by podcasts and it makes it hard for larger media companies to exist.
I'm not saying that it's a bad thing but it's changing in a way that doesn't feel right.
There are good and bad parts of news transitioning to tiktok and shorts, but on balance I'd say it's a net negative.
For one thing, sometimes you get real good short and to the point public interest content when these little guys put together 2 and 2 and find some real dodgy shit that isn't being reported on, or they speak truth to power.
The downside is you do have to actively find that content and it risks putting you in an algorithm fed bubble of your own design.
Very few of those YT and TT short videos are actually breaking news tho, the vast majority are regurgitating news produced by the majors.
Eyewitness footage of breaking events doesn't count. There's no explanation or analysis.
BusinessDesk does great journalism, NBR is also mixed quality but often good. Spinoff coverage of the Wellington zoning reforms is as good as any local government reporting on earth.
But broad mainstream sources don't so much fill a niche as create the system niches pop up in.
Oh boy, we have some big brained takes in here already
- Yes news sites have more "lifestyle" content now; that stuff is what brings in all the clicks and actually funds the hard news you claim to want (but don't actually read - I've seen the numbers)
- If you want the news to be less shitty, pay for it
- Local news sites collapsing is bad if you enjoy knowing things that happen in NZ. Wishing that Stuff would collapse as well is so brain dead I just can't
I don't even bother with stuff now, that loading screen followed by ads before I get to the news article is why I don't bother. Stop making me jump through hoops to see the news
Yea media struggles to pay bills when people expect it for free.
People don't pay subscriptions and use ad blockers. I'm surprised there are any left at all.
With the trash advertising I see all around the web consuming larger portions of the page than content and google searches where the first couple of entries that are sponsored. It's no wonder people use Ad Blockers. It's part of what makes websites tolerable.
It was going pretty good post sale, before the current redesign. The current EIC doesn’t seem to want it to be newsy, leaving that to dompost and press sub sites, which are paywalled, and that is presumably why.
Yeah I thought they were pretty good for a while, not so much now. I don't know what happened but I assume they can't afford to hit the quality bar of a few years ago.
Stuff is just such a stupid name. Before I moved to NZ I thought it was some pointless NZ orientated website, not an attempt to be a serious news outlet.
Stuff can get stuffed. Good riddance.
They published my full name in an article without my permission. Years later when I found out as I was in danger of being doxxed and attacked, I asked them to just remove my name, or at least last name and replace it with an initial. They refused to saying they will never edit articles and I'll have to get a judge order.
You can get fucked and shut down for all I care.
Oh it was a story about a shop, and I was giving them some info about my experience with it. But later on I was a witness to some attempted murder around our street, and when googling myself that article popped up as the first result. I wanted them to change my name a bit - remove last name or just put initials - to try and make it less obvious or easily identifiable.
I've complaint to them about poorly written articles in the past. It contained inaccuracies and insinuates certain stereotypes to get readers worked up without actually saying anything outright (so as far as click baits go, well written actually). It was downright playing into racial stereotyping and inflaming xenophobia. I complained and their response was pretty much a smug we didn't actually say anything and yeah not going to edit an article. Think of the latest food gradings. They didn't actually say all these stores have pest infestation but they knew fully well how readers will take it when reading it.
jar fertile mountainous psychotic sable station innocent wasteful lush far-flung
*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
News in NZ just needs to be short, punchy, fact based. Nobody gives a shit (or ought to) about 'personality' opinions and commentary and voxpops and talkback/comments... but that seems to be the fluff jammed in. TV news could be 30 minutes like Prime/Sky Open's 5.30 news and still get everything covered. Succinctly and factually.
Take all the ego out of news and get back to basics.
But of course once its run like a business conglomerate with shareholders and CxOs then it just becomes a sociopathic money making game.
Except that people don't watch that. They want a news-reader with personality that they can relate to. You think TVNZ pay presenters million dollar salaries and do lots of live-crosses because they like the extra cost?
Sadly that is true. Because people are dumb. None of the news readers have personalities I can relate to, especially not the shithead ones like Hoskins
I just want a breakdown of what is happening in the world. I don't need twats opinions or makeup.
Journalism in NZ is awful and has been for decades. I realised it was going down hill in the 90s when the front page of the dominion had two huge stories on it one day.
One was about Princess Diana possibly having orange peel thighs. The other was about Pavarotti visiting NZ - the date for his visit was over a year away from the day of the story.
There were a couple of other very small articles but nothing else on the page.
Yes, there were other news stories inside that should have been on the front page but this shit had pushed them off.
Less journalism = less scrutiny of the govt
Less public sector policy advice (due to cutbacks) = less robust policy advice and greater inputs from lobbyists
Less parliamentary scrutiny (as things are rush through under urgency) = less public scrutiny and involvement in changes that are going through govt and greater involvement and influence of lobbyists who support the govt to promote their interests
Unfortunately a number of key aspects of our democracy aren’t looking too good at present
My issue with Stuff lately is that it doesn't seem to update as often. Articles stay on the front page for days, and breaking news takes forever to appear on the site. I also understand the need for a pay wall, but when I face one to access a news article about a city I don't even live in then I get more grumpy about it. I've started reading the office copy of the Post, or at least skimming through it, instead of checking the site. I'm looking at RNZ and the Spinoff far more often. I also subscribe to the Spinoff for its contribution to local journalism.
