Series: Awards

Readers are invited to submit nominations for the following awards.

The New Zealand Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (Inc.) seeks nominations for its annual journalism/media awards for 1986-1987. Awards will be presented at the annual meeting of the Committee, held this year at Victoria University in Wellington, August 29-30.

The New Zealand Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (Inc.) seeks nominations for its annual journalism/media awards for 1987-1988. Awards will be presented at the annual meeting of the Committee, held this year at the University of Auckland, August 20-21.

At the Annual Dinner on 2 September media excellence awards were made to the following:

For the New Zealand organisation which has shown the most egregious gullibility or lack of critical thinking in public coverage of, or commentary on, a science-related issue

For the New Zealand organisation which has shown the most egregious gullibility or lack of critical thinking in public coverage of, or commentary on, a science-related issue

We're currently looking for nominations for our annual awards. Specifically, we have a Bent Spoon award for whoever has “has shown the most egregious gullibility or lack of critical thinking” over the last year, Bravo awards for journalists who have done good skeptical work, and a Skeptic of the Year award for someone in New Zealand who's been active in skepticism and fighting the good fight against nonsense.

Our annual conference is coming up in November, on the weekend of the 19th - 21. As we've previously publicised, we're holding it in conjunction with the Australian Skeptics. COVID willing, we'll be having an in-person conference in Wellington, and they'll have theirs in Sydney.

Craig Shearer announced the winners of our annual awards at the beginning of the second day of our conference, and it was accompanied by the following press release:

As it's an election year this year, there's been no lack of misinformation and nonsense being pushed at New Zealanders. Our runner up for the Bent Spoon award this year decided, apparently reluctantly, to start a new political party, called NZ Loyal. Liz Gunn, once a high-profile TV presenter, turned herself into a political leader and asked the conspiracy theorists of New Zealand to vote for her. Worryingly, given some of her extreme views, she received 1.2% of all votes, and she's already preparing her party for the next election. Next time round she might actually manage to submit the paperwork properly and have more than two candidates standing for election. We will be keeping a close eye on her.

It's been a year and a half since our last awards, so we've had ample time to put together this list - and still it ended up happening at the last minute!