The fair minded, deeply insightful media ...

[Ben551]

I woke this morning to do my usual news reading and stumbled across something quite staggering in the media.

An article was posted by a New Zealand reporter about a secret spy camera found in an Airbnb in Auckland. Or so the title said. The title was as per below:

Since the article was posted, the entire NZ breakfast news ring has blown up, quoting Airbnb all over the place. It’s all “Airbnb unacceptable this” and “Airbnb unsafe for people” that....

As I write this I’m watching a live expert give her legal opinion... she has just told the public “people need to be wary of these Airbnb owners, in terms of Airbnb you’re not staying in a hotel, so in an Airbnb you don’t have the same level of safety and security...” she has used the word Airbnb 3 times almost without a breath.

But here’s the thing: It was not an Airbnb listing or host!! it was a Booking.com listing!!

Airbnb hosts in New Zealand have risen up and written to the owner of the article and pointed out that the “title does not match the copy”. The reporter has now updated the title to remove the words “Airbnb”... but not before the article has been reposted, quoted, been discussed in live breakfast news... all with the wrong headline.

I expect this will be global news in the next 24 hours (usually a delay on NZ news), so let’s see whether it still has the Airbnb tag line when it gets there...

Madness!

PS: I expect the Aussies on here to get the movie reference in the post title.  For those who do, I salute you 🙂

[Emiel1]

@Ben551,

Looked up the camera disguished as light bulb (BTW easy to recognize as being camera...):

This device is accessable by WiFi and also does have infrared for night recordings. Maybe booking.com is into new markets, providing each host one for free,  to support guests (negative) reviews with some recordings....

http://tinyurl.com/yyvxw9tr

Best regards,

Emiel

[Ben551]

lol @Emiel1 - yeah it always surprises me how advanced this sort of thing is getting.... scary times...

[Helen3]

Honestly @Ben551 when you've been hosting for rather longer than a few months, you will learn not to get so incensed by negative or inaccurate coverage of the Airbnb brand.

Airbnb is a huge multi-national brand and tends to be used as short-hand for STRs.  The important issue for the media and the public is that there appeared to be a hidden camera in a short term rental.

It will blow over in a few days as did the other media story you highlighted about a traveller family who were the subject of much media and social media fanfare in New Zealand because of their behaviour when they came as tourists to NZ and was the subject of discussion on here even though the traveller family never even stayed in an STR.

[Ben551]

If only it had blown over @Helen3 ... NZ news appear to have dropped it, but the last headline was 3 days ago from the British media.  Seems to never end.