Content and programming
Notable RCR hosts include former ACT Party leader Rodney Hide, former TVNZ broadcaster Peter Williams, anti-vaccine influencer Chantelle Baker, former Radio New Zealand broadcaster Paul Brennan, VFF activist and local councillor Jaspreet Boparai, former Federated Farmers president Don Nicolson, alternative music content creator Tobias Tahi, knitter Maree Buschke, former Green Party candidate Natalie Cutler-Welsh, [1] [2] Alistair Harding, right-wing blogger Cameron Slater, Maree Buscke and Tane Webster. [5]
Notable guests on RCR have included New Zealand First leader Winston Peters, NZ First MPs Shane Jones and Tanya Unkovich, [5] ACT Party leader David Seymour, [6] ACT MP Cameron Luxton, [5] anti-vaccination activist Dr Matt Shelton, [2] National Party ministers Mark Mitchell and Erica Stanford. [3] Reality Check Radio has promoted anti-woke, anti-transgender content, COVID-19 vaccine hesistancy, and climate change denial. [2]
History
In March 2023, Voices for Freedom launched an online radio station called Reality Check Radio. [1] [2] The group's three leaders Deeks, Bland and Libby Jonson each own a 33.33% stake in the company, which was registered as NZ Media Ventures Limited. [7] [2]
According to The Spinoff journalist Duncan Greive, Paul Brennan had previously helped establish Sean Plunket's online radio station The Platform while Rodney Hide had served as a guest on The Platform but had parted company after Plunket and Platform co-founder Wayne Wright Jr. shifted the station's focus away from covering COVID-19 vaccination issues. [1] Acoording to Stuff journalist Charlie Mitchell, Reality Check Radio's launch in March 2023 was greeted by animosity from some elements of the "truth and freedom movement." Counterspin Media's founder Kelvyn Alp posted on Telegram "big money behind the push to be mediocre without a real challenge to the establishment." Anti-vaccination activists Liz Gunn and Sue Grey criticised RCR for not covering their court case. [2]
In late February 2024, Reality Check Radio hosted Austrian far right activist Martin Sellner, who had communicated with and accepted a donation from Brenton Tarrant, who perpetrated the 2019 Christchurch mosque shootings. During the interview, Sellner condemned Islam, assylum seekers and burqas. The RCR host described Sellner as a patriot who wanted to "preserve culture." Following the interview, advocacy group Fight Against Conspiracy Theories (FACT) spokesperson Stephen Judd criticised RCR for platforming extremist views and called on politicians to boycott the station. ACT leader David Seymour disagreed with FACT, saying that he talked to a "wide variety of media outlets, even niche ones like Stuff. Having a range of voices in the media can only be a good thing." He also called FACT a "left-wing lobby group." [3]
In early April 2024, The New Zealand Herald reported that Reality Check Radio had gone off air due to financial problems. Hosts Peter Williams and Rodney Hide fronted a 14 minute public relations video calling for donations to the support RCR's operations. [4] [8] According to BusinessDesk, RCR had struggled to secure enough donations from listeners, with only one percent of listeners donating. [9] Rival The Platform co-founder Plunket questioned whether the donation was a marketing ploy and derided RCR as "rabbit hole radio," promoting Williams to accuse Plunket of jealousy motivated by competition. On 14 April, Voices for Freedom co-founder Alia Brand denied that the RCR donation drive was a publicity stunt during an interview with TVNZ's Q+A current affairs show. [8]
Despite going off-air, RCR hosts continued to publish videos and podcasts on the station's social media channels including conversations between hosts and podcast versions of their shows. On 17 April 2024, Reality Check Radio released a plan to shift towards a donor-funded model and set a goal of increasing its subscription base from 3,500 to 10,000 paying members. As part of "The Plan," RCR plans to introduce new features including talkback functionality, documentaries and a press gallery presence. [5] On 28 April, Reality Check Radio announced that it still needed NZ$480,000 to return to the airwaves. The station claimed that it had received thousands of messages of support, with some cancelling their Netflix, Sky and Spotify subscriptions to support RCR. [10]
In early June 2024, the Advertising Standards Authority ruled that a Reality Check Radio-sponsored advertisement in March 2024 unsubstantiated claims about COVID-19 vaccines, which breached the standards of the advertising code. The Authority ordered that the offending advertisement not to published again in its present form. In response, RCR co-founder Claire Deeks defended the accuracy of the advertisement and accused the Authority of acting like a "kangaroo court." [11]
Rodney Philip Hide is a former New Zealand politician of the ACT New Zealand party. Hide was a Member of Parliament for ACT from 1996 until 2011, was ACT's leader between 2004 and 2011, and represented the Epsom constituency from 2005 to 2011. In the Fifth National Government, Hide was Minister of Local Government, Associate Minister of Commerce and Minister of Regulatory Reform until 2011.
