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Illustration: Toby Morris
Illustration: Toby Morris

MediaAugust 9, 2022

Government ‘shoulder taps’ Vice NZ, which shut in 2019, to make new ads about break-ups

Illustration: Toby Morris
Illustration: Toby Morris

Last week Vice Australia advertised for its first NZ-based roles since it laid off all its local staff three years ago. The positions are intended to work on a planned project funded by the Ministry of Social Development about healthy relationships.

The Ministry of Social Development (MSD) has “proposed using” an Australian publisher which shut its New Zealand office more than three years ago to lead a new campaign targeting young New Zealanders. The work is focused on teaching rangatahi how to handle issues around consent and love, with the first tranche focused on relationship break-ups.

While the budget has not been revealed, Vice is seeking two full-time roles for 12 months, and MSD pointed to a budget allocation of $1.8m a year relating in part to “a new campaign focused on safe relationships for young people”. While Vice still operates a New Zealand section, subsequent to the Auckland office’s closure the homepage surfaced by a Vice NZ search is dominated by stories about Australian politics, Australian house prices, and Australian economic issues.

MSD is charged with providing social services and policy to the government, and commissioned agencies Clemenger BBDO and OMD to create a campaign around healthy relationships. Those agencies have proposed Vice, part of the wholly Australian-owned Nine group, as the lead publishing partner on the campaign. This led to Vice Australia last week advertising for its first NZ-based roles since 2019, with both ads explicitly mentioning New Zealand’s Ministry of Social Development in the copy.

When approached for comment, MSD sent a statement attributed to Mark Henderson, in his capacity as General Manager – Safe, Strong Families and Communities. Henderson explained that “MSD is funding an online information campaign aimed at a youth audience. The overall campaign aims to promote healthy, safe and consensual relationships, love and sex… They in turn will be contracting a range of local and international content providers, which specialise in reaching youth audiences.”

The heading of one of the new job ads

Clemenger BBDO and OMD are both part of Omnicom, a New York-headquartered conglomerate which works extensively on New Zealand government ad accounts, including the acclaimed Unite Against Covid-19 campaign. MSD says Clemenger and OMD will be contracting a range of local and international providers to reach young New Zealanders.

When approached for comment Clemenger BBDO and OMD said its response would be delivered through MSD, which later supplied a statement pointing to a previous Vice campaign for Waka Kotahi. The campaign featured survivors of car crashes saved by seatbelts, and Clemenger BBDO quotes Ladbible as saying of it that “the seatbelt just turned badass”. The campaign originated in 2019, though, and was run by Vice’s NZ-based staff prior to their redundancies.

Henderson did point out that NZ-based publisher Shit You Should Care About, which has an entirely NZ-based staff, would also be involved in the campaign. But it added that “a further overseas-based supporting partner is expected to be confirmed, extending the campaign into their established audience of young New Zealanders.” (A spokesperson for Nine refused to comment on the roles, nor to make anyone from Vice available for an interview).

How the original Vice NZ office see the jobs

Former staff of Vice NZ reached were shocked to see the roles advertised, given Vice’s history here. “When I realised that the contracts and the work are quite explicitly tied to a 12-month commercial partnership with an NZ government department, it felt like a bit of a gut punch,” said a former staffer who asked not to be named. “Is Vice NZ only a going concern as long as MSD is paying the bill?”

Another ex-staffer expressed similar puzzlement at the choice of Vice. “I’m surprised if government departments are dedicating substantial funding to an overseas organisation that has demonstrated no real commitment or track record for supporting long-term journalism in New Zealand – and in recent years laid off their entire team of dedicated NZ writers, editors and documentary makers.

“It’s also a bit of a shock to see job ads implying the Ministry of Social Development might be bankrolling this in its entirety. Sponcon’s part of the mix for most outlets nowadays, sure, but the prospect of a country office funded by a single ministry – especially if they have some level of editorial sign-off – is depressing.”

A collage of images from feature stories on Vice NZ, which closed in 2019

Vice NZ was known for a distinctive and highly original stream of content for some years before abruptly laying off its staff in February of 2019, most notably the Zealandia documentary series. While operational it employed a clutch of the most vibrant young media talent in Aotearoa, including Tess McClure, who has gone on to run the Guardian’s New Zealand coverage, and Frances Morton, who went on to lead TVNZ’s Re: and just started as the new editor of Sunday magazine, along with David Benge, Charlotte Hill and Matthew McAuley, who went on to senior positions at Red Bull, Sky and The Spinoff respectively.

