Ardern and the media: a very complicated relationship

Few prime ministers have ever been as popular or polarising as Jacinda Ardern – a reality expressed in the highs and lows of her media coverage

Kia ora and welcome back to The Weekend, sponsored by the good beans at Coffee Supreme. If you’re trying to abstain from coffee in 2023 then perhaps the adrenaline of the unexpected (but unsurprising) resignation of the prime minister was enough to get your heart rate up. The Spinoff has been covering the resignation story since the news broke on Thursday. This morning, Duncan Greive analyses the prime minister’s complicated relationship with the media. Spinoff editor Madeleine Chapman is also the author of a bestselling Ardern biography and reflects on Ardern’s reluctant leadership here. We have more coverage rounded up for you below.

-Shanti Mathias, staff writer

Jacinda and the media

The prime minister faces the media (Image: Getty/Archi Banal)

In 2017, The Spinoff hosted a debate under the ludicrous name “The War for Mt Albert”, atteneded by Jacinda Ardern, then just the MP for Mount Albert. Duncan Greive writes that her command of the debate was a revelation. Later that year, Ardern became Labour leader on a tide of “Jacindamania” – an exciting but very challenging situation for the media to respond to. While Helen Clark and John Key were both known as brilliant leaders who handled media very well, Ardern was a wholly different and more impressive communicator, instinctively grasping how fast and comprehensively the media was changing. Most obviously this was shown in her use of social media, Facebook Live becoming her most impressively-deployed platform. For years, her extraordinary communication skills buoyed her leadership. But then the public mood changed – and the media followed suit.

More coverage of Ardern’s resignation

• Toby Manhire on Labour’s leadership dilemma

• Andrew Geddis explains how the next prime minister will be chosen

• Anna Rawhiti-Connell with a collection of Ardern’s greatest hits

• Stewart Sowman-Lund on the global reaction

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Crowning the Queen Bean

It’s important to bean serious about legumes. Writers Max Rashbrooke, Brannavan Gnananlingam and Murdoch Stephens assembled a squad to tackle the challenge of ranking every bean they could find in Wellington. With 19 different kinds of beans to taste, it was a challenging mission, and you can sense the rankers’ weariness as they plodded up the mountain of pulses. But every hard thing is worth doing and their scientific, percentage based consensus is a valuable contribution to our knowledge of the best types of plant based protein.

Where in the world is Trevor Rainbolt?

GeoGuessr extraordinaire Trevor Rainbolt (Image: Supplied/Tina Tiller)

Last year I started watching enthralling clips of Trevor Rainbolt, a professional GeoGuessr. GeoGuessr is a geographical browser game where players guess locations – from nondescript suburbs to remote rural places – using only Google street view imagery. Rainbolt has millions of subscribers on YouTube and TikTok, a following that has allowed him to travel the world. Thomas Giblin interviews Rainbolt about whether he actually loves geography, how he memorises details, and his pivot into helping people pinpoint locations from a single, often sentimental photo. (If you enjoy this kind of content, you might want to browse through Critic Te Ārohi’s Mr. Worldwide archives)

Learning to love induction stoves

Charlotte Muru-Lanning loves cooking with gas. But gas stoves are linked to indoor air pollution and increased rates of asthma, and in the US the gas debate is becoming a culture war, propped up by vested interests in the fossil fuel lobby. Is it time to give up gas stoves? This week Muru-Lanning talked to chefs about how they use induction stoves, a clean and efficient alternative to gas, especially because electricity in New Zealand is mostly renewable. Like Muru-Lanning, I’m a little bit sceptical: show me an induction stove that can puff up my rotis like a gas flame can, and then we can talk. But if you really love fire, chef Alex Davies points out it’s still possible to have a woodfired oven or barbecue in the fresh air outside.

One dolphin is enough reason to care about extinction

Image: Getty/Tina Tiller

Maia Ingoe grew up on the East Coast where Moko the friendly dolphin was a local celebrity in the 2000s. In an essay this week, she reflects on how we connect to other species, and why some are easier to love than others. It might be a cliche to love dolphins, she says, but when she imagines the smooth round fins of the Māui dolphin slipping under the waves to extinction, she’s reminded of how important it is to love the idiosyncrasies of species at risk. The injustice of extinction is close to us, not something abstract.

You’re invited to the Carpet Club – a Spinoff live event

The Carpet Club is a Spinoff event at the Morningside Live Block Party being held on February 5 in Morningside, Auckland. Join us for live comedy, live podcasts, live drawing and live human conversation, including live versions of podcasts Gone by Lunchtime and The Real Pod and live comedy from Chris Parker, Janaye Henry, Guy Montgomery, and Courtney Dawson. Tickets are strictly limited so get in quick.

Everything else

I went hard on summer reading and narrowing down this list was very difficult.

• I loved this incredibly good profile of boygenius for Rolling Stone and as a Sprained Ankle diehard I cannot wait for their new album.

• Should we be surprised that a ghost kitchen ghosted their own staff?

• Eggsplaining what’s happened to the eggs.

• Do you like true crime podcasts? What about if the crime is illegal fishing? Join me in being obsessed with the high seas by listening to The Outlaw Ocean.

• I haven’t watched Emily in Paris but I enjoy Emily in Paris discourse including these three pieces.

• What to expect as a renter in 2023.

• Freedom camping’s ultra-affordable days might be numbered.

• Buzzy and bizarre new horror film M3GAN was directed by a New Zealander – and one of our citizens is responsible for that viral unheimlich dance too.

• Emily Writes meditates on how to be rich.

• Wonderful feature here about the modern iteration of Te Kura and the kids who need it. I was once a Te Kura student, and my family home still has some correspondence school supplies hanging around.

• I loved reading about what it takes to move Auckland’s Real Groovy store to a new location and learned a bit about music business history on the way.

• Living without plastic is really, really hard (the photos alone are worth clicking on this story).

• Madeleine Chapman starts running again.

• This made me tear up: an article about returning Yukun, an indigenous Australian man murdered by a white policeman, to his Country.

• Annoy your enemies and delight your friends with some cloudspotting.

• A beautiful essay about strangeness, disability and changelings.

• Why Milo is so strongly associated with Singapore.

• One of my plans for 2023 is to put more European pop music in The Weekend and so here’s this collab between French singers Vianney and Kendji Girac – the perfect song for a summery weekend.