News as propaganda
By Mark Freeman, Updated 14 June, 2025
Table of Contents
The decline of mainstream news media
“If you don’t read the newspaper, you’re uninformed; if you do read the newspaper you’re misinformed.”
– Author unknown but sometimes attributed to Mark Twain or Thomas Jefferson
The mainstream news media in New Zealand is struggling financially as advertising revenues and audience numbers continue a long-term decline. The situation worsened at the start of the “pandemic” in 2020, when the media went into an existential crisis. The government threw the media a lifeline with its $55 million Public Interest Journalism Fund. After that money ran out, the decline continued—and TV3’s news operation Newshub shut down.
The reason cited for the mainstream media’s ongoing downhill slide is that audiences are being increasingly drawn to social media. A report for the government in 2021 concluded that the financial viability of both publicly-funded and privately-funded media in this country was under threat from new platforms and technologies and that the current media structure was unsustainable.
A 2022 study by Reuters and Oxford University found that social media had overtaken news websites and apps as the primary sources of news for 18-24-year-olds in 12 countries. One 18-year-old male from Brazil commented: “On TV we always see the same things, but on YouTube, Spotify, TikTok, we have a range of diversity….We can get all this and see that there is diversity, society far beyond just what we live.” A 23-year-old male from the USA said: “I find [YouTube] more digestible than mainstream media. I also find YouTube to be more interesting because it is more specifically geared towards me.”
A major factor in the general public’s switch to social media is undoubtedly their continuing loss of trust in the mainstream media. The level of trust in the news media in New Zealand plummeted during the covid years and now appears to be at an all-time low. The 2024 Auckland University of Technology (AUT) public trust in media report found that the proportion of New Zealanders who trusted the news “most of the time” fell from 53% in 2020—the first time the survey was conducted—to 33% in 2024—and then to 32% in 2025. A massive 87% of respondents in 2024 agreed that a reason for not trusting the news was that the reporting was “biased and not balanced.”
How journalists see themselves
One reason for the public’s perception of bias will be journalists’ political leanings. A 2023 study found that 65% of New Zealand journalists surveyed identified themselves as being politically left of centre. Twenty-three per cent said they were in the centre and 12% self-identified as right-leaning. These figures explain the left-wing bias that is all-too-obvious in most media outlets on a number of issues such as identity politics, climate change and politics (where journalists play the devil’s advocate when interviewing politicians—especially conservatives—rather than simply getting the facts).
Another likely reason for the perceived bias is connected with a change in the way journalists see their roles. The largest-ever study of professional New Zealand journalists, the Worlds of Journalism Study 2.0, released in 2022, found that journalists see themselves more as educators and fighters of disinformation than detached observers, which has been the traditional journalist role. “While still committed to the traditional non-biased neutral observer role, journalists now feel their most important role is no longer letting people express their views, but educating the public,” the study said. The following were the top seven roles as selected by New Zealand journalists out of 21 listed roles (in descending order):
1. Educate the audience
2. Counteract disinformation
3. Monitor and scrutinise political leaders
4. Let people express their view
5. Speak on behalf of the marginalised
6. Be a detached observer
7. Provide analysis of current affairs.
From these findings, it’s clear that mainstream journalists are no longer content to simply inform us of events and let their sources speak for themselves. Instead, they feel it’s their mission to educate us and protect us from disinformation. The importance of journalists speaking on behalf of the marginalised (role #5) will come as an ironic surprise to those mandated during the covid era, when media outlets gave minimal coverage to the “fringe” perspective of the mandated.
What journalists think of accusations of bias
So, what do mainstream journalists think about the accusations of media bias and the public’s loss of confidence in them? Former Weekend Herald editor Miriyana Alexander and the editor of the Otago Daily Times (ODT) Paul McIntyre talked to RNZ’s Mediawatch producer Hayden Donnell about the results of the 2024 AUT survey.
Both print editors acknowledged the news outlets had to do more to rebuild trust and engage more with their readers.
Outlets also needed to avoid being arrogant and give people a range of views, Alexander said. “It’s a very tricky conversation because some people don’t agree with the truth.” Even though the public accuse the media of bias, the media shouldn’t print things that are not true, she said. “I think it’s really important for journalists to be clear on what the truth is, and you’ll never convince me–even though you’re very convincing–that the moon is made of cheese.”
Okay, so far, so good. But then Mediawatch’s Donnell introduces a subject closer to earth: “There are some things where you can be pretty certain: the science of climate change, for instance. A large constituency doesn’t believe it’s true. Every scientist will tell you it is.”
(Maybe climate change isn’t the best topic area to choose as an example. The science in this area is far from settled, and many scientists don’t, in fact, believe in anthropogenic warming.)
McIntyre of the ODT switches to another topic where the public have supposedly swallowed misinformation: “During the pandemic, vaccinations on the whole saved a lot of people and now we’re getting issues with people that won’t have vaccinations for measles because they’re believing all that. Now, do we not put the science forward on that?”
(Hmm, this is another topic where the journalists are on shaky ground. It’s highly debatable that covid jabs saved many, if any, people. In fact, there are many studies indicating the vaccines caused injuries and deaths.)