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Vice NZ’s office closed during a major round of global redundancies in 2019, and its Australian operations were eventually sold to Pedestrian, itself wholly owned by media conglomerate Nine, the former owners of Stuff. At the time of the redundancies, a Vice spokesperson claimed that the outlet “will continue to report on the issues young people in NZ care about”, though refused to explain how it would do this without any New Zealand-based staff.

What does Vice NZ look like at the moment?

A survey of its New Zealand content offering suggests covering Aotearoa from Australia has proven impossible. Currently its ‘New Zealand’ page is dominated by content focused squarely on Australia. On the first page of the section, the only mention of New Zealand is in relation to our anti-smoking legislation, and for the sole purpose of asking whether Australia might follow suit. Its Instagram page has just three posts in 2022, all paid content in partnership with Samsung, while its Facebook page has recently posted sparsely-engaged content covering a murder in Italy and new legislation regarding US rental properties. It presents as the defunct editorial brand it has been since 2019, at least until MSD arrived.

What Vice Australia’s ‘New Zealand’ section currently looks like (Screengrab)

This aspect of MSD’s work falls under the remit of associate minister for social development, Priyanca Radhakrishnan. She provided a statement to The Spinoff saying that the campaign falls under operational decisions made within her ministry, but added that “when I meet with them this week I will be asking questions around outsourcing of work, and will ensure that due diligence has been done and the projected results impactful.”

Update: 12pm 9 August – MSD has requested that we update our story to reflect that it says Vice has simply been proposed as the media partner, not selected. We note their position here, but cannot independently verify this as neither Vice nor OMD/Clemenger BBDO have commented directly – both expressly turned down the opportunity to do so prior to publication.

Update: 10am 10 August – This story and headline has been further updated to reflect MSD’s position that while Vice has advertised the roles the contract with them has not actually been signed.


Follow Duncan Greive’s NZ media podcast The Fold on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or your favourite podcast provider.

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Image: Getty Images / Tina Tiller
Image: Getty Images / Tina Tiller

MediaAugust 4, 2022

Your Facebook feed is filled with pointless garbage now, but look on the bright side

Image: Getty Images / Tina Tiller
Image: Getty Images / Tina Tiller

At least it crowds out the conspiracy theories, MLMs and anti-vax nonsense from people you actually know, says Emily Writes.

This story was first published on the author’s newsletter, Emily Writes Weekly.

Everywhere I look people are fretting over changes to the way Facebook and Instagram work (or maybe that’s don’t work?).

As somebody who has been repeatedly and relentlessly Zucked over many times in my career, I suppose I should be joining the chorus. Just yesterday, Zuckerberg and his army of incels deigned to send my book launch post out to just six people. The day before, Facebook had rammed ads on either side of my post about child sleep which reached 27,000 organically.

Still, I find myself largely unbothered by new changes to the platforms I love to hate. Of course, I feel for the small businesses who are once again having to navigate a platform that will likely change again in a month. Of course, I feel for the activists who now have to figure out how to beat a system that they abhor. And I always feel for the artists, the creators, the change-makers.

But I find myself thinking – surely, surely this is the death knell?

I loathe Facebook. And I’m on it every day. I hate Instagram slightly less and find I can enjoy it more when I’m in my stories and DMs with a locked profile. I’m also on that platform every day.

Do either of these platforms make my life better? Absolutely not.

I am terrified (possibly more than I’m terrified of climate change) that these apps will irreparably harm my children as tweens and teenagers. Not an empty fear given by its very design Instagram profits from, and encourages, social conformity and needing to “fit in” and Facebook is slowly poisoning us against each other with misinformation.

Zuck and Facebook’s execs know this: “Thirty-two percent of teen girls said that when they felt bad about their bodies, Instagram made them feel worse,” researchers said in a March 2020 slide presentation posted to Facebook’s internal message board (from the Wall Street Journal).

Instagram is literally causing our kids to harm themselves and each other. In its own research it found 13% of British users who had suicidal thoughts (and 6% of American users with the same feelings) traced the desire to end their lives to Instagram.

So I find myself in a conundrum: will I lose money and potentially my career if Instagram and Facebook die? Possibly. Big possibility actually.

Would it be worth my career ending if we didn’t have these platforms any more? Yes. Probably. Big probably actually.

