Taking Dunedin Old to new heights, Critic Te Ārohi has been around for ninety-nine years. For almost all of them, we have pissed off some groups of people, from our very own Uni, landlords, to students and non-students alike; something news-breaking or outright offensive has definitely been published to their dismay.
Critic Te Ārohi has cherry-picked the best (or perhaps worst) scandals from our storied history – either scandals we broke, or scandals we were at the centre of that sent the Boomers of the ODT reeling. Sit back and marvel at a messy history that would make even the dustiest person’s hangxiety seem tame in comparison.
Falus (1960s)
Critic Te Ārohi might be an institution on campus nowadays (don’t pop our bubble if you disagree) but this wasn’t always the case: in the ‘60s, we fell off in a big way. Critic's original function of being OUSA and the Uni’s watchdog was corrupted when Critic essentially became a University puppet. In response, a counter-culture magazine, Falus, was erected (ha) and operated on and off throughout the ‘60s as the new literary medium to challenge the OUSA Exec. Falus claimed to be “the Official Organ of the Beardies and Weirdies and the Industrial Union of Workers,” and existed to fight against Critic’s so-called corruption.
In a Wild West worthy showdown, Critic and Falus exchanged (at one point almost weekly) editorial arguments: “There’s only room for one of us in this gosh darned town!” Hilariously, in one of these publications Falus claimed that then Critic editor Warren Mayne’s head had grown too big for his body, elevating himself into the atmosphere as the world's first astronaut. This extended to claiming that Mayne’s body hovered over the Critic office transmitting signals directly from Wellington, which, as Falus understood, was the only explanation “for Critic’s policy of only printing government propaganda.”
Falus even briefly became the champion of student issues. After the University used its new-found accommodation regulations to evict a male flatmate from an all-female flat in June 1967, Critic Editor Charles Draper swept this issue of gendered flatting aside, stating that it was a “petty infringement of what we consider our glorious democratic right of liberty.” Critic was also outspoken in their support of the University’s pro-Vietnam War stance (L take), a big point of contention in the student body at the time. Perhaps Falus was right when they accused Critic of broadcasting straight from the Beehive.
Falus by no means escaped scandal themselves, however. In their first ever issue, Falus published a student’s personal advertisement with a phone number asking for virgin freshers to call them. This caused OUSA exec member Lorriance Isaac’s (an absolute legend) to burn a copy of Falus in the library in protest, almost setting a nearby rubbish bin alight. In response, Falus writer, Otago drop out and future-literary icon, James K. Baxter replied with what could be described as an incel-manifesto about how Lorraine burnt the magazine due to her unconscious fear of pregnancy, alongside other sexist rants. This may offer insight into Baxter’s later exploits, going on to live in a cave.
The Banned Issue (2005)
Coming into the modern era, Critic had separated itself from its identity as a mouthpiece for the University, introducing an “offensive” themed issue that ran from 2002-2005. Somehow, it was only after four years of running this issue that Critic finally landed in hot water. What finally did us in? A “satirical” how-to guide on drug rape titled ‘Diary of a drug rapist: No means no, but if they can’t talk, they can’t turn you down’ written under the alias of P. Bateman.
Appropriately, this article was met with an onslaught of complaints. The Office of Film and Literature Classification eventually deemed the offensive issue “injurious to the public good” in placing “an instructional drug-rape article beside a positive profile of a man who makes a living by filming the extreme degradation and humiliation of women for sexual arousal” – referring to another feature article in the very same issue detailing the career of “the most offensive man in porn” including the graphic quote: “[Redacted] turns ordinary teens and mother’s [sic] alike into piss and cum splattered sluts before your eyes.”
2005 Editor and future Green MP Holly Walker doubled down on the decision to publish the article, stating that it was “defendable” because it highlighted “a very important issue and [would] hopefully make women more aware of what could happen to them.” However, Chief Censor Bill Hastings rightfully called out Walker’s bluff; ruling that the issue was “distinctly uncritical of, and indeed tends to promote, the very criminal activities it purports to challenge.” Walker eventually walked back her statement in 2012, labelling the article as a “mistake” whilst admitting Critic was “trying to be offensive for the sake of it, rather than with any greater purpose in mind [...] I wasn’t a very woke feminist back then.”