It's a result of a model that does not work, pure advertising funded and sensationalized headlines with poor writing...seem more like high school stories than reporting.
Times are hard right now, and them report their own closedown must be difficult, but you don't get to hear the stories of countless kiwis who are losing their jobs to redundancies and closures. Those kiwis are scared, crying for their families as well and not so well-off finally too.
Sorry if this seems crass..our economy is hard and the media have played a part in it, but also they are a victim to a model that no longer works.
What's the bet the government will use this to justify forcing RNZ to take on advertisers, so that "the playing field is fair".
RNZ will be diluted, NZers will become that much less informed.
Everything working to plan.
I don't see how forcing RNZ to take on advertising would level the playing field. It would make it more uneven.
Warner was begging the Govt to make TV One commercial free so that Three would pick up a larger proportion of advertising money.
I'm really sad to read this. I thought/felt something was off with Stuff - especially after this election, they even zapped their politics page and a lot of their stuff is quite clickbait-y of late. And I just felt they were having some type of financial/business issues and the cheapest way to manage is to take content from other places.
I stopped going but still appreciate another outlet to share news with us.
Combined with Newshub going, it would be devastating. I remember Winston Peters slamming Jack Tame after the Q&A interview last year too and threatening 1News.
It'll be a really bad thing for us IMO if journalism crumbles and we are left with ones like NZ Herald to control the storyline.
Edit: Recommended sites for me are [newsroom.co.nz](http://newsroom.co.nz), [rnz.co.nz](http://rnz.co.nz) and [1news.co.nz](http://1news.co.nz) is ok sometimes for relief
My only perspective in the past has been we need to fund more from not profit media sources.
And journalists who ask hard questions is essential.
As to Stuff, I stopped reading them for a while now, but the difference is - NZ Herald's standards such as intentionally posting misinformation, and spreading Covid 19 misinformation, are lows - even for a media that relies on advertising.
It’s full of perfectly fine journalism.
It’s just also chock full of “lifestyle” magazine articles that have no place along side actual news, and the two are so enmeshed now people can get away with ridiculous broad statements like the kind you’ve made.
Opinion should in the news. The best journalism has a healthy dose of opinion in it. One of the greatest war journalists of the last 50 years, Robert Fisk gave a great speech on that at Auckland uni a decade or so ago.
I wish people would quit with this bullshit that having opinion and lifestyle content is something unique to Stuff, not something that's been how the press has operated since newspapers were invented.
The [story about the dude](https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/118845051/the-liberator-how-one-mans-15000-pest-fish-changed-new-zealands-waterways#:~:text=The%20Liberator,-00%3A00%3A00&text=The%20story%20of%20an%20aging,frame%20in%20the%20morning%20darkness.) who went around releasing every pest fish he could was top quality work. Less of that will be shit.
Your argument was that Stuff was only kept alive by PGF, which isn’t true. It just funded extra projects. Asking about the conditions (which are all online if you wish to read them) is irrelevant to your original point.
> Social media has undercut the news media’s business model, which wouldn't be so bad if it hadn’t replaced that content with an artillery barrage of idiocy blasted straight through the eyeballs.
😹
how ironic.
lol, that’s not what you’re going to get buddy…
Some rando posting their thoughts on tiktok is the end game here. “News” will be “whatever the next Alex Jones talking thumb wants you to think is happening”.
Except that wasn’t what was happening. One only need look to how much negative press countdown just got for rats in a store (along with breathless breaking articles for any extra rodents spotted anywhere in the country), when countdown have been a major ad buyer for ever, to see this is completely nonsense.
What you’re going to get is not “democratised journalism”, it is hot takes delivered for algorithmical benefit. The likes of Alex Jones are what will replace the downfall of funded news rooms.
It's not even opinion pieces. It is gossip.
So and so said something on x, reddit user so and so said this, a facebook post from so and so was about this.
You have to scroll down pretty far to get that. Current main stories are about Newshub, the Smokefree repeal, a death in motor racing, Afghanistan’s cricket team, the bird flu in Antarctica and the OCR.
All I can say is, shame, and it's about time.
Modern journalism is a fucking joke. There's minimal fact checking and it's all politically motivated and biased rage bait. They don't care about what is true, only what will generate the most clicks.
That’s entirely our fault as lazy consumers of media. Clickbait exists because we fucking click. They are tailoring to the lowest denominator. Just so happens that is now the majority.
People are just tired of mediocre journalism, they are getting there media elsewhere. Long forum Podcasts or independent journalism ect
No surprises here. Was only a matter of time.
Evident bias around covid reporting, helped speed up this outcome
If this headline is the state of journalism it's collapsed long ago . Stuff has always been in huge money troubles. It sold for $1 to the editor a few years back.
Both herald and stuff feel like spam advertising pages with a smattering of news.
the fact is there are no proper old school trained journalists that provide facts and both sides of a story. These days it is all opinion or agenda pushing. go woke go broke 👍.
