NZ Herald launches spoof news site to poke fun at ‘fluffy’ competitors

Tim Burrowes

February 20, 2011 10:44

APN Online’s NZ Herald has created a fake news website aimed at poking fun at online competitors only interested in linkbait type stories.

Officially launching on Monday, NZ Notworth News will be running for the next month.

It includes trivial takes on stories such as the idea that blogging makes you cleverer, before offering a link through to a more intelligent version of the story on the NZ Herald.

The site – devised by APN NZ’s creative agency M&C Saatchi – also offers the weather-prediction skills of TreAnn Chalmers.

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Tim Burrowes

Tim Burrowes is the publisher of Mumbrella and Unmade. He co-founded Mumbrella in 2008 and sister title Unmade in 2021. He's worked in the UK, Middle East, Asia & Australia and has specialised in writing about the communications world for the last 25 years. He wrote the book Media Unmade, published in 2021, and became the presenter of MediaLand on ABC Radio National in 2025.

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4 COMMENTS

DJ 21 Feb 11

Their competitors must be getting somewhere to have a response like this from APN.

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Not Lynchy 21 Feb 11

The NZ Notworth News weather girl is like the Michael Lynch of the trade journalism world

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Nick 21 Feb 11

Like the overall idea – has lots lof potential – but the execution just isn’t that funny. Maybe you have to be from NZ?

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Jeff 21 Feb 11

Nice idea, similar to The Onion but they could actually create a site that achieves the aims but uses real stories. Fark.com has been doing it for years.

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