The issue containing the article was placed under a national censor and all publicly available copies destroyed by authorities. It is quite literally a criminal offence to possess this issue of Critic. We have all the legal documents handed down from editor to editor, however, in a file that should be labelled “what not to do”. This includes a 17-page document from the Office of Film and Literature Classification thoroughly detailing the objections to the issue, making modern-day Critic gasp as we read. At the end of the document it states: “The magazine Critic Te Arohi [sic] is classified as: Objectionable.” You don’t say.
“The Bum at the Bottom of the World” (2010)
After a five year grace period, in 2010 Critic published the article ‘The Bum at the Bottom of the World’, once again landing the magazine in the shitter. They got a slap on the wrist from the Proctor of journalism: The New Zealand Press Council.
Consisting of an independent chair, newspaper and magazine publishers, union and government members, The Press Council (now called the Media Council) upholds journalist standards of its members. Critic, a professional magazine (lol) is a member, so we can get in trouble with them.
The article featured what was described as “Dunedin’s homeless transients and vagrants,” published in an issue filled with money-focused articles following the National Government’s announcement of the 2010 Budget.
The author of the article had taken to the streets to interview three well-known homeless people from Dunedin. While it was later revealed that one of the interviews was completely made up, the two other subjects were very real. Aside from being grossly exploitative in the first place, the subjects were also not given a chance to dispute or clarify the claims made about them in the article – journalism 101.
The resulting articles caused a member of the Dunedin Mental Health Support Trust to complain to 2010 Editor Ben Thomson in writing. The complainant expressed that the article was “poorly written, poorly researched, in disgustingly bad taste, defamatory, discriminatory, and possibly inciting violence.” Thomson apologised for the article, saying Critic "completely misjudged where the line was.” However, in a move rivalling the insincerity of Jax Taylor’s annual Vanderpump Rules reunion promises of “changing for the better”, Critic went on to publish a piece asking students around campus to play fuck-marry-kill with the subjects of the article. The Dunedin Mental Health Support Trust escalated their complaint to the big boys: The Press Council.
The Press Council upheld the complaint against ‘the Bum at the Bottom of the World’, determining that Critic was in the wrong. However, the Council accepted Critic’s original apology as sincere, essentially saying “nevermind that fuck-marry-kill game you did.” Like we said, a slap on the wrist. The Press Council really is the Proctor of journalism.
That One Editor Who Was Forced to Step Down (2013)
Scandal erupted in the Critic office after the suspension of the 2013 Editor of Critic by the OUSA General Manager on May 3rd. The Editor made an appearance at the Critic office three days later trying to explain the situation to staff, before being asked to leave by police and trespassed from all OUSA buildings.
Within hours rumours were gushing out of the Critic office, despite having allegedly been sworn to maintain radio silence on the matter. Press such as Salient (Victoria Uni’s student mag), the Otago Daily Times and The Christchurch Press all began publishing articles in attempts to get to the bottom of the matter. The now-former Editor began the process of legal action against Critic and OUSA. OUSA’s General Manager opted to settle for a payout rather than take the matter to court, with reports that the former Editor received a $35,000 settlement – although this is now believed to be more in the region of $20,000.
After this debacle, Critic came under the editorship of Sam McChesney, who made his intentions public about wanting to publish the reasons behind the suspension of the former Editor. However, this was prevented by another threat of legal action from the former Editor, causing McChesney to alter his original editorial about the scandal into what looks like a nonsensical blacked out CIA document.
Critic Te Ārohi would love to tell you what the real reason the former Editor was fired (it’s actually pretty hilarious), but he currently practises as a criminal defence lawyer, and Critic doesn’t have $20,000 lying around that we want to shell out. We spent all our money on nerf gun bullets.
Word on the street is that the former Editor refused to answer Critic’s request for comment surrounding the scandal, and that he instead chose to only speak to Salient (Critic’s rival) in a mini-press circuit in which he slammed his former publication. But hey, he still has ‘Critic Editor’ listed on his LinkedIn, so the blood can’t be that bad right?
Rape Comics (2013)
Way back when, Critic had a weekly comic strip in every issue. With only pictures and a few words, it would seem like the risk of Critic publishing something super fucking offensive was lower the usual. But alas, a picture truly paints a thousand words, and in 2013, not one, but two rape jokes were included in comics.