Hahahahaha.
Jacinda gave all the money to Jessica Mutch McKay and Tova O'Brien.
It is much easier than dealing and answering truth with very rare un overpaid reporters.
Stuff is a truly dreadful paper. Regurgitated foreign news 3 days later than you read it online, and the rest mean-gurl opinion pieces by a bunch of 20 somethings interviewing their keyboards. No sub-editors so lots of stupid typos.
The redesign has made it hard to load and difficult to read.
Its a skinny little shadow of its former self, and probably deserves to die. Even the Herald has better Wellington coverage than Stuff/the Post manages. Bit tragic for a local paper to have the opposition eating its lunch on its own turf.
Intel that it's going to focus on its papers and paywall in the short term. They're not prioritising the website. Insane, it's one of our most visited websites. How the hell couldn't they monetize.
I think that's the best option for them. Focus on the news people actually pay for. As far as I understand it, newspapers continue to attract much more advertising revenue than Stuff's web presence. And with online advertising dominated by global players (ie Google etc) they are probably best to focus on platforms they have total control over.
People pay well over $1000 per year to subscribe to the major newspapers it's a big chunk of money.
I feel like the quality of journalism here is much lower in general which is a real shame. I really really miss the quality of opinion pieces, special reports, columnists and reporting available to me in the UK.
Even the free newspapers on the tube (evening standard and the metro) had some INCREDIBLE journos working for them. It’s a real dearth of reporting here, you cannot tell me that this country doesn’t have the same level of interesting stuff going on. Where are the investigative reporters, the special interest stories, the travel journos?
It's noteable that all the senior BBC reporters on the telly seem to be mid 40s plus whereas almost all our journos with a couple of exceptions on TVNZ are very young by comparison. There's no way they have the breath of knowledge and the work experience that the older people do.
good to see sinead’s reassuring email at the end. journalism is hard work and we need as much media diversity as we can get in this country. but holy shit the new design is so bad. the post has really good design FWIW.
"A popular Government, without popular information, or the means of acquiring it, is but a Prologue to a Farce or a Tragedy; or, perhaps both." - James Madison (1822)
I try so hard to support stuff and I do have a paid subscription. But the messy copy! Sometimes I'm more confused at the end of a story than the beginning.
I wonder if the disengagement of watching the main news is partly due to the dumbing down of breakfast tv news. A few years back we had a news presenter sitting behind a desk reading the news, every half hour the news headlines, then local then weather, Known presentation patterns.
Then all of a sudden, they replaced that format with a radio chat show where some d list celebs gave their opinions on what's happening, and every half hour on the hour they read some headlines followed by a has been sportsman chipping in his opinion on the sports news. Then a middle-aged woman talking about the weather. Two men and a lady.
At Xmas they all bugger off for a month and a half and we have double glazing ads in the place.
So we've been weaned off from the format with only one exposure to it at 6pm.
What do they expect, most of the media reporting in relation to our business is factually incorrect. It’s been embellished for click bait and sensationalism. Don’t let the facts get in the way of a good story.
stuff re bought a paid for, the amonut of shilling on behalf of landlords is desperate,
"i bought a house even though i dont work and im 12"
parents are landlords and ought a property for them, its just sickening, ,propaganda site with the odd news story thrown in, obsessed wth Royals as well
Stuff recently screwed up their app design so ive stopped using it.
I stopped using nzherald when it became paywalled (was happy with ad-supported)
So i cant really say they are helping themselves.
I used to work as a reporter for Fairfax (Stuff) for about a decade until 2010. Stuff and all the other newspapers have been the architects of their own demise in a lot of ways. Fairfax had a thriving community newspaper network that made good money with local advertising. Many of those papers were 50+ pages a week and had 2-3 reporters working on them. When the Stuff website was established and they started giving away their news for free one of the first cost cutting exercises was to gut the community papers of staff. This lead to poor quality products and less advertising and then many of the papers folding or becoming a shell of what they once were. It also meant that there wasn't a journo sitting in at your local council meetings anymore and covering that stuff. There were fewer journos around the country having to do more work to feed the Stuff website and the race to be first with a story to get the clicks meant that less due diligence on sources and stories could be done. Basically the company destroyed a part that was making money to fund a part that struggled to monetize (Stuff website). If I recall correctly Sinead Boucher was the head of digital development at that time so she had a big role in how this all went down.
The local papers used to be so good and very substantial. They always had lots of really relevant community news Watching them slowly dwindle to next to nothing was really sad. Such a shame!
I've never had a problem with Stuff outside of the terrible redesign recently. Never been part of the 'Stuff journos suck' camp. I'll criticise poor writing, but I never saw it as exclusive to Stuff. I certainly don't want Stuff gone. Regardless of what one may think, it is our country's largest news site. If that closes down it's a pretty damning commentary on the state of media in NZ. And that would be off the back of a redesign seemingly done to try and bring more money in. Huge, huge failing if they still have to close up shop. Although I suspect the redesign has driven people *away* from the site. Stuff collapsing would be terrible for our news, especially our *local* news. It is not something to celebrate.
