The Spinoff Weekend: The state of journalism in 2022
Reporters in Aotearoa are actually doing kind of great?
Welcome to The Spinoff Weekend, your weekly round up of what’s good on The Spinoff and around the web. This week, Chris Schulz looks at why there are so many journalism jobs after the industry was decimated by Covid. But that’s not all: if you have loved Hairy Maclary at any point in your life you’ll want to watch the new documentary about his creator, an eggcup collector gets some welcome contributions to his collection, and we find out what’s beneath those headlines that you can make $60 an hour picking kiwifruit. I feel compelled to point out that it’s winter, the weather is largely miserable, and drinking a hot beverage (Coffee Supreme, perhaps?) and learning things from your phone is a great pleasure, and certainly how I hope to use my weekend.
-Shanti Mathias, staff writer
There are nearly too many jobs in journalism
Back in 2020, newsrooms were laying off staff or asking them to take pay cuts, and some publications closed for good. Covid was not great for journalism – but is the tide turning? “I'd heard anecdotally from friends in the industry that things had changed, that suddenly, there were way too many jobs, and not enough reporters to fill them, so I started asking around, and it's true,” says Chris Schulz. “It’s become a very good time to be a reporter”.
Number of the week: can you get $60 an hour to pick kiwfruit?
According to the rules of headline writing, the answer to any question posed in a headline is “no”. That’s certainly what writer Andrew Gunn found when he moved to the Bay of Plenty for the kiwifruit season. “After a while the fruit doesn’t look like fruit any more, but like huge furry eggs. I imagine dollars falling like fruit from the canopy and paying off my credit card debt.” While some may be able to be paid $60 an hour, this is the exception. Gunn found that dodgy contracts, competition for quotas, and routine underpayment are widespread. The upshot? “I left the Bay of Plenty with little more cash than I arrived with.”
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Behind the scenes with Hairy Maclary’s creator
When Lynley Dodd first doodled a rhyme about a scrappy dog on the back of a shopping list, she didn’t know she was creating one of our most iconic children’s characters. Now, nearly 40 years since the first Hairy Maclary book was published, the celebrated author invites audiences into her whimsical world for the very first time.
What inspired her decades of cats in boxes, dogs up trees and the elephants in attics? How does the creative process work when one is both the illustrator and writer of their work? And what project is she working on next at the age of 81? The one-off documentary special Lynley Dodd: Writing the Pictures, Painting the Words is a perfect weekend watch.
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The Corngate clash, 20 years on
Two decades ago, a harsh studio lighting creating an extreme chiarascuro effect, a younger John Campbell interviewed then prime minister Helen Clark about what she knew about the release of genetically engineered corn into New Zealand, and when she knew it. The live interview, Clark defensive and furious, Campbell relentless in his line of questioning, was instantly explosive, especially because it was a general election year. Some of us (me) were only toddlers at the time, so I really appreciated Duncan Greive’s deep dive into the interview and the “Corngate” controversy surrounding it, and why a changed media landscape means that a similar TV event would be unlikely to be so agenda-setting today.
The case of the missing eggcup, part two
A few weeks ago, Alex Casey wrote about Johnny Green, a 92 year old Aucklander who has been collecting eggcups in memory of his mother, who gave him a much-loved eggcup before her death. But his mother’s eggcup was later stolen, and Alex asked readers to get in touch if they knew of its whereabouts, or another one that looked like it. Multiple owners of eggcup lookalikes reached out, and Alex was able to reunite Johnny with them. He was stoked. As an added bonus, Green drove his World of Eggcups truck to The Spinoff office this week so we could get a glimpse of some of his extensive collection. Shelves of shiny eggcups were laid out in all their splendour; my favourite was a colourful Crown Lynn cup shaped like a seal, and it made me think that maybe one of the things I should do this weekend is savour a boiled egg.
Everything else
Cooking lettuce is a great idea, says Charlotte Muru-Lanning
What do kiwi-avoidance programmes for dogs achieve?
Elon Musk can’t stop having secret babies. I wish I didn’t have this information, but I do, and I feel compelled to share it with all of you.
This website visualises increasingly absurd trolley problems if you want to feel a bit ethically icky
Alex Casey unpacks the utter chaos of an advertisement for nootropic coffee from the runner up to last year’s Apprentice Aotearoa
Are you concerned about the flooding in Northeast India and Bangladesh — or have no idea about it at all? The Guardian’s Today in Focus podcast has an explainer, and contextualises the flooding in terms of climate change.
What is it like to get Covid three times? Toby Manhire asks Lloyd Burr
Architects in Senegal are trying to revive traditional building with mud practices in the era of climate change.
Who are the contestants for the new seasons of Drag Race Down Under and Taskmaster?
Toby Morris ranks 50 of Aotearoa’s greatest logos. I loved how much I learned about design history from reading this piece.
How does it feel to be a parent watching other parents post about losing their children on social media?
And finally, a gorgeous essay about why tuna are the bad boys of the moana.
Elon Musk is so gross 🤢