Dunedin student magazine editor explains why she won't cover party politics

The editor of Otago University's student magazine has announced party politics are boring and she will not be covering them in the lead up to the election.

Sinead Gill, new editor of Critic Te Arohi, says politicians have nothing more to offer students than " a shrivelled pea" and she's not interested in it.

Her decision caused a storm on social media, but Gill stands by it. 

"I'm lucky that I get to make this call - I'm the editor of a student magazine so I'm only obligated to write about issues which directly affect students today," she told The Project on Thursday.

She says she's not eliminating all politics from her reporting.

"I'm still going to cover issues which affect students but it's mainly just the party politics [being left out]"

"My job is to report about things on the ground every day - I don't want to waste two pages a week on promises that might not happen," she continued.

Co-host Mark Richardson urged her to "take control" and report on politicians to convince them to step their game up.

"That's kind of their job to be interesting, it's not my job to make them interesting. And if they're not interesting then my job as a journalist is to report the truth," she retorted.

"[Politicians] don't want to appeal to students on a substantive level - they don't want to offer any tangible policy which will make their lives better right here, right now."

Gill says her decision isn't because she doesn't care.

"Of course I care about politics, I did a whole masters on politics, not to flex," she told the hosts, causing raucous laughter from the audience. 

"Young people do care about politics they just don't care about parties."