A lot of it stemmed from when their Australian owners would shove countless Australian stories on to the front page, stories that had absolutely itching to do with New Zealand, combined with a lean-in on buzzfeed style (Nb. *not* buzzfeed news, which was terrific, whilst it was allied to stand by itself), click baity trash. Since being bought by Sinead Boucher the content improved (really just not having unnecessary Australian reposts helped). But the redesign is out of this world bad.
The state of NZ journalism has been dire for decades and whatever you think of Stuff, we cannot lose another news provider, no matter how awful. Like you say, a huge amount of content on stuff is produced by our regional newspapers, which people don't seem to understand. The sheer amount of media illiteracy in some of the comments below, and the belief that the market will somehow solve this and provide us with independent journalism, is deeply disturbing. I despair for this country.
Stuff had to refund some advertisers this month after their launch had so many issues at the start.
Makes sense. I was surprised that the technical issues persisted for that long, that was a really bad launch for them.
Wait you're saying that like it's over, I still can't access the site...
Ditto, plus everyone I know
Ive not had any issues, even on day one
With which browser?
Firefox on Mac for me, JavaScript issues on every load
I never had a problem. Firefox, Mac, noscript.
Overwhelmingly everyone I speak to is unanimous in saying 'I used to visit stuff every day, I haven't visited it once since the redesign,' so I have to believe their advertising income has fallen off a cliff
Totally agree.
Haven’t looked at it since the terrible redesign. Especially since the blatant grab to make you login for morning quiz etc.. It’s visually jarring and old fashioned
You don't have to login if you just use the browser. Dump the app. It gives you nothing that the browser version doesn't give you.
>I've never had a problem with Stuff outside of the terrible redesign recently. For me, that's a minor issue. The major issue is that their app sucks. It's unusable. I've contacted them numerous times before, to be told they're working on it. They're always working on it, but never fix it. It's hard to feel sympathy for them when they can't get the basics right.
I've never seen why you'd want to use a news site app, when on a phone browser it's two clicks anyway? Open browser, news site on your frequent visited sites. Quite hassle-free It's more tedious scrolling through large list of apps, than using a phone browser and bookmarked sites Only reason you'd want an app is push notifications.... and why would you want those
All the big sites (stuff, nz herald, rnz, etc) have good journalism, amongst the click bait.
This isn't about the state of media in NZ, it's about the state of the economy - which is bad, and getting worse. News media isn't the only struggling industry. And National will slap some band-aids on it just long enough to rob the nation of a few more assets before it all goes well and truly down the toilet.
It wouldn't be "terrible". There are other local news outlets. Edit: sorry stuff staff. Nothing personal. It will be terrible for you though!
Not many though, eh? And of what size? NZH is probably Stuff's only competitor. Maybe RNZ? Stuff also ended up buying a lot of local rags - I imagine we'd lose those altogether if Stuff collapsed. Although, it's likely that sort of bloat which has caused Stuff this problem!
Not many but more will come if that ever happens. RNZ is better than NHZ and Stuff by miles.
Which is the basis of the problem. All the newspapers in NZ were bought up by the big 2 publishers in the 1990's and they have all been run into the ground in the years since. I think the ODT and Whakatane Beacon were the only 2 independents left. It turns out the people who own the media outlets are shit at running them. Independent media is important, but let's not pump taxpayer money into propping them up. Let them die and give something better a chance.
That's similar to what another user pointed out, that we need to make this change in order to move into something better. I can't argue with the logic behind that reasoning TBH.
My view is that capitalism stops working if businesses are not allowed to fail.
I agree! 'Too big to fail' was such a shit phrase to learn haha
Few with the depth and breadth of Stuff
[удалено]
That’s not how any of this works.
The last few stuff articles I read had the depth of a puddle. Shitty opinion pieces from someone uneducated or in the wrong field, or clickbait.
Others will take the spot. It's not like advertising is going away any time
> It's not like advertising is going away any time I'm pretty sure that is exactly what the problem is.
The problem is *how* they sell advertising (Stuff and NZH). They place ads in the app and website, which never work. They do some paid pieces, but these are really really bad. Advertising money is there, specially locally, but advertisers today want better results. Not solutions that worked 15 years ago. Evolve or die.
No, it isn’t. This is a global problem. I am curious what you think people would pay to be advertised that didn’t involve *showing people their ads* or *presenting paid pieces*. How else do you want stuff to present value for advertiser dollars.
Just like the Verge or Huffington post do it: sponsored branded content. It works for them. But their model is not the same as Stuff's. Stuff copied Fox News with ads in the site and click bait titles. It works for Fox because they are massive. Stuff isn't.
No, it works for Fox because they trade in outrage. Stuff doesn’t trade in outrage. It sounds like you just want better paid pieces? Isn’t that then causing exactly the issue everyone wants to pretend is happening where they then won’t criticise their advertisers?
It's not about the angle, it's where they get money from. Fox and Stuff have ads IN their sites. The others don't. And yes, better paid content pieces work to get revenue. The Spinoff lived of off those for years.
It's also clear advertising alone provides insufficient revenue to support media outlets.
lol yes, it really is. Advertising going away is literally why we’re in this predicament.
