Stories by Hayden Donnell

The country's main Christian broadcaster is revamping and expanding its output, even as its target market shrinks and pleasing a broad church is tough in times of polarisation.

Cost-cutting in newsrooms lately has shrunk lifestyle sections, but RNZ's just launched with a new section online - and the new Listener magazine is changing its mix in print too.

Mediawatch - NZME's top brass now have a billionaire on board who wants control and maybe more far-reaching editorial change.

The NZ Herald's streaming video service will be part of a restructuring that included the loss of 30 journalists' jobs, but it's not clear whether it will pay off, Mediawatch reports.

The New Zealand Herald owner is slashing roles across its newsrooms.

Mediawatch: Christmas coincides with media tackling the gargantuan task of ranking everything humanity produced this year. Audio

Mediawatch - An award-winning journalist dedicated to reporting abuse in state care was briefly banned from the official apology. Why? And what did he make of it?

Two top US papers copped backlash when billionaire owners interfered in election coverage. Mediawatch asks if the boss of Stuff could compromise her own company's coverage in Wellington.

Mediawatch - What's behind a sudden surge of scandalous social media posts co-opting news media names to make them look less dodgy?

Mediawatch - Humans have an inherent negativity bias. Do we really want feel-good news in not-so-good times?

There are claims politicians are dodging media interviews - but the way the media handle them might be part of the problem. Video

The associate justice minister was put through through a tough examination on TVNZ's Q+A last weekend over past and present statements on guns laws. But not every minister's recent announcements on…

In this week's edition of Midweek Mediawatch, Hayden Donnell talks to Emile Donovan about the Herald backing away from running another ad from Hobson's Pledge, a question going begging in the coverage…

A rancorous debate over an Olympic boxer and violent riots in the UK both trace back to rampant misinformation online -  and one social media platform in particular.

A New Zealand Herald editorial written with the help of artificial intelligence has raised questions about how our media should use the technology for journalism - and how much their consumers should…

The New Zealand Herald’s publisher NZME says it should have employed more “journalistic rigour” when it used artificial intelligence tools to create an editorial that appeared in the Weekend Herald…

In this week's Midweek Mediawatch, Hayden Donnell talks to Emile Donovan about the Herald using AI to write an editorial - and delves into the media's disappointment over our lacklustre Olympic medal…

Air NZ has often had an easy ride from our media. But with domestic airfares spiking, that's starting to change.

In this week's Midweek Mediawatch, Hayden Donnell talks to Emile Donovan about an emerging media consensus over our malfunctioning Defence Force aircraft, how rude words slipped though in music on…

A journalist kicked out of his local café kicked off hot debate in the media this week, and Gen Z copped criticism in the middle of all that - and not for the first time. But the appetite for a…

In this week's edition of Midweek Mediawatch, Hayden Donnell talks to Emile Donovan about the government's latest reason for not funding 13 cancer drugs, a mammoth loss expected at TVNZ, AI faking the…

Many media outlets reported interesting poll findings this week about using emojis at work. The only problem: the poll was almost meaningless, statistically-speaking. But it's far from the first time…

Midweek Mediawatch: Hayden Donnell and Emile Donovan apologise poetically to a small Tararua seaside settlement inadvertently insulted by RNZ online. Also: Stuff launches crime podcasts you pay for -…

A plan to update the system for regulating our media content has been running under the radar for years. Some agencies that do the job now have backed the move to one single body, but this week the…

A proposal for online content regulation has been scrapped, with the government pointing to a mass of public submissions against the idea. But a closer look shows nearly all those submissions were…