Brian Raymond Tamaki, is a New Zealand Christian fundamentalist religious leader, and politician. He is the leader of Destiny Church, a Pentecostal Christian organisation which advocates strict adherence to fundamentalist biblical morality. Tamaki has been involved with various fringe political parties and movements, and since 2022 he has led the Freedoms New Zealand party. A perennial candidate, he has run for office several times but has yet to be elected.
Peter Allan Williams is a New Zealand broadcaster and sports journalist who worked for the national broadcaster TVNZ between 1979 and 2018. His roles with TVNZ included hosting the 1 News 6pm weekend bulletin and serving as the southern editor of TVNZ Sports in Wellington. Between 2019 and 2021, Williams also hosted the morning talkback programme on Magic Talk, a MediaWorks radio network.
Oliver Sean Plunket is a New Zealand broadcast journalist. Plunket has worked for several New Zealand broadcast media companies and stations including Radio Windy, Independent Radio News, Radio New Zealand, TV3, TVNZ, Newstalk ZB, and MagicTalk. Plunket also served as the communications director of The Opportunities Party during the 2017 New Zealand general election. In late 2021, Plunket founded an online radio station The Platform.
Kelvyn Glen Alp is a New Zealand far-right politician and activist. During the 1990s, Alp established a paramilitary organisation called the New Zealand Armed Intervention Force. During the 2020s, Alp founded a far-right media platform called Counterspin Media, which played an active role in leading the 2022 Wellington protest.
The mass media in New Zealand include television stations, radio stations, newspapers, magazines, and websites. Media conglomerates like NZME, Stuff, MediaWorks, Discovery and Sky dominate the media landscape. Most media organisations operate Auckland-based newsrooms with Parliamentary Press Gallery reporters and international media partners, but most broadcast programmes, music and syndicated columns are imported from the United States and United Kingdom.
Cameron Slater is a right-wing New Zealand-based blogger, best known for his role in Dirty Politics and publishing the Whale Oil Beef Hooked blog, which operated from 2005 until it closed in 2019. He edited the tabloid newspaper New Zealand Truth from November 2012 until it ceased publication in July 2013. Slater's father, John Slater, served as President of the New Zealand National Party from 1998 to 2001.
Ronald Matthew King is a New Zealand politician who was a Member of Parliament for the National Party from 2017 to 2020. During his time as an opposition MP, King's roles included membership of the Justice, Māori Affairs, and Transport and Infrastructure Select Committees, and National's spokesperson for Regional Development, Rural Communities, and Transport. While in parliament he promoted a bill to create a new offense for "king hits" but it was defeated.
There have been several COVID-19 protests in New Zealand held since 2020, where people protested the government's response to the COVID-19 pandemic in New Zealand, in particular the lockdown measures in place in March–May 2020, August 2020, and August–November 2021 and the later vaccine mandates. The protests have been largely condemned by members of parliament, as well as local city and regional councils. Fears were also raised about the protests increasing the spread of the virus.
