Mixed messages from media on Parliament protesters; extremism and the media; DomPost pushes back on public service obfuscation; sweary dad's live TV f-bomb double.

Mediawatch's weekly catch-up with Lately. This week Colin Peacock talked to Karyn Hay about mixed messages in the media about those protesters at Parliament. Also:  the value of public money for media questioned - and can spoken word songs count as journalism?

Covid skeptics occupied Parliament grounds this week under the banner of ‘freedom’ - and many other things. Did media coverage amplify their fringe views? Should media do more to understand them and what motivates their movement - in spite of their obvious hostility to the media themselves? Mediawatch asks an editor wrestling with those dilemmas.

Everyone wants to know how bad our Omicron outbreak might get - and when. But experts running the numbers on that have copped flak in the media when scenarios they’ve been told to scope don't pan out. Meanwhile, media pundits who’ve been wrong in the past don't hold back on predicting the future.

Convoy conundrum confronts editors; quest for certainty undercuts Omicron analysis; sweary Dad's minties moment.

In this week's edition of Midweek Mediawatch, Hayden Donnell talks to Karyn Hay about commentators reading the tea leaves over the latest political poll, Sean Plunket's new online talkback station, and a start date being set for Today FM.

For years Māori  journalism leaders warned not enough training, investment or opportunities meant Māori  people and perspectives were mostly missing in our mainstream media. This Waitangi Day he looks at a big publicly-funded push to address the problem.

For years Māori journalism leaders warned a lack of training, investment and opportunities meant Māori people and perspectives were mostly missing in our media. But more effort and money than ever before is now being put in. On Waitangi Day, Mediawatch talks to some of those involved in a publicly-funded push to address this  - and some of the problems.

Mediawatch’s weekly catch-up with Lately on RNZ National. 

This week Colin Peacock talked to Bryan Crump about the fallout from broadcaster Charlotte Bellis’s media campaign against MIQ. Also: over-the-top overseas coverage of our Covid response; the first big political poll of the year zeroing in on party leaders’ popularity . . . and do presenters ever sneeze live on TV?

That epic undersea eruption in Tonga was heard around the region - and recorded and analysed in minute detail, even from space. But a comprehensive communications wipeout cut reporters off from sources for days. So how do they cover a story with almost no access to basic facts?