A controversial gang-led drug rehab project funded by seized proceeds of crime was back in the news recently, thanks to headlines that highlighted the proportion of participants relapsing. That prompted critics to condemn it as a failure. Was that fair?

COP 27 climate coverage cop outs; blowing the whistle on 'normalised' corruption in world sport; relapse reports upset gang-based rehab programme.

Qatar's 'sports-washing' World Cup has backfired in PR terms, but it's taken the heat off world football's corrupted governing body FIFA who gave it a green light in the first place. Mediawatch talks to a whistleblower who became a journalist and publisher herself to get the story out.

In this week's edition of Midweek Mediawatch, Hayden Donnell talks to Karyn Hay about a blizzard of commentary about Christopher Luxon's performance, Chinese state-sponsored propaganda in the Herald, and a respected Stuff reporter turning to climate coverage.

The FIFA World Cup in Qatar was already controversial before this weekend's kick-off. Organisers have told the media to 'focus on the football' but human rights, workers' suffering and and allegations of corruption in securing the tournament in the first place are impossible to ignore. Will media draw attention to that while the planet's best players are on show?

Opposition to agricultural reforms gets a wide airing in the media, along with protest and lobby groups fighting the corner against 'unworkable regulations.' But farming industry groups - and many farmers - also know adaptation and compromise is inevitable. Mediawatch talks to the editor of Farmers Weekly, whose views end up in the mailbox of almost every farm in the land.

Media wrestle with 'sportswashing' Qatar's World Cup; framing farming's big issues via the mailbox; politics pundit calls it quits.

Midweek Mediawatch:Colin Peacock talks to Karyn Hay about a sporting victory that stirred emotions - and calls for a level playing field. Also: Stuff staff push back at bosses; an exploding whale anniversary - and is social media's social impact overstated? (Warning: contains traces of peanuts . . .)

The Herald - and its publisher NZME - has embarked on a months-long series to push back at short-term thinking and political tribalism holding back the post-Covid recovery. Mediawatch asks the driving forces of ‘Rebuilding Better’ how that can be done - and if that means confronting some of the shrillest voices on NZME’s own platforms.

A decade ago our biggest newspaper publisher made an ill-fated deal to send its almost all of its entire archive of photos offshore to be digitised. They never came back - and now their LA-based owner has put them on the market online, hoping a buyer will put them in public hands.