PHOTO: Articles from OneRoof’s ‘Our New Auckland’ section Photo: NZME
The Herald’s dedicated property section printed 64 articles under the banner ‘Our New Auckland’ without declaring they were sponsored by Kāinga Ora, prompting NZME to review its processes on sponsored content.
Last May, an article appeared in the Herald’s dedicated property section OneRoof section about Arena Williams’ efforts to bring her community together following the first Covid-19 lockdown.
Williams was standing to be selected as Labour’s Manurewa candidate, but the story was about her efforts to send out care packages to older and isolated people in Hobsonville Point.
It was also, unbeknownst to readers, a piece of sponsored content for the government’s housing arm Kāinga Ora.
This week, Stuff reporter Henry Cooke revealed that the organisation paid NZME $25k a month for that story and 63 others in OneRoof.
The stories had headlines like ‘Why buy in a Kāinga Ora-led development? All things property under OneRoof’. They went up without any text declaring they were paid-for content.
Stuff’s story exposing the deal was prompted by a written question from National’s housing spokesperson Nicola Willis to housing minister Megan Woods.
After it sent questions to NZME about the stories, the company added disclaimers to the stories and said it was reviewing its processes.
Sponsored, or native, content is essentially ad copy written to resemble news stories.
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