Kāinga Ora was criticised in 2021 for entering into an advertising services agreement with NZME One Roof for $25,000 per month to promote its large scale housing developments.
The agreement included “editorial content generation” which Minister Woods confirmed was 57 stories published by NZME.
Three stories were directly written by Kāinga Ora staff.
Stuff reported at the time that these stories were published by NZME without a disclaimer identifying them as paid content.
National’s Nicola Willis was reported as saying, “It’s a secret jack-up between the Government’s housing arm and a media provider to make what are ads look like genuine news stories.”
“It wouldn’t have taken much for one of the many comms staff at Kāinga Ora to go online and see these are, and see they are misleading.
If you are a Government-funded entity, you need to be doubly sure that you are being transparent about any editorial content you are funding,” Willis said.
Megan Woods is the minister responsible for both the TVNZ/Stuff climate news articles and the Kāinga Ora housing stories.
Typical of ‘repeater’ fake journalism … when will it end ?
No doubt more cash into NZME under the guise of genuine revenue and stories.