To make matters worse, the comics were only two issues apart. The first comic in question involved a man talking to his car. It said, “This was meant to be a Māori joke but the editor refused to print it.” Props to the editor? The car then says, “Print a rape joke then.” The reply? “No they’re always forced.” Oh. The second bizarre comic involved a Dad saying he wanted to bang Selena Gomez, and his wife being quite upset. The next panel showed the man’s wife being awarded custody of Gomez, who was revealed to be their daughter all along. That’s right: an incest joke as the cherry-on-top of that fucked up piece of artwork.
Unsurprisingly, these two issues received numerous complaints, causing the editor (Sam McChesney) to dedicate an editorial to apologising for the rape comments. He admitted that he initally wanted to defend the publication of the second rape-joke comic, citing Louis CK as an example of a comic who pulls off “acceptable rape jokes” (that aged well), until he ran the editorial past a couple of his female friends who called him on his shit. McChesney wrote:
“It’s frustrating to be told that you are fundamentally unqualified to comment on a topic. It’s a characteristically male attitude that with introspection and deep, abstract thought, one can figure out most problems. Hence the obsession with free speech and other such rights [...] When you cannot empathise with the experience of being raped, or with the fear that the threat of rape inspires, it’s difficult to understand just how traumatic the topic can be. And without this understanding, it’s easy to dismiss [...] objectors [to these jokes] as unreasonable, over-sensitive, and misandric, or to lapse into talking about “free speech” or some other such bullshit. When you exist in a male-dominated echo-chamber – which, for whatever reason, the Critic office unfortunately is – this attitude can ossify into knee-jerk defensiveness.”
However, McChesney's honest, self-aware, and introspective editorial was slightly undermined by his replies to the letters to the editor just over the page. Two letters condemned Critic’s previous publication of these rape-joke comics. One of these letters was titled by McChesney as “this is how reasonable people discuss things” and another – albeit more angry and confrontational in its tone – is titled “this isn’t”. It could be argued that telling someone who’s upset about a rape-joke that they’re not a “reasonable person” immediately after apologising for said joke is a sure-fire way to undermine your remorse. Admittedly, the letter called the editor a “cunt” and labelled the cartoonist who drew the comic as “shit”, but modern-day Critic reckons that sounds about right.
‘Call Me Crazy’ Psych Ward Scandal (2014)
The early 2010s trend of Critic’s marginal calls continued in 2014 with the publication of ‘Call me Crazy’. The feature article detailed a reporter’s experience sneaking into a psychiatric hospital to investigate patients’ “recovery environment”. The article came from an angle of being upset at the (now defunct) Southern District Health Board’s ‘Raise Hope’ plan to address mental health through psychiatric care. The outcome of the article, however, was controversial and upsetting for many.
Despite their friend initially voicing concerns over making an unauthorised visit to a psychiatric hospital, the reporter persisted. The two drove to the hospital, entered rooms uninvited and interviewed patients. Unsurprisingly, most patients did not respond well to a complete stranger asking them why they were at a psychiatric hospital. After asking a nurse for permission to interview psychiatric inpatients (which wasn’t given), the reporter proceeded to talk to patients by pretending to be a visitor to the ward. At one point in the article the author said that they “felt fortunate” that they didn’t have to see a severely mentally-ill patient in the unit they heard about from another patient. Yikes.
There was immediate (and justified) backlash to this article being published. The SDHB said they were “stunned” by the article, and the hospital in question had to review its own security measures. Comments on Critic’s website called the author an “insensitive dick” and “frankly offensive”. An Otago Daily Times article was written about the feature as well, garnering the scandal even more attention.
The Menstruation Issue Cover (2018)
Finally, a scandal Critic was on the right side of: a scandal so juicy that it made international headlines. The 12th issue of Critic in 2018 was the menstruation themed issue. A graphic menstruating vagina drawn in a retro video game style graced the cover of the issue in the name of destigmatising menstruation. The Uni overlords, however, did not take well to this cover.
