The Fold The Spinoff

The Fold is taking a break over the summer. We'll be back with new episodes soon, but until then we're republishing some of our favourite interviews of 2020. This week: Duncan talks with Stuff CEO Sinead Boucher after she bought the company for $1 back in May.


First published June 24, 2020.


The chaotic couple of weeks which finally saw the end of the Stuff-NZME saga were riveting and strange, replete with stock exchange announcements, legal challenges and finally the acquisition of New Zealand’s most-viewed news platform by its CEO for just $1.


Six months after she appeared on the very first episode of The Spinoff’s media podcast, The Fold, I had Stuff CEO – and now Stuff’s sole owner – Sinead Boucher back to the show. She recounts those extraordinary few weeks, from the collapse of Bauer NZ, to just how brutalised ad revenues got in lockdown, the bailout package and the strange forces impacting journalism during level four.


Sinead casually reveals what happened behind the scenes during those hectic times, and plots out the future for Stuff – New Zealand’s biggest employer of journalists, and the closest thing to a truly national news network that exists in this country. For those in and around the media, who watched the maneuvering of our two print media giants with awe and popcorn, it’s a pretty fascinating hour. 
 
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The Fold is taking a break over the summer holidays. We'll be back in the new year, but until then we're republishing some of our favourite interviews of 2020. This week: Duncan talks with Gaurav Sharma from The Indian Times about the communities NZ's media doesn't serve.


First released July 7, 2020.


I first met Gaurav Sharma in the aftermath of March 15. New Zealand and the world has gone through so much trauma since then that it feels much further away than the 15 months which have elapsed since. He was there for another meeting, but afterwards a colleague said we had to meet, and we spoke for a half hour or so, and he talked to me about the impact of the attacks on the migrant community. Sharma edits the Multicultural Times, which grew out of the Migrant Times, each one a newspaper dedicated to telling stories about and for a community which he argues persuasively for being underrepresented in New Zealand’s media.
 
His own story is a microcosm of that – an engineer by training, he switched to journalism 12 years ago in India. He arrived in New Zealand five years ago, and found its society and his chosen profession entirely closed off to him. Hence starting two businesses.
 
He’s now associate editor of The Indian News, a weekly newspaper which he has broadened to include coverage of other immigrant communities within New Zealand. I asked him up to The Fold, my monthly podcast covering media within New Zealand, to talk about his own journey within New Zealand journalism, March 15, and his considered and powerful critique of New Zealand media. It’s a confronting conversation at times, but I think one which Pākehā like me within the New Zealand media need to hear to help us understand who we’re creating journalism for, and who we’re missing out.
 
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The pandemic put unbearable pressure on New Zealand’s media this year, but also saw it gain larger and more engaged audiences than ever before. In a year-ending monopod, Duncan Greive wraps his head around what it all means.


I've tried to capture the sweep of this incredible year by drilling into the news organisations, journalists and other players in the ecosystem. Broadly it felt like a year in which, under some of the most extreme duress imaginable, journalism rediscovered its purpose, and both the public and government felt that too. So for an hour I went solo, taking the monopod format and going deep on the following topics:


- Google and Facebook’s epic battle with Australian regulators, and what that means for New Zealand.
- Sinead Boucher and Stuff’s triumphant year, from buying the company for $1 to the historic apology and everything in between – while still having questions over its future.
- The contrasting strategy of NZME, which is clearly more focussed on business than editorial at this point.
- The continued rollercoaster that is Sky, which started the year by buying Lightbox and ended it by losing its CEO (while gaining a very promising new one).
- A holding pattern for RNZ, which tried to change and found New Zealand’s most powerful NIMBYs camped on its lawn.
- TVNZ deftly using its dominance to huge advantage – owning the local space, becoming the unquestioned winner of the free VOD platforms and positioning itself to be the main player in the suddenly-back-on RNZ/TVNZ merger.
- A series of coups for Mediaworks, selling the TV arm to Discovery and installing Air NZ’s Cam Wallace as CEO of the new radio and outdoor company.
- The unexpected vitality of the indie media space after the collapse of Bauer.


It’s all hyper-nerdy, but if you are, tragically for you, into this sort of thing, then there’s a solid hour of me talking at you about this heart attack year for our media. Merry Christmas, I guess?
 
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Pour yourself some eggnog and join the hosts of The Spinoff’s podcast network for our annual Superpod round up of the year that was.


Representing Gone By Lunchtime, Dietary Requirements, The Real Pod, Papercuts, The Fold and On The Rag our hosts dive into the key events, issues, heroes and villains of 2020.


From National’s botched election campaign to Ben Thomas’ take on TikTok, via the collapse of Bauer, the rise of oat milk, with a detour through controversial frozen grapes and Simon’s Sausage Spot, there’s something for everyone in this year’s Superpod. Featuring special guests producer T and Covid-19.
 
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ActionStation was formed in 2014, but it feels like they’ve been around much longer than that. The independent, crowdfunded community organisation has led a number of highly visible and successful campaigns across a wide range of issues during the last six years, thanks in no small part to the energy and forward thinking of its outgoing director Laura O’Connell Rapira.

In her time the group has carried the conversation on everything from mental health to making Matariki a public holiday in a way that feels distinctly modern, online and media-savvy. To talk about what’s worked, what hasn’t, the highlights of the role and what’s next, Laura O’Connell Rapira joined host Duncan Greive on this week’s episode of The Fold.

The Fold is proudly supported by Vodafone. With innovation made simple and world-class network technology, Vodafone will help maximise the potential of you and your business. Find out more at vodafone.co.nz
 
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This is episode one of Coming Home, a new five-part podcast series from The Spinoff podcast network, in partnership with Kiwibank. We're sharing it with you here because we think if you like The Fold you might find this interesting too. Have a listen and subscribe on your platform of choice to hear the rest of the series. New episodes arriving weekly.


Coming Home delves into the phenomenon of high achieving New Zealanders returning to Aotearoa in the era of Covid-19. Join hosts Duncan Greive and Jane Yee as they seek to find out who these returnees are, why they left New Zealand in the first place, the reasons for their homecoming and what their arrival means for all of us. Featuring Peter Gordon, Julia Arnott-Neenee, Paul Spoonley, Jarrod Kerr, Rachel Morris, Joel Kefali, Polly Fryer and Mahoney Turnbull.
 
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