Dear RNZ,

To many New Zealanders you are the beloved official radio voice of New Zealand. Some of us here today also used to think that.

You were neutral and impartial—or so it seemed from a certain white middle-class perspective. Sure, some people accused you of a left-wing bias, but overall you appeared to be on the side of all New Zealanders. There was no name-calling, news and current affairs were presented in measured tones, and presenters and guests alike were civilised and erudite. Apart from some tense interviews between politicians and
confrontational Morning Report presenters, Radio New Zealand exuded an air of calmness—reassuring us that everything was all right in Godzone.

As if to confirm this view, an AUT study published this year shows that you are the most trusted of the New Zealand media outlets. However, there is also bad news for you in the study: your trust rating, like the other outlets’, has dropped in the last two years—in your case dramatically—by 8 percentage points, down from 70% to 62%. This shows that many members of the New Zealand public understand that recently you haven’t been doing your job properly.

So what’s been the cause? It’s been a stressful two and a half years with the country going through a pandemic response that’s involved lockdowns, job losses, social distancing, vaccine passes, and mask and job mandates. The flow-on effects have included job losses, destroyed businesses, loss of income, fractured relationships, increased isolation, increased stress, declines in physical health, vaccine
injuries, and an increase this year in all-cause mortality.

How have you responded to these devastating events? Actually, they’ve barely registered as a blip on your news radar. Let’s judge your response to the events by your own standards by looking at three of the elements from your purpose as outlined in the Radio New Zealand Charter:

(1) As an independent public service broadcaster, the public radio company’s purpose is to serve the public interest.

It’s clear that since 2020 RNZ’s coverage of the pandemic has not been independent of the government or the parliamentary system. We know that your funding comes exclusively from the government coffers, so perhaps the lack of independence is not surprising. Nevertheless, there’s been very little pretence of independence in the last three years. Almost exclusively, your coverage has been in lockstep with the government’s view. You, and most other media, have essentially acted as mouthpieces of the government and the parliamentary system in general.

On the matter of the public interest, it’s unclear who defines public interest —presumably the government. It’s certain that the interests of a large minority of New Zealanders have not been served by you in the last three years.

(2) Freedom of thought and expression are foundations of democratic society and the public radio company as a public service broadcaster plays an essential role in exercising these freedoms.

It’s also clear that New Zealanders’ freedom of thought and expression on the issue of covid, vaccines and mandates has been stifled by you and other media outlets, as well as social media giants. Many people have been denied a public voice on these vital issues. This amounts to censorship and is threatening the foundations of our democratic society.

To be fair, you haven’t been as one-sided as many of the other media outlets. Nevertheless, with your biased and partly decontextualized coverage, you’ve excluded from public dialogue the voices of a significant minority of New Zealanders on issues such as, the government’s handling of the pandemic, the safety and efficacy of the covid vaccine, and the wisdom and morality of the lockdowns, mask use and mandates.

There are alternative views on these issues backed by strong scientific research. Occasionally, you and the other media have reported the findings of a study which runs counter to the official narrative, but it’s soon been buried in the avalanche of daily covid case numbers, musings by carefully-screened experts and the “single source of truth” in the Beehive.

(3) The public radio company fosters a sense of national identity by contributing to tolerance and understanding, reflecting and promoting ethnic, cultural, and artistic diversity and expression.

You have fostered a sense of national identity, but that identity has been limited to promoting the Prime Minister’s “team of five million,” a bitterly divisive and exclusionary concept which has done the complete opposite of contributing to tolerance and understanding.

You’ve contributed to the marginalization of New Zealand citizens. You stood by and said next to nothing in opposition to the temporary stripping of the human rights of hundreds of thousands of people, the effects of which are still being felt today.

And you’ve also been part of the demonization of New Zealanders. One example of this was a softball interview this year with security “expert” Paul Buchanan, who speculated, with no hard evidence, that recent anonymous bomb threats to schools may have come from “anti-maskers”.

RNZ, you have drifted a long way from the principles of the purpose in your charter. We ask you to revisit your charter and make a renewed effort to serve all New Zealand taxpayers.

Yours sincerely,

A group of concerned citizens