COVID-19 vaccination in New Zealand began on 20 February 2021, and will continue throughout the pandemic with the goal of vaccinating all willing New Zealanders aged 5 or older. Those aged 5 to 11 require a parent, caregiver or legal guardian accompany them to their appointment and provide consent for them to be vaccinated. As of 1 September, anyone in New Zealand, regardless of their immigration status, is eligible to be vaccinated.
GiveSendGo is a Christian crowdfunding website. GiveSendGo has attracted controversy for allowing far-right extremists to fundraise, including neo-Nazis, white supremacists and hate groups.
Claire Ann Deeks is a New Zealand anti-vaccine activist who has challenged the government's response to COVID-19. She was an unsuccessful candidate for the Advance NZ party in the 2020 general election, and set up the group Voices for Freedom (VFF), which distributed pamphlets that have been criticised by experts as containing COVID-19 misinformation about vaccines, lockdown and the wearing of masks. As a food blogger, Deeks promoted the paleo diet and "healthy" lunchboxes for children, and developed a petition to stop the rating system for foods used by the NZ and Australian governments. She is a former intellectual property lawyer.
The 2022 Wellington protest was an anti-mandate and anti-lockdown occupation of the grounds of Parliament House and Molesworth Street in Central Wellington during the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic. The occupation spring boarded off the New Zealand Convoy 2022, a mass convoy of vehicles that made its way from the top of the North Island and the bottom of the South Island to Parliament starting on Waitangi Day and arriving three days later on 9 February. The occupation lasted just over three weeks. At its peak, the protest spread over a large area of Thorndon and into Pipitea with approximately 1,000 participants. Protesters blockaded areas around the parliamentary grounds with their vehicles and occupied the lawn and surrounding areas in tents. Some associated with the protests harassed bystanders, and disrupted local businesses. The protest was forcibly ended by police on 2 March 2022, and the protesters had none of their demands met by the Government.
Counterspin Media is a far-right, anti-vaccine, and conspiracy theorist New Zealand online media platform that was founded in May 2021.
The Freedoms & Rights Coalition (TFRC) is a self-described "people's movement" founded by Destiny Church founder and leader Bishop Brian Tamaki in 2021 to oppose the New Zealand Government's COVID-19 lockdown restrictions and vaccine mandates. The group organised protests in Auckland and across New Zealand. In mid-July 2022, the Coalition launched a second wave of protests against the Labour Government, whom they accused of incompetence and contributing to the country's socio-economic problems and shortages.
TJB 2021 Limited, trading as Voices for Freedom (VFF), is an anti-vaccine advocacy group in New Zealand that formed in December 2020 to oppose the New Zealand Government's COVID-19 mitigation policies and vaccination rollout. The organisation is founded and led by food blogger and former Advance New Zealand candidate Claire Deeks, Libby Jonson and Alia Bland. Voices for Freedom has been criticised by NZ Skeptics, The Spinoff editor Madeleine Chapman, and "FACT Aotearoa" for spreading misinformation about COVID-19 and vaccinations.
The Disinformation Project is a research group studying the effects of disinformation in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic in New Zealand.
Elizabeth Jane Cooney, commonly known as Liz Gunn, is the leader of the New Zealand Loyal Party, and is an anti-vaccination activist, conspiracy theorist, and a former television presenter from New Zealand.
The Platform is a New Zealand online radio station, founded by former MagicTalk broadcaster Sean Plunket in September 2021. The company is owned by the Wright family and Plunket. Notable hosts include Plunket, Otago Regional Council memberMichael Laws, sports broadcaster Martin Devlin and Leah Panapa
Chantelle Baker is a New Zealand social media influencer and far right activist who is the daughter of former New Conservative Party leader Leighton Baker. In 2022, she attracted domestic media attention for her involvement in the 2022 Wellington protest and for her promotion of anti-vaccine misinformation and conspiracy theories.
