Ken Ring coverage wins Skeptics' Bent Spoon award

The New Zealand news media has won the NZSkeptics' Bent Spoon award for its coverage of Ken Ring's earthquake predictions. File photo / Brett Phibbs

New Zealand Skeptics has bestowed its annual Bent Spoon award on the news media for its coverage of "Moon Man" Ken Ring's earthquake predictions.

NZ Skeptics awarded its annual prize for "journalistic gullibility" to all news media outlets and personalities who took Mr Ring's earthquake prediction claims at face value.

That had misinformed the public and contributed to 50,000 people leaving Christchurch "with all the inconvenience, cost and emotional harm that that caused," Skeptics media commentator Vicki Hyde said today.

"We believe that it is the business of the professional media to ask pertinent questions on behalf of the public when presenting material as factual," she said.

"Many, many media outlets and journalists failed the basic standards of their profession...they did us all a disservice."

After Christchurch's deadly February 22 quake, Mr Ring, an astrological weather forecaster, predicted another major tremor was going to strike the city on March 20.

His prediction caused many people to flee to battered city.

The NZ Skeptics website said the group was "dedicated to increasing public awareness of the dangers and inanities of pseudoscience and bogus paranormal claims".

- NZPA