Stuff

We revolutionised court reporting in New Zealand with our smash-hit narrative non-fiction podcast The Trial last year on the murder trial of David Charles Benbow. The Trial is back for its much-anticipated second season, this time following the case of murder-accused Philip Polkinghorne. Media coverage of trials usually involves short dispatches summarising that day’s arguments that often sacrifice the narrative whole. In The Trial, you’ll hear the full story of the case as it unfolds with all its context and complexity as our host, Philippa Tolley, guides you through the trial each week. The Trial season two is the second subscription-based podcast in our portfolio of award-winning on-demand audio. You can listen to the first episode for free, with the rest of the episodes available on early release to subscribers. “We are Aotearoa’s home of true crime podcasts and we know Kiwis and international listeners alike will be enthralled as Philippa and the team tell the story of this case over the coming weeks,” says Stuff Head of Audio Laura Heathcote. “We’ve had great success with our first paid subscription podcast, The Lost Boy, and are further diversifying our audio offering with this new subscription model for The Trial.” The Trial features incredible sound design from our award-winning colleague Connor Scott and reporting from Stuff journalists Catrin Owen and Edward Gay. Chris Reed is the Executive Producer and Jen Black is Associate Producer. Listen now: https://lnkd.in/dmUTRh8u 📸: Eye surgeon Philip Polkinghorne is on trial for the murder of his wife in the Auckland High Court. Credit: Chris McKeen/Stuff

Earlier this year, we invested big to build technology that is fast, flexible and future-proof. It has delivered a digital experience that gives our audience more of what they love about Stuff - and it hasn’t gone unnoticed! Our Head of Platforms James McLean was invited to share our experience with Aotearoa’s tech community as part of a talk on cloud resilience and reliability in Auckland yesterday at the Amazon Web Services (AWS) Cloud Day AI Edition. “It was great to share with the audience the story behind our partnership with some of the world’s most innovative tech companies to build a scalable world-class tech stack for our digital news products,” says McLean. The replatform of stuff.co.nz has empowered us to be more dynamic in our storytelling, and has enhanced engagement opportunities for our advertising partners. Read more about it here: https://lnkd.in/dWVpj5fs

The unmissable Lloyd Burr is Stuff’s new Explainer Editor. What is an Explainer Editor you ask? 🤔 Watch this video and Lloyd will explain! “There are no bounds for this role because there is so damned much in this world that needs explaining: breaking news, new government policy, technological advances, disasters, local issues, the weird and wonderful, global matters, the sad, the bad, and what makes us mad,” he says. And if you think there's nothing this man cannot do, tune into ThreeNews tonight for a very special appearance. Read Lloyd’s debut explainer piece on the slightly sticky origins of the Olympic torch here: https://lnkd.in/dRpakfAC

A big “bonjour” from Newsable host Imogen Wells and senior visual journalist Abigail Dougherty in Paris! They’re part of the team of exceptional multimedia journalists we have on the ground in the French capital to cover all the Kiwi action from the Olympic Games. As Aotearoa’s new home of sport, our 24/7 multichannel coverage includes: 🏅 An Olympics mini-podcast every morning in the feed of our award-winning Newsable pod. 🏅 All the news and colour from Paris and here at home on our dedicated Olympics hub on stuff.co.nz and our mastheads The Post, The Press and Waikato Times. 🏅 Live blogs from the moment Kiwis begin competing. 🏅 Live crosses to Paris at 6pm on ThreeNews. 🏅 An Olympics newsletter to get all the Kiwi action direct to your inbox. Check out our dedicated Olympics hub: https://lnkd.in/dsq7H37a

News never sleeps and sometimes our journalists don't either. Last night as the world's computers shut down causing chaos around the globe, Samantha Hayes was live on Stuff with updates for our audience throughout the night. Amazing work from our news team at the end of an enormous first fortnight for the new ThreeNews. https://lnkd.in/gCMytCe5 Keith L. Chris Reeder Sinead Boucher Laura Maxwell

"Like having an army of worker bees happily going about their toil, allowing our reporters to focus on more complex and meaningful stories that provide context for readers in their everyday lives." That's how Waikato Times Editor Jonathan MacKenzie describes Democracy AI - a customised AI tool which gives his journalists the ability to scan, prioritise and report on hyper-local decision-making documents at speed and scale. Currently being trialled in his newsroom (which looks a little different now to how it was in the 1980s, pictured here), the innovative tool can write, edit, size, summarise and deliver headlines, all overseen by human journalists who cross-reference with the source documents. Read more about how it works, and the Stuff Group leader who has developed it: https://lnkd.in/gfVUBb7K

