The New Zealand Media Council has unanimously upheld a complaint against Stuff for publishing a sponsored article that misled readers into believing it was editorial content.
The article, which promoted the Ayurvedic herb Ashwagandha and appeared in the legacy mainstream media outlet on 22 March 2025, failed to disclose it was part of a commercial partnership with Chemist Warehouse, instead presenting the views of a naturopath as fact without supporting scientific evidence.
The complaint was lodged by Jose Aquino, who argued the article was essentially an advertisement for an unproven alternative remedy, carrying the risk that readers might mistake it for genuine medical advice. While Stuff later added a sponsorship disclaimer and a health warning, the Council found the delay in doing so — nearly 10 days after the initial complaint — breached the industry’s standards for prompt corrections.
The Council concluded that Stuff breached multiple journalistic principles, including Principle (10) concerning transparency of sponsorship, Principle (4) for failing to distinguish comment from fact, and Principle (12) for not correcting the oversight in a timely manner. The Council stated that although the article appeared as “sponsored” on the homepage, it lacked proper labelling on the article page itself, misleading readers into assuming it was impartial editorial content.
Stuff acknowledged the error and claimed the article was approved under the Therapeutic Advertising Pre-Vetting Service (TAPS) process. However, the Council emphasised that sponsored content must still meet editorial standards when presented in news formats and not blur the line between advertising and journalism.
The ruling reinforces the Council’s ongoing position that sponsored content, when not clearly labelled, must be held to the same standards as traditional news reporting, especially when it involves public health claims.
Who even reads that crap? I haven’t for years! Total garbage media
Investigative Journalist Ian Whishart made an official complaint against TV1 for claiming that the city of Dunedin experienced it’s highest 24-hour rainfall in a century in October 2024, and provided official records showing the highest rainfall day was back in 1935. His complaint was rejected.
Yet all the COVID 19 jab pushing by Legacy MSM even to date. Not one disclosure the vaccines are experimental, proven not to prevent nor stop the spread of so called COVID. Disgusting NZ Media Council, principals my arse.
Hmmm… reminiscent of the NZ Medical Council railing against Dr. Samantha Bailey for her dissenting opinion, yet taking years to sanction known pedos.
State run media paid with public money to do their masters bidding. The public is no longer participating the sea of deception.
Replaced with real information and articles from every corner of the globe by normal people each with their own pocket sized TV station recording footage of corruption from our respective governments and police enforcers. What a bitch it must be to be exposed as participants in mass murderer of people by genuine women and men like Barry Young, worldwide embalmers evidence and just so many popular telecasting internet heros.
The complete collapse of all respect for outlets namly CNN, Stuff, RNZ, ZB, BBC. People not tuning into, not listening to the globalist agenda or at the very least understanding how we were deceived.
There is no comming back from that position. Should our so called freely elected prime ministers and presidents, their cabinets continue down the path of supporting the Rothchilds grip on humanity it will have an outcome not seen since the civil wars that torn down the establishments and replaced them with proper leaders who will genuinely govern without globalism and design the best outcomes for us and our families.
NZ’s legacy media lacks independence because the NZ government controls NZ media and abuses the NZSIS’s powers to extend that control. Here is such an example from less than a month ago https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/558449/nzsis-inquiries-into-former-rnz-journalist-appropriate-spy-watchdog
This is clearly a waste of the NZ taxpayer’s money. The NZSIS failed to prevent terrorism in NZ and could not detect nor surveil the mass murderer before the Christchurch mosque attacks. The NZSIS failed to prevent genocide perpetrated in NZ by mandatory injections masquerading as covid vaccines.
But the NZSIS think they were justified in wasting taxpayer money by investigating a journalist. It’s impossible therefore to have independent journalism in NZ and the NZ governmnent remains the culprit.
How will the NZSIS next waste taxpayer $$ ? By investigating and verifying astrological predictions?
Why don’t they do their jobs for a change and actually protect the public?
The real question, for me at least, is why would you bother reading anything Stuff writes?
But they still get away with
Stuff meh