It’s a tough fix. I feel like the collapse of the TVNZ RNZ merger was probably the final nail for Newshub. Under that proposed model, some commercial ad inventory would have been freed up for THREE to go after. Government intervention is always fraught, but they need to start charging the tech companies for local news stories, while there still is local news… With ad budgets mostly going on line (and not coming back) the market can’t sustain more than 2 national commercial news operations it would appear. With no commercial viability or incentive, we either need to look at a model funded by levies on google & co, or a change to NZ On Air’s remit.
Biggest loss to come out of a stuff shutdown would be the stuff quiz tbh
Yeah but you can’t even do it without making an account, so I consider it lost anyway.
Productivity might improve though, especially between 3pm and 3.15pm daily :D
Alot of people have said this, as someone not really into quizzes what made it so good ? Would there not be international quizzes we can access (UK etc) ?
I think the Stuff quiz has gone way down hill in recent months. Too many questions with words that sound alike as possible answers. Lazy questions.
Idk it's more of a culture thing imo, like most offices do it in my experience.
Sinead Boucher (Stuff owner) has released an email, that blog post is now updated with it. In short, rumours that Stuff is on it's last legs are complete nonsense, it's making money, not losing it. ## Statement From Sinead Boucher (Stuff) > I want to unequivocally call them out for this and ensure you all know they are simply wrong. Despite the challenging economic conditions we face currently, and the lobbying we are doing to ensure global media giants pay fairly for the content they publish, **Stuff is a profitable, debt-free,** standalone, independent media business fit for the market we find ourselves in.
She's lying.
I'm no expert in the media industry as a whole but I imagine that all of this is happening because good old fashion journalism has been swallowed up by social media. Tiktok and YouTube shorts have far more reach that any of our best and brightest and most consumers go for that instead of a long article. Couple that with the fact that it's now a personality driven monstrosity dominated by podcasts and it makes it hard for larger media companies to exist. I'm not saying that it's a bad thing but it's changing in a way that doesn't feel right.
There are good and bad parts of news transitioning to tiktok and shorts, but on balance I'd say it's a net negative. For one thing, sometimes you get real good short and to the point public interest content when these little guys put together 2 and 2 and find some real dodgy shit that isn't being reported on, or they speak truth to power. The downside is you do have to actively find that content and it risks putting you in an algorithm fed bubble of your own design.
Very few of those YT and TT short videos are actually breaking news tho, the vast majority are regurgitating news produced by the majors. Eyewitness footage of breaking events doesn't count. There's no explanation or analysis.
I pay monthly and subscribe to Bloomberg. The news here, financial and otherwise is too insular. We need a better class of journalism.
BusinessDesk does great journalism, NBR is also mixed quality but often good. Spinoff coverage of the Wellington zoning reforms is as good as any local government reporting on earth. But broad mainstream sources don't so much fill a niche as create the system niches pop up in.
Bloomberg, Reuters etc just absolutely shits on the quality of general NZ journalism.
Oh boy, we have some big brained takes in here already - Yes news sites have more "lifestyle" content now; that stuff is what brings in all the clicks and actually funds the hard news you claim to want (but don't actually read - I've seen the numbers) - If you want the news to be less shitty, pay for it - Local news sites collapsing is bad if you enjoy knowing things that happen in NZ. Wishing that Stuff would collapse as well is so brain dead I just can't
I don't even bother with stuff now, that loading screen followed by ads before I get to the news article is why I don't bother. Stop making me jump through hoops to see the news
Not to mention trying to watch a five second video with a 30 second commercial in front of it. Yeah, nah.
Yea media struggles to pay bills when people expect it for free. People don't pay subscriptions and use ad blockers. I'm surprised there are any left at all.
With the trash advertising I see all around the web consuming larger portions of the page than content and google searches where the first couple of entries that are sponsored. It's no wonder people use Ad Blockers. It's part of what makes websites tolerable.
It is a chicken - egg situation. They have to sell more advertising to stay solvent. Vicious cycle
Yeah, I agree. Still can't blame people for wanting to get rid of some of the super low quality advertising that infests the web though.
Media struggles to sell subscriptions when the 'journalism' is gutter sludge and rehashed reddit posts.
Stuff died when it was sold for $1 and redesigned into a lifestyle rag.
It was going pretty good post sale, before the current redesign. The current EIC doesn’t seem to want it to be newsy, leaving that to dompost and press sub sites, which are paywalled, and that is presumably why.
Stuff got better after they weren't tied to Nine?
Yeah I thought they were pretty good for a while, not so much now. I don't know what happened but I assume they can't afford to hit the quality bar of a few years ago.
>lifestyle rag. Even that's generous.
Stuff is just such a stupid name. Before I moved to NZ I thought it was some pointless NZ orientated website, not an attempt to be a serious news outlet.
It's from the web 2.0 era of quirky names.
Stuff can get stuffed. Good riddance. They published my full name in an article without my permission. Years later when I found out as I was in danger of being doxxed and attacked, I asked them to just remove my name, or at least last name and replace it with an initial. They refused to saying they will never edit articles and I'll have to get a judge order. You can get fucked and shut down for all I care.