Rumour has it a member of Campus Watch took offence to the cover and began chucking campus copies into skips – certainly not a move in alignment with the Uni’s sustainability goals. Critic Te Ārohi was asked to remove copies of the magazine from hospital waiting rooms, the medical school, and the Dunedin Public Library; the latter whom the Uni claimed requested its removal. This turned out to be bogus, of course (not the gaslighting from the Uni). The remaining issues were confiscated on a Tuesday, and the Uni claimed that 500 copies were taken. However, the number was likely closer to 1500-2000 copies according to the Critic editor at the time, Joel McManus.
As backlash of the confiscated issues spread around Dunedin and eventually worldwide, an open letter from seventeen of Critic’s former editors was presented to the University, reading: "Universities should be environments where students and lecturers alike are free to express their minds and debate ideas. The decision by the university to confiscate without warning Critic's latest issue is directly contrary to these ideals.” This, combined with media coverage from Stuff, BBC, Reuters and other worldwide outlets, prompted the Uni to issue a formal apology to Critic Te Ārohi.
While the apology was accepted by Critic and seemed pretty sincere, it was clear that the Uni bigwigs all had differing perspectives on the issue. Former Vice Chancellor Harlene Haynes called the issue “particularly good”. An unnamed Campus Watch team leader called the cover “trash and filth” according to emails obtained by Critic through the Official Information Act. Despite these varying opinions, the University itself said in its apology it held “no official view” on the content of the issue.
In a badass move, the following issue’s cover was the Uni’s apology letter to Critic. Except they censored most of it so the student body couldn’t see it for themselves. What goes around comes around.
The outrage from this scandal was perhaps one of the biggest and far ranging of any Critic scandal in history. The Uni released a statement which was hit with widespread call outs of plagiarism. As Critic made the headlines both in Aotearoa and abroad, a protest about free speech rights was organised on campus. The vagina-gate story was even more viewed on The Guardian than the Donald Trump - Kim Jong Un beef at the time. Not bad for a humble vaj from Dirty Dunners.
BongShell (2018)
Joel MacManus had his hands full in 2018, it seems. Critic Te Ārohi dropped a bongshell of a story when we reported Proctor Dave Scott had illegally trespassed into a Leith Street flat and confiscated multiple bongs. The story quickly garnered national attention as it was picked up by a conglomeration of national media outlets. After Critic broke the first story, we were approached by another student who claimed that the Proctor had also entered their Castle Street flat when they weren’t home and stolen their bongs. He then allegedly called the flat into a meeting where they were questioned about their possession of them.
A third student came forward with a similar story from 2016. Except this time it was reported that the flat was home at the time and made to hand over their bongs, despite three of the residents not being students.
After the Proctor came under fire for his actions, causing Uni Comms to scramble to damage control, issuing a statement saying the Proctor was “focused on helping students gain degrees and not criminal convictions” and that the Proctor was “for the most part comfortable with the action he took.”
A student protest led by OUSA Recreation Officer Josh Smythe resulted, calling for the resignation of Scott over the bong fiasco. However, Smythe eventually settled down his forced resignation stance prior to the organised protest. “We just decided to forgive him. There will still be a protest; there will still be an expression of emotion.” The eventual protest was attended by more than 600 students, and earned Smythe the title of Critic’s person of the year.
The Proctor later retracted his stance. Scott admitted in a press conference (live streamed on Critic’s Facebook) that the stolen bongs had been destroyed and apologised for his actions. Scott even allegedly offered to resign from his job behind the scenes. However, his apology was accepted wholesale. Scott still remains the Proctor today, most recently being applauded by Critic for his work mitigating the harm of flat initiations. As Critic interviewed him about these in his office last year, we spotted a proudly displayed press cartoon of his bong-stealing exploits.
Knox Exposé (2019)
In 2019, Critic released a chunky, nearly 3000-word exposé calling out the toxic culture of misogyny within Knox College that existed at the time. The investigative feature alleged that numerous instances of sexual harassment and rape went un-disciplined at the hall, even when reported to senior management. The piece included testimonies of three female students who attended the hall from 2011-2017.
The exposé led to the Vice-Chancellor at the time, Harlene Hayne, to call a hui of all female RAs in Otago halls to discuss female safety, and became a pivotal part of the ongoing #MeToo movement in Dunedin. And, the sign of any big scandal, Critic’s reporting made national news, getting featured on Stuff, New Zealand Herald, RNZ, The Spinoff – and even the Fijian Broadcasting Corporation. The scandal rocked Knox’s reputation as well. Incoming freshers moving to Dunedin half a decade since the article was published still know about the culture at Knox depicted in the article.