Both Instagram and Facebook have announced changes that suggest they view the threat of TikTok as existential (Photos of Instagram head Adam Mosseri and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg: Getty Images, additional design: Tina Tiller)

In theory, ethically, we should be celebrating the end of Facebook, even if that would be a financial disaster for us. Even if it takes away our ability to discover our cousin is an anti-vaxxer who thinks Jacinda Ardern is a communist who hates truck drivers.

The deaths of these platforms might also push toxic influencer culture into the metaphorical wood-chipper too. A move that I would celebrate with every fibre of my being.

Dozens of times this week I’ve seen influencers share a post that says, “I just want to see my friends online”. They’ve encouraged their followers to share the same post and even write to Instagram to save their beloved platform. A platform that has banned black content creators for having black bodies and censored POC creators. A platform that has harmed sex workers by using sex trafficking legislation as a weapon. A platform that has basically aided and abetted the harassment of trans and nonbinary people, then removed their content or used the alogorithm to censor them.

But aside from that, this message from influencers is disingenuous. The inference is clear: “I’m your friend, you want to see me.”

But influencers and businesses and companies are not in it to make friends with their clients and customers. It’s like your workplace saying you’re one big family – which is only true in that your family and your workplace is dysfunctional. It’s all marketing. Chat to me, engage in my ads, and we might be friends!

This push to view followers as friends by influencers is part of the parasocial relationships they cultivate then complain about for content.

When influencers rally against changes to Instagram, it’s because those changes hit their pocket – it’s not because those changes mean you won’t see your third cousin’s engagement announcement. A minor distinction, but one I think is worth pointing out anyway.

We lost the Facebook and Instagram that was about following friends a long time ago. These days people with 100+ family and friends following them view themselves as micro-influencers. Everything is an ad.

Most of my friends do not and have not posted anything but memes on Instagram for a long time.

It took me ages to find anything in my feed from my friends, and most of it was “I have Covid” or “I’m in Fiji” which is jarring enough that I could have done without it.

Facebook has been garbage for us for ages is what I’m saying.

Instagram has been feeding me the most illogical garbage known to man for months and months now. And I eat it up like the slack-jawed burnt-out neurodivergent millennial that I am.

This morning I watched someone press the stomach of a stingray and I watched baby stingrays shoot out of the stingray like it was a ravioli maker.

I looked at the comments and somebody said, “I thought they laid eggs” and then someone else said, “don’t stingrays need water?” and then someone else responded to that person and said, “you leftards don’t know shit about fish let’s go Brandon”.

So, I went to Facebook.

Here’s what Facebook delivered to me this morning:

Never in my life have I shown even a passing interest in birds.

But this is a nice bird.

Would I choose being shown this nice bird over my friend’s dad sharing a post saying children these days are far too coddled? Yes. I would pick this bird.

Next up was this, complete with illogical “my heart is melting. <3” commentary.

This dog is clearly, clearly saying that he was once proud and mighty, and he does not deserve to be in a tie and faux shirt and waistcoat combo. This dog is saying “look, I care about you Greg, but this is a step too far. I’m pleased you and Stephanie have found each other, but I’m a dog. I want to lick my balls and chew on pig ears. That’s it.”

Would I choose this dog over my aunt sending me a post that says a new study has found cucumber could treat type one diabetes? But the study only had two people in it and found cucumbers did nothing and it was actually about type two diabetes? Yes, I would choose the sad dog who doesn’t want to wear human clothes.

Thank you @ Inspirational Quotes 720. That is indeed inspirational.

I will never give up on my dream for my job to be “Muscle Inspector” on the set of all Marvel and Alexander Skarsgard films. It is something I really want after all.

Do I want this quote served to me over an announcement from a friend from high school that she’s selling essential oils and everyone should go organic even though I distinctly remember doing drugs with her in high school those drugs were not organic? Hmmm maybe. Undecided.

And then finally. More farken birds.

Splendid Fairywrens (Malurus splendens) males in Australia by Mark Eatwell.

Are they not splendid? They are very splendid. Is Splendid Fairywren not the best name you could call these beautiful birds?

Do I like birds now?

They are beautiful birds.

Splendid birds.

Who am I to disagree with the mighty algorithm?

At least these posts don’t make me want to set myself on fire.

And if they put us one step closer to burying Facebook and Instagram on the second and third hole of Donald Trump’s golf course then quite frankly:

*Does the Lizzo TikTok dance*

It’s about damn time!

This story was first published on the author’s newsletter, Emily Writes Weekly.

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