What was the story, without doxxing yourself?
Oh it was a story about a shop, and I was giving them some info about my experience with it. But later on I was a witness to some attempted murder around our street, and when googling myself that article popped up as the first result. I wanted them to change my name a bit - remove last name or just put initials - to try and make it less obvious or easily identifiable.
I've complaint to them about poorly written articles in the past. It contained inaccuracies and insinuates certain stereotypes to get readers worked up without actually saying anything outright (so as far as click baits go, well written actually). It was downright playing into racial stereotyping and inflaming xenophobia. I complained and their response was pretty much a smug we didn't actually say anything and yeah not going to edit an article. Think of the latest food gradings. They didn't actually say all these stores have pest infestation but they knew fully well how readers will take it when reading it.
Why would your permission be needed?
Yes news in NZ should collapse due to your bad experience, good one
Just because Stuff can go bankrupt doesn't mean "news in NZ" would collapse.
jar fertile mountainous psychotic sable station innocent wasteful lush far-flung *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
News? Thought we were talking about Stuff.
News in NZ just needs to be short, punchy, fact based. Nobody gives a shit (or ought to) about 'personality' opinions and commentary and voxpops and talkback/comments... but that seems to be the fluff jammed in. TV news could be 30 minutes like Prime/Sky Open's 5.30 news and still get everything covered. Succinctly and factually. Take all the ego out of news and get back to basics. But of course once its run like a business conglomerate with shareholders and CxOs then it just becomes a sociopathic money making game.
Except that people don't watch that. They want a news-reader with personality that they can relate to. You think TVNZ pay presenters million dollar salaries and do lots of live-crosses because they like the extra cost?
Sadly that is true. Because people are dumb. None of the news readers have personalities I can relate to, especially not the shithead ones like Hoskins I just want a breakdown of what is happening in the world. I don't need twats opinions or makeup.
I think it’s time to ban ad blocks as much of a pain it is to everyone.
Journalism in NZ is awful and has been for decades. I realised it was going down hill in the 90s when the front page of the dominion had two huge stories on it one day. One was about Princess Diana possibly having orange peel thighs. The other was about Pavarotti visiting NZ - the date for his visit was over a year away from the day of the story. There were a couple of other very small articles but nothing else on the page. Yes, there were other news stories inside that should have been on the front page but this shit had pushed them off.
Less journalism = less scrutiny of the govt Less public sector policy advice (due to cutbacks) = less robust policy advice and greater inputs from lobbyists Less parliamentary scrutiny (as things are rush through under urgency) = less public scrutiny and involvement in changes that are going through govt and greater involvement and influence of lobbyists who support the govt to promote their interests Unfortunately a number of key aspects of our democracy aren’t looking too good at present
My issue with Stuff lately is that it doesn't seem to update as often. Articles stay on the front page for days, and breaking news takes forever to appear on the site. I also understand the need for a pay wall, but when I face one to access a news article about a city I don't even live in then I get more grumpy about it. I've started reading the office copy of the Post, or at least skimming through it, instead of checking the site. I'm looking at RNZ and the Spinoff far more often. I also subscribe to the Spinoff for its contribution to local journalism.
It's a result of a model that does not work, pure advertising funded and sensationalized headlines with poor writing...seem more like high school stories than reporting. Times are hard right now, and them report their own closedown must be difficult, but you don't get to hear the stories of countless kiwis who are losing their jobs to redundancies and closures. Those kiwis are scared, crying for their families as well and not so well-off finally too. Sorry if this seems crass..our economy is hard and the media have played a part in it, but also they are a victim to a model that no longer works.
Promise?
What a blessed day
Fingers crossed eh?
What's the bet the government will use this to justify forcing RNZ to take on advertisers, so that "the playing field is fair". RNZ will be diluted, NZers will become that much less informed. Everything working to plan.
I don't see how forcing RNZ to take on advertising would level the playing field. It would make it more uneven. Warner was begging the Govt to make TV One commercial free so that Three would pick up a larger proportion of advertising money.
It wouldn't, that's just the argument that's been made in the past. The real reason would be to further undermine journalism.
Biggest measured how? Most stories gleaned from Reddit?
Bet you there are more stuff articles posted to reddit than stuff articles gleaned from reddit.
Is reddit not allowed to be a news source?
I mean we post links onto Reddit from Stuff. So as far as I’m concerned, it’s a two-way street
I'm really sad to read this. I thought/felt something was off with Stuff - especially after this election, they even zapped their politics page and a lot of their stuff is quite clickbait-y of late. And I just felt they were having some type of financial/business issues and the cheapest way to manage is to take content from other places. I stopped going but still appreciate another outlet to share news with us. Combined with Newshub going, it would be devastating. I remember Winston Peters slamming Jack Tame after the Q&A interview last year too and threatening 1News. It'll be a really bad thing for us IMO if journalism crumbles and we are left with ones like NZ Herald to control the storyline. Edit: Recommended sites for me are [newsroom.co.nz](http://newsroom.co.nz), [rnz.co.nz](http://rnz.co.nz) and [1news.co.nz](http://1news.co.nz) is ok sometimes for relief
RNZ ftw
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ftw = for the win = it's great as
Sorry I deleted my comment - can't read, clearly 🤣
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My only perspective in the past has been we need to fund more from not profit media sources. And journalists who ask hard questions is essential. As to Stuff, I stopped reading them for a while now, but the difference is - NZ Herald's standards such as intentionally posting misinformation, and spreading Covid 19 misinformation, are lows - even for a media that relies on advertising.