However, whilst the toxic culture at Knox depicted in the article remained undisputed, the claim that sexual violence went undisciplined did. Critic later issued an apology to Knox Deputy Headmaster (now Headmaster) Caroline Hepburn-Doole for not reaching out for comment before print, amending the claims of the article of senior management’s complicity to: “The former Deputy Master took complaints of sexual harassment seriously and took steps to address matters brought to her attention.”
Despite the hiccup, the Knox exposé remains a milestone in the local #MeToo movement, and forced the hand of Knox College to address their toxic boys-club culture. Under the leadership of Caroline, the culture of the college has significantly shifted for the better in her mantra of inclusivity, telling Critic she wants Knox to feel like a home to all students living there.
Threatening Landlord Cover (2019)
In 2019, Critic made headlines after publishing a story about a landlord breaching tenancy laws. The landlord forced students to pay out fixed-term contracts from their boarding house. Under the law, these students were allowed to leave after giving 48-hours notice. Critic’s article caused the landlord to bombard Critic with angry emails, with one telling us to “remove your filthy stinking lying bitch-whining bullshit story abusing us off the web now or further action!!!!” In a GOATed move from Critic Editor Charlie O’Mannin, Critic published the email on the cover of the next issue, turning the story into national news.
Following up on this story in a subsequent article, Critic asked the landlord if they had rented out the boarding house on an illegal fixed-term lease. The landlord wrote back to Critic: “WE SUGGEST YOU WRITE ABOUT OTHER PROPERTY NOT OURS WHICH YOU KNOW NOTHING ABOUT. THERE IS ALREADY ANOTHER ARTICLE FULL OF LIES ABOUT IT BY RETALIATING LYING TENANT AND MORE LYING AWFUL CRITIC REPORTERS.” Lovely. It’s good to know that landlords have always been shit.
When the Uni ghosted Critic (2020)
Think getting ghosted by your situationship is bad? Imagine how Critic felt when the Uni ghosted us in 2020, ass-deep into the first COVID lockdown. After 2020 Editor Sinead Gill published an editorial titled ‘Otago Fucked up with COVID-19’, the VC Harlene Hayne called the editorial (and Critic’s coverage of University affairs at large) “untruthful, unfair, inaccurate and mean-spirited” according to internal documents the Otago Daily Times obtained under the Official Information Act.
The consequences of pissing off the leader of your very own uni? Pretty big, turns out. For a period of time, the Uni halted advertising in the magazine, causing Critic to tighten its already limited budget. Subsequent editions had fewer pages, and less copies were printed for circulation. At the peak of the scandal, the Uni wouldn’t even respond to comment for articles – pretty inconvenient when the point of the magazine is to report about all things Otago Uni.
The scandal caused the Uni and Critic to attend a ‘Student Advisory Board’ meeting, and a strained relationship followed for a period of time after that. Like any situationship, there was a rough patch between the Uni and Critic, but our relationship is back on track thanks to our most recently departed Editor Fox’s charm – let’s just hope Nina doesn’t write an unhinged editorial any time soon.
Aotearoa Student Press Awards Boycott (2022)
Forget the Oscars or Grammys, the Aotearoa Student Press Association (ASPA) awards night is the hottest night in student journalism. All student magazines across the country gather together in a different city each year, where ASPA awards are dished out for all sorts of categories. Not to toot our own horn, but Critic is pretty darn good at scooping up ASPAs, taking out first or second in 19 out of the 25 categories last year. Not too shabby.
Things went a bit south in 2022, however, when Critic opted to boycott the award ceremony – not just because hauling ass to Wellington for the awards was a ceebs. Salient had been tipped to win best photography, however the award-winning photo in question was (allegedly) a drone shot taken by a professional photographer – i.e., not a student. Salient took the S out of ASPA, which just leaves us with APA – an acronym that sends shivers down any student’s spine.
In protest to this disrespect to student journalism, the Critic team took a stand for their morals with the most noble course of action: a piss-up in the office and Zoom call. There’s debate among ex-staff over whether this actually was in protest or if it was just a good excuse to be lazy.