Legendary journalist Martin van Beynen has retired after 33 years of outstanding journalism at The Press. He's pictured here at his farewell gathering with our Owner and Publisher Sinead Boucher. Martin’s masterful investigations have looked into the CTV building collapse during the 2011 Christchurch earthquake, corruption in the Canterbury District Health Board and the Bain family murders. Martin’s Black Hands podcast on these murders found international success with more than seven million downloads since it launched in 2017. His reporting has been acknowledged with a slew of awards over his career including Qantas Media Awards for both investigations and feature writing, Fairfax Media Journalist of the Year 2010-11, Senior Reporter of the Year and Senior Newspaper Feature Writer of the Year in 2012. Most recently Martin was awarded an industry outstanding achievement award at the Voyager Media Awards in recognition of more than three decades of excellent journalism. The Press Editor Kamala Hayman says Martin’s work has touched the lives of many, from the local Christchurch community to international listeners of his Black Hands podcast: “I have never known a journalist who is both as skilled and versatile as Martin. He is a great storyteller - the master of complex investigations, nuanced legal cases, the whimsical and the witty. We already miss him in the newsroom.” 🎧 Yesterday Martin chatted with Colin Peacock on RNZ about why he’s retiring and the big moments of his career - listen here: https://lnkd.in/dxWUH4rZ

Community and person-to-person connections carry a lot of weight in rural and regional Aotearoa, especially for brands wanting to connect to Kiwis outside the major centres. More than 30% of Kiwis live rurally or regionally, supporting major sectors of the economy such as agriculture and tourism, so connecting with this group is crucial for many advertisers. Our Head of Regional and Rural Markets Kate Boreham offered her advice to those wanting to reach rural and regional Aotearoa in the latest edition of NZ Marketing Magazine: “In today’s fragmented media landscape a multi-touchpoint and multi-platform approach is an effective way to build brand awareness, consideration and return on investment. There’s a large array of options across Stuff’s print, digital and events channels including NZ Farmer, the country's largest rural publication. “Person-to-person influence is particularly powerful for rural businesses. Influencing, through sharing stories, advice and knowledge, has never been more important in the buying journey. Sponsored content is a great way to tell these stories. “Beyond the channels it’s hugely valuable to work with specialists who understand how to market effectively to rural audiences. A campaign's success is about choosing the right media channels but just as importantly it’s about the creative and the storytelling that goes along with it.”

Just 80 days ago we signed an agreement with Warner Bros. Discovery ANZ to ideate, create and deliver a daily 6pm news bulletin using the strength of our Stuff Group talent and a crack team of journalists, editors, producers and technical staff we brought in from the former Newshub team. This weekend we saw what many said couldn’t be delivered - a slick, professional and engaging 30 minutes of news and sport with exclusive stories, gutsy journalism from some of the country’s most experienced reporters, the joys of live sport and the audience engagement Stuff is known for. The bulletin delivered exceptionally strong ratings, reaching almost 340,000 people in the AP 5+ demographic - up 89% on the week prior and up 32% from the same bulletin last year*. It also drove more Kiwis to the country’s number one digital news site stuff.co.nz as viewers ‘double screened’ through ThreeNews. We’ve been overwhelmed with all of the audience feedback and will seek to continually innovate and improve. As one fan wrote on a competitor’s social media page: “Tonight, the stories Three News covered were a great balance of breaking and digging deeper. That's what I want! The digging deeper.” Thanks KJ - we’ll continue working hard to deliver great Kiwi stories every day and night across all of our platforms. Join Samantha Hayes tonight at 6pm for the first hour-long ThreeNews bulletin! *Source: Warner Bros. Discovery

Today we’ve announced an exciting new collaboration with MediaWorks NZ, Aotearoa’s leading radio and outdoor media company. The collaboration will provide unique consumer reach for our commercial partners across digital, radio, print and outdoor channels. Stuff Group Chief Executive Laura Maxwell says: “Combining Stuff’s 3.4 million monthly national audience, with MediaWorks’ 2.4 million weekly listeners and more than 4500 outdoor channels delivers the kind of market saturation brands demand. This platform combination provides for unique customer journey alignment and commercial partnership opportunities.” Read more: https://lnkd.in/dxgcCcBs Image (left to right): MediaWorks Acting Commercial Director Gerhard Simanke, MediaWorks CEO Outdoor Mike Watkins, MediaWorks CEO Wendy Palmer, Stuff Group Chief Executive Laura Maxwell, Stuff Group Brand Connections Managing Director Matt Headland and MediaWorks Head of Agency Paul Hancox.