Aotearoa Media Collective

The Aotearoa Media Collective was established by experienced and award-winning journalists Mihingarangi Forbes and Annabelle Lee-Mather in 2018. Both have worked extensively across the media industry in Aotearoa New Zealand. They set up the collective as a way to tell compelling indigenous stories. The collective produces and creates content that is used by other platforms across the country, notably Radio New Zealand. This includes Mata, an indepth podcast that is hosted on the RNZ website that sees newsmakers and Māori commentators sit down to unpack the latest political issues impacting the country. A further podcast series looks into the legacy of Māori politicians and their time in parliament. Another video series for RNZ tells the story of a local Auckland iwi (tribe) and one of their traditions of building a new waka (canoe). They've created documentaries called NZ Wars, which look at the civil conflicts throughout history in Aotearoa New Zealand. The collective has also had a key role in indigenous journalism training, creating e-modules, a Māori journalism manual and conducting audits of mainstream newsrooms across the country.