Eugenics Building: The Scandal that should’ve been (2022)
Scandals are in these days, and every student journalist wants to be the first to break them. In 2022 current Editor (then a fledgling reporter) Nina Brown broke a story on the Psych building being named after a famous Eugenics academic. The building in question, Galton House, is named after Sir Francis Galton, a psychologist, statistician, geographer and “massive fucking racist.” The Critic team was expecting to make big waves with this one, only for the response to be, well, nothing. Nobody gave a fuck. To Critic’s confusion, this piece went basically unnoticed, so we’ve dubbed this the “should-be” scandal. C’mon Otago, just change the name already.
Initiation-Gate (2023)
Critic may have been bummed by the lack of scandal-breaking in 2022, but just a year later the team made it big again with initiation-gate. In case you somehow forgot, at the end of last year the Uni made national news. Not for its world-class education, but for its culture of hazing and initiations. Yes, the articles that your family left on your bedside table over the break, and prompted pointed side-eyes when duck was served at Christmas lunch.
Critic published a series of articles towards the end of 2023 calling out flat initiations on the party streets of North Dunedin. One of the most shocking breaking stories involved a live eel being abused, sparking national outrage and was denounced by organisations like the SPCA. Following this, a bunch of other initiation stories surfaced, such as being forced to strip down and watch gay porn (i.e., sexual assault), pelicaning (vomiting into one another's mouths), and iguana wrestling.
Critic’s coverage landed some students in hot water, subsequently seeking out a Critic staff member’s address for retaliation. The reporter was forced into hiding during semester two exams. Other Critic staff encountered hostility from their wider friend group amongst other feral second-years bitter from their trip to the Proctor’s office.
While the initiation-gate was awarded Best News Story at the 2023 ASPAs, with judge Glenn McConnell commending Critic for breaking news of “national significance”, the rumour mill got out of control on the ground. After the Otago Daily Times reported that the source's son had to bite off duck legs in an initiation, the story spread around the country faster than an STD in Hamilton.
After further investigation, Critic found the ODT’s account of the duck abuse likely never happened. The only thing Critic could find proof of was that a duck was on the list of things to bring to an initiation, the idea being no fresher would actually end up bringing a duck (and punishment could ensue). When one flat was met with a duck upon the freshers arrival, they were apparently confused as fuck and set it free. Sure, the duck may have briefly been at an initiation, likely distressed - but all of its limbs remained intact.
Great Hall Food Review Scandal (2024)
This year’s Great Hall Food Review in the food issue led Critic down a scandalous path early in our 2024 tenure. The feature article involving various different Critic staff sneaking into dining halls as undercover freshers to review hall food resulted in a whiplash of anger from Hayward and Salmond.
This all kicked off with Critic’s less than inconspicuous attempt at sneaking into Hayward for dinner. Mid-meal, Features Editor Iris and News Editor Hugh were approached by Hayward Warden Amber Robertson where she “tore us a new one.” Critic was accused of unethical journalism, being a threat to safety, obstructing the Student Code of Conduct, breaking the law, ruining the relationship between the magazine and the university bureaucracy, then finally, after all of that, having the audacity to review them (oops).
After this, the disgraced reporters (we prefer hall food connoisseurs) had to write down their details while their IDs were photographed by the Warden. After sending an email to all of the halls about Critic’s antics, Hayward suggested that Critic sign-out of the hall and offer to pay for the meals, both of which Iris and Hugh forgot to do in their haste to get the fuck out of there. Our email offering to bank transfer instead went unanswered.
Following the Hayward fiasco, Critic Te Ārohi also came under the blower of rage due to its review of Salmond’s food. After seeing their sub-par rating of 3.6 (admittedly a bit harsh), Salmond organised a meeting of the kitchen staff where tears were allegedly shed. Salmond freshers waged war in furious letters to the Editor, threatening DMs to the (correctly) rumoured reviewer Gryffin, as well as intense in-person conversations with Critic staff. Salmond’s consensus was that the food review was a fucking scam. Our consensus is: Don’t fuck with the ‘Mond. At the recent Cheese Toastie ski club and canoe club event, however, Gryffin was “officially forgiven” for the review, with a Salmond resident telling him: “Peace and love.” Happy days.