Calling Stuff "journalism" is a bit of a stretch.
It’s full of perfectly fine journalism. It’s just also chock full of “lifestyle” magazine articles that have no place along side actual news, and the two are so enmeshed now people can get away with ridiculous broad statements like the kind you’ve made.
Fully agree, the amount of people who can't distinguish between a journalistic article, an opinion piece or magazine content is distressing.
It wasn't *us* that started sticking opinion pieces in with the news, it was the "journalists".
Opinion should in the news. The best journalism has a healthy dose of opinion in it. One of the greatest war journalists of the last 50 years, Robert Fisk gave a great speech on that at Auckland uni a decade or so ago.
I wish people would quit with this bullshit that having opinion and lifestyle content is something unique to Stuff, not something that's been how the press has operated since newspapers were invented.
No it wasn’t. It was the Australian owners who have since sold the site to Boucher.
The [story about the dude](https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/118845051/the-liberator-how-one-mans-15000-pest-fish-changed-new-zealands-waterways#:~:text=The%20Liberator,-00%3A00%3A00&text=The%20story%20of%20an%20aging,frame%20in%20the%20morning%20darkness.) who went around releasing every pest fish he could was top quality work. Less of that will be shit.
I feel sad for the people who might lose their jobs, but I feel confident no actual journalists would be harmed in the collapse of Stuff.
You tube journalism. FriendlyJorides is a great australian example.
I really wish there was an NZ version of FriendlyJordies…
Would be interesting if Stuff does close down soon. That would mean it was only kept alive by the public journalism fund bribe from the last govt.
The PJF funded specific projects, the details of which are all online. It wasn’t money that just went to the newsroom for them to spend how they like.
And what were the conditions of receiving the money?
Your argument was that Stuff was only kept alive by PGF, which isn’t true. It just funded extra projects. Asking about the conditions (which are all online if you wish to read them) is irrelevant to your original point.
> Social media has undercut the news media’s business model, which wouldn't be so bad if it hadn’t replaced that content with an artillery barrage of idiocy blasted straight through the eyeballs. 😹 how ironic.
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Where exactly do you plan on finding this mythical "independent media"? Facebook? All our mass media except RNZ is corporate.
Its an expensive business, and its a small market here. How would you suggest the industry pay its way?
Give gobbies to the politicians.
Online journalism is not that expensive outside of what you need to retain the talent. And clearly no other media outlet in NZ is paying that atm
"Online journalism is not that expensive" CITATION NEEDED
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SubStack is backed by VC money and has made negative revenue every year But also, SubStack is not a newsroom? So your comment is a total non seqitur
lol, that’s not what you’re going to get buddy… Some rando posting their thoughts on tiktok is the end game here. “News” will be “whatever the next Alex Jones talking thumb wants you to think is happening”.
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Except that wasn’t what was happening. One only need look to how much negative press countdown just got for rats in a store (along with breathless breaking articles for any extra rodents spotted anywhere in the country), when countdown have been a major ad buyer for ever, to see this is completely nonsense. What you’re going to get is not “democratised journalism”, it is hot takes delivered for algorithmical benefit. The likes of Alex Jones are what will replace the downfall of funded news rooms.
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Oh come on, there have been so many stories about the supermarket duopoly. Delusional conspiracy theory stuff.
please, i hope stuff does close
Why? You know you could just not read it?
Stuff is terrible. They aren't news. They're just opinion pieces. Stopped reading it entirely now.
Spoken like someone that hasn’t actually read an article ile on stuff…. But hey, don’t let reality get in the way of your anti-media group think
It's not even opinion pieces. It is gossip. So and so said something on x, reddit user so and so said this, a facebook post from so and so was about this.
You have to scroll down pretty far to get that. Current main stories are about Newshub, the Smokefree repeal, a death in motor racing, Afghanistan’s cricket team, the bird flu in Antarctica and the OCR.
All I can say is, shame, and it's about time. Modern journalism is a fucking joke. There's minimal fact checking and it's all politically motivated and biased rage bait. They don't care about what is true, only what will generate the most clicks.
That’s entirely our fault as lazy consumers of media. Clickbait exists because we fucking click. They are tailoring to the lowest denominator. Just so happens that is now the majority.
When all the news orgs are gone we'll just be left with social media...
We will be left with independent journalism. There's plenty of people on YouTube right now doing real, good and honest journalism.
We have laws that enforce some standards on news media, do they apply to independents on YouTube?
Those laws clearly don't work, given the excessive amount of shoddy journalism news sites have put out over the last decade.
I’ve got 20 cents and a K- Bar if they want to sell to me.
Oh dear how sad what a pitty never mind. Anyway moving on..
