Facebook - freshly rebadged as ‘Meta’ - gives local news media content huge extra reach, but it covers none of the cost of creating it while snaring the bulk of the digital ad revenue it attracts. This week the trillion-dollar company unveiled a programme to help sustain our news media - but some experts and editors are underwhelmed.

During the homosexual law reform campaign 35 years ago plenty of inflammatory, derogatory and sometimes downright bigoted portrayals of gay people were published and aired in our media. Some have apologised for that since then. Are our media repeating the same mistakes reporting controversies over transgender peoples' rights today?

Another Monday, another review of alert level condition for Auckland and other areas this week -  along with ample evidence in the media that the change can’t come soon enough for Aucklanders who are over it. Including radio hosts . . .

The owners of Facebook - now known as 'Meta' - announced a plan to boost news publishers here this week. Mediawatch looks at the media's response to that. Also: how media angst about upcoming alert level changes is not levelling off just yet -- and are our media getting it right when reporting on transgender peoples' rights?

Midweek Mediawatch - our weekly catch-up with Karyn Hay on Lately.  This week Colin Peacock talks to Karyn about a shake-up in news radio that made headlines - while another went under the radar. Also: covering COP-26; deep-dive but highly-readable Covid journalism, the dangers of allowing people to grandstand on air - and is the number of the beast actually 616?

Did our media keep calm and carry on when Covid came to Christchurch this week? Or amplify anger and confusion about loose borders and unvaccinated travellers? Bit of both . . .

We’ve had too few journalists of Māori, Pasifika and Asian origin in our newsrooms for decades - and now there’s a new publicly-funded push to turn that round. Four established outlets are backing the Te Rito Journalism project. How will this work? And what’s the endgame?

Keeping calm as Covid comes to Christchurch - and not; a new bid to boost diversity in our news; Australian media straying into fake news about NZ.

One Australian news outlet seized on a Kiwi commentator's claim this week that our media is 'fully controlled' by the PM - while a big name broadcaster here seized on fake news from another Aussie outlet to hint at the same thing.

In this week's episode of Midweek Mediawatch, Hayden Donnell talks to Karyn Hay about anti-vax messages finding a media platform, some outstanding local investigative reporting this week - and confirmation that you can't grow concrete, in spite of what talk radio tells you.