Mass media in New Zealand
Reporters Without Borders rates New Zealand highly for press freedom, ranking it eighth-best worldwide in 2018,[2] up from thirteenth in 2017, and down from fifth in 2016.
[3] The country's libel laws follow the English model, and contempt of court is severely punished.
The Office of Film and Literature Classification classifies and sometimes censors films, videos, publications and video games, the New Zealand Press Council deals with print media bias and inaccuracy and the Broadcasting Standards Authority and Advertising Standards Authority considers complaints.
The Department of Internal Affairs is responsible for Internet censorship in New Zealand and runs a voluntary filtering system to prevent Internet users from accessing selected sites and material that contain sexual abuse or exploitation of children and young people.
Initially broadcasting from four separate stations in Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch and Dunedin, television was networked nationwide in 1969.
The Freeview terrestrial service is a high definition digital terrestrial television service launched on 14 April 2008, initially serving Auckland, Hamilton, Tauranga, Napier-Hastings, Palmerston North, Wellington, Christchurch, and Dunedin.
New Zealand radio is dominated by twenty-seven networks and station-groups, but also includes several local and low-powered stations.
[9] The number of newspapers in New Zealand has dramatically reduced since the early 20th century as a consequence of radio, television and new media being introduced to the country.
Provincial and community newspapers, such as the Waikato Times daily, serve particular regions, cities and suburbs.
[10][11][12] Māori in New Zealand had non-literate culture before contact with the Europeans in the early 19th century, but oratory recitation of quasi-historical and hagiographical ancestral blood lines was central to the culture; oral traditions were first published when early 19th century Christian missionaries developed a written form of the Māori language to publish Bibles.
[13] Keri Hulme won the Booker Prize for The Bone People; Witi Ihimaera's novel Whale Rider, which dealt with Māori life in the modern world, ' became a Nikki Caro film.
The New Zealand film industry is small but successful, boasting directors such as Peter Jackson and Jane Campion.
Asian films, particularly from India, China, Hong Kong and Japan, are widely available for rental on videocassette, DVD and similar media, especially in Auckland.
[19] One list of over 200 "author-operated, public discourse" blogs in New Zealand (ranked according to traffic, links incoming, posting frequency and comments) suggests New Zealand blogs cover a wide range of ideological positions but a lack of female contributors.
[30][31][32] Political bloggers include current and former party apparatchiks such as David Farrar (Kiwiblog), Jordan Carter,[33] Peter Cresswell[34] and Trevor Loudon,[35] and journalists and commentators such as Russell Brown.
[36] New Zealand politicians and political groups operate blogs which, unlike overseas counterparts, allow comments.
[44] There is also an active political and non-political New Zealand community on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Tumblr and Flickr.
The Trust in Aotearoa News report, which was produced in collaboration with the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism (RISJ) and conducted by Horizon Research Ltd, surveyed 1,204 adult New Zealanders (aged over 18 years) between 23 and 30 March 2020.
Key reasons for media distrust included political bias, the perceived politicisation of media, agenda building on issues like climate change, opinionated coverage, selective reporting and poor journalism standards including factual mistakes and grammatical errors.
The top trusted media outlets were RNZ (6.2/10), the Otago Daily Times (6.0/10), TVNZ (5.9/10) and Newshub (5.8/10).
The top ranked brand was the Otago Daily Times, followed by RNZ and National Business Review tied for second place.