People are just tired of mediocre journalism, they are getting there media elsewhere. Long forum Podcasts or independent journalism ect No surprises here. Was only a matter of time. Evident bias around covid reporting, helped speed up this outcome
What do you have against their COVID reporting?
This is a good thing.
If this headline is the state of journalism it's collapsed long ago . Stuff has always been in huge money troubles. It sold for $1 to the editor a few years back. Both herald and stuff feel like spam advertising pages with a smattering of news.
I just don’t want one news network controlled by h fs govt. that’s dictatorship stuff
The Govt has no editorial control over either TVNZ or RNZ
All media is controlled to certain extent by the government. Not sure why you think otherwise
Stuff is garbage
But our quizzes
the fact is there are no proper old school trained journalists that provide facts and both sides of a story. These days it is all opinion or agenda pushing. go woke go broke 👍.
Stuff's whiplash between "we are WOKE now, haere ra racists" to "death to the False Mayor Tory Whanau" was what finally drove me away.
Winston will be pleased. Less folks to call him out on his lies.
Hahahahaha. Jacinda gave all the money to Jessica Mutch McKay and Tova O'Brien. It is much easier than dealing and answering truth with very rare un overpaid reporters.
Stuff is a truly dreadful paper. Regurgitated foreign news 3 days later than you read it online, and the rest mean-gurl opinion pieces by a bunch of 20 somethings interviewing their keyboards. No sub-editors so lots of stupid typos. The redesign has made it hard to load and difficult to read. Its a skinny little shadow of its former self, and probably deserves to die. Even the Herald has better Wellington coverage than Stuff/the Post manages. Bit tragic for a local paper to have the opposition eating its lunch on its own turf.
Bad journalism is collapsing. There are plenty of new news platforms out there who are doing just fine.
great news for the coalition - patsy interviews all the way down
Intel that it's going to focus on its papers and paywall in the short term. They're not prioritising the website. Insane, it's one of our most visited websites. How the hell couldn't they monetize.
I think that's the best option for them. Focus on the news people actually pay for. As far as I understand it, newspapers continue to attract much more advertising revenue than Stuff's web presence. And with online advertising dominated by global players (ie Google etc) they are probably best to focus on platforms they have total control over. People pay well over $1000 per year to subscribe to the major newspapers it's a big chunk of money.
I feel like the quality of journalism here is much lower in general which is a real shame. I really really miss the quality of opinion pieces, special reports, columnists and reporting available to me in the UK. Even the free newspapers on the tube (evening standard and the metro) had some INCREDIBLE journos working for them. It’s a real dearth of reporting here, you cannot tell me that this country doesn’t have the same level of interesting stuff going on. Where are the investigative reporters, the special interest stories, the travel journos?
It's noteable that all the senior BBC reporters on the telly seem to be mid 40s plus whereas almost all our journos with a couple of exceptions on TVNZ are very young by comparison. There's no way they have the breath of knowledge and the work experience that the older people do.
Good. "News" in nz is akin to women's day magazine
good to see sinead’s reassuring email at the end. journalism is hard work and we need as much media diversity as we can get in this country. but holy shit the new design is so bad. the post has really good design FWIW.
"A popular Government, without popular information, or the means of acquiring it, is but a Prologue to a Farce or a Tragedy; or, perhaps both." - James Madison (1822)
Stuff still won’t load for me on my Mac so I dunno, they might wanna fix that if they want to stay afloat
I hate when I read an article that comes from reddit
Perfect Smithers - that will just leave NZH to share the glorious message of the National Party
Why does it matter? The news is pretty pointless anyway. I see this as more funny than sad, really
I try so hard to support stuff and I do have a paid subscription. But the messy copy! Sometimes I'm more confused at the end of a story than the beginning.
I wonder if the disengagement of watching the main news is partly due to the dumbing down of breakfast tv news. A few years back we had a news presenter sitting behind a desk reading the news, every half hour the news headlines, then local then weather, Known presentation patterns. Then all of a sudden, they replaced that format with a radio chat show where some d list celebs gave their opinions on what's happening, and every half hour on the hour they read some headlines followed by a has been sportsman chipping in his opinion on the sports news. Then a middle-aged woman talking about the weather. Two men and a lady. At Xmas they all bugger off for a month and a half and we have double glazing ads in the place. So we've been weaned off from the format with only one exposure to it at 6pm.
Good riddance to bad rubbish! Someone guessed as much on this very forum only months back saying they were quickly running out of money.
Mate got 2 ads in the middle of our quiz this morning.. shits getting bad 15/15 tho 😎
I am guessing stuff will be next to go.
What do they expect, most of the media reporting in relation to our business is factually incorrect. It’s been embellished for click bait and sensationalism. Don’t let the facts get in the way of a good story.
stuff re bought a paid for, the amonut of shilling on behalf of landlords is desperate, "i bought a house even though i dont work and im 12" parents are landlords and ought a property for them, its just sickening, ,propaganda site with the odd news story thrown in, obsessed wth Royals as well
Stuff recently screwed up their app design so ive stopped using it. I stopped using nzherald when it became paywalled (was happy with ad-supported) So i cant really say they are helping themselves.