Is it bribery?

No, Winston is obviously wrong regarding this. The PIJF (Public Interest Journalism Fund) was a huge winner and everyone inside the industry loved those pieces, regardless of which outlets that were publishing them. That was probably the best thing to happen for domestic journalism in a decade, if you're asking for my opinion. - We need more of that localised funding rather than less. That's what the 1980's had compared to the 2020's. I think that the Government should invest in reviving local media, with editorial independence, as RNZ is too stretched attempting to cover local and international news Those bulletins are 5 minutes, so it's really impossible to give a full briefing within that span of time. It's designed to appear objective, but from the inside it's obvious that there are priorities within the editorial departments about what 'news' is. I think that's why RNZ is the most trusted media outlet in New Zealand. The philosophy that it represents is epic, even though it's poorly funded and barely surviving. - It's a very pure form of journalism. That's what I like, but it's a stuffy environment that feels somewhat elitist. I figure that as an arts journalist my casual drug use is a plus, while it wasn't for bulletins, though I was very good at that job. - If you'd paid close attention to my comments, you'd know that it was the Joint Innovation Fund, rather than the Public Interest Journalism Fund that I was critiquing for being unfair, along with an RNZ-related funding round that my twin brother submitted to. Stephen submitted an idea regarding interviewing Tohungas, but I think that wasn't something that RNZ felt too favourably regarding: my main failing was letting him write those pitches. I'm much better at that, but I'm not really suited to writing a CNZ pitch; that's really intended for a different sort of artist than me. My book and my concept album are ideas that are related to CNZ's remit, but I'd do them with private funding as well. I have very little faith in any of the institutions, and I think that DIY-indie thing is essential to the aesthetic that I'm currently expressing. - As for media requests: well, my brother was better at writing those than me. I'm really the interviewer rather than the producer when it comes to that type of journalism. I 'produce' fiction films and documentaries; that's a very different role compared to the producer of a journalistic piece. This is when we pitched RNZ regarding Fresh Culture: https://www.nzonair.govt.nz/news/nz-air-and-rnz-joint-innovation-fund-delivers-diversity/ I notice that nobody mentioned that. My name wasn't on that Tohunga one, so that was when the band was breaking up (rather than when Riddell Productions was both of us). We alternated years from 2020-2022 regarding who was CEO. 👍