Still defending the mainstream media against claims of bias, McIntyre says the media has not been good at explaining their editorial decisions. People don’t understand what goes on in a newsroom, he says. “There is no bias there at all. We’re just looking at what stories we’re going to cover in the best way possible.”
The last quotation is an outrageous and disingenuous statement perpetuating the myth of journalistic objectivity. In fact, editorial bias can be seen in many aspects of the gathering and production of news, such as:
- the news outlets’ selection of certain stories—such as the deaths of people who died with covid—and their ignoring other stories, such as the strong evidence of many harms and deaths from covid vaccines. Many other important topics are also overlooked, for example, social class issues and immigration.
- lack of balance—or one-sidedness—shown in the exclusion, denigration or exposure of people who promoted “misinformation” during the covid years;
- editorialising within the article—signalling to the reader that, even though this far-right extremist is telling their story, they don’t know “the truth” and their claims have been thoroughly debunked.
Unfortunately, the senior journalists in the RNZ interview displayed the very arrogance they were trying to avoid. Their narrow perception of truth is the lens through which they offer the public a limited range of views.
While this sort of media bias can be partly explained by journalists’ political leanings and their misguided understanding of their roles as evangelists of “the truth” and fighters of disinformation, there are also deeper, more systemic, causes that explain the bias. One of the most important is found by following the money—to governments and corporations.
Media’s relationship with government and corporations
A large proportion of the New Zealand public see the mainstream media’s relationship with the government as problematic. Of course, TVNZ and RNZ are state-owned broadcasters, so they would be expected to tow the line of the bipartisan government system. To give them some credit, both state-owned and privately-owned outlets do critique the policies of governments and other political parties (some parties more than others!) as part of their role of scrutinising political leaders.
But the scrutiny was largely lost in the covid years. The public’s trust in the media was badly damaged by the $55m Public Interest Journalism Fund, distributed over three years from 2020 to 2023. New Zealand First leader Winston Peters went so far as to call the funding bribery, as media recipients had to agree to certain conditions, most infamously a ”commitment to Te Tiriti o Waitangi and to Maori as a Te Tiriti partner.”
One question the 2023 AUT media trust survey asked respondents was whether they believed that “news media is independent of undue political or government influence most of the time”. Only 32% agreed while 43% disagreed. 26% neither agreed nor disagreed.
Two respondents cited in the AUT report criticised the cosy relationship between the government and the media:
It’s hard to trust the news when views or opinions that go against the opinion or theme of the media / government are silenced. There should always be room to ask questions and learn more. I lost my trust in the media when the government called itself the “one source of truth” and wouldn’t allow any real scientific or political rebuttal. (Female, 35-44, NZ European)
Mainstream media are losing credibility because they have become government puppets who no longer report the real truth. They’re not even interested in investigating real truth. They simply repeat the government narrative and I think that’s shocking and unacceptable. (Female, 45-54, NZ European)
These comments echo the views of many of us who realised in the covid years that “our” government and the mainstream media don’t serve us in the way they claim to. The Ardern government, enabled by the media, deceived and gaslit us on a number of key issues affecting our health and our freedom of movement. The mainstream media unquestioningly promoted lockdowns, mask mandates, vaccine passes, vaccine mandates and other policies of the “single source of truth” government and the officially-sanctioned scientific “experts”—and turned feral on anyone who questioned the official narrative.
Alongside government, the other major type of owner of mainstream media in this country is large corporations. New Zealand Media and Entertainment (NZME) is a privately-owned company which owns many of this country’s newspapers, including the New Zealand Herald, as well as the ZB radio network. The major shareholders in NZME are the world’s most powerful investment companies, Blackrock and Vanguard, also major shareholders in pharmaceutical companies like Pfizer. BlackRock and Vanguard are also the top two shareholders in Warner Bros Discovery, the former owner of the now-defunct Newshub. The ownership of Stuff, New Zealand’s largest news website, is restricted to one person: Sinead Boucher.
Independent media?
With news media being funded by government and big business, many members of the public can see their bias and lack of independence. Yet the journalists themselves seem to be blind to these realities.
In a talk at the 2023 United Nations Association of New Zealand conference Advancing Agenda 2030, RNZ’s CEO Paul Thompson suggested a way to increase public trust in the media is to have “a strong robust independent media sector to underpin our democracy, underpin cohesion in our society.”
There is a whole bunch of New Zealanders who felt that their needs weren’t being taken care of. We can’t ignore those groups. We have to think about how we actually supply them with independent trusted news.
Few people would disagree with his statement, and I’m sure most journalists are genuine in wanting to make our country a better place. But what independent, trusted media did he have in mind? Surely not RNZ? Although he didn’t specify, that seems likely since RNZ refers to itself as “New Zealand’s independent public service multimedia organisation,” providing “trusted and independent news and current affairs.”
But how can RNZ be independent when it’s completely funded by the government? RNZ’s claims of independence are probably references to editorial independence, meaning government ministers and departmental heads don’t tell RNZ editors what—and what not—to broadcast or print. But, even if no editorial interference occurs, the conformist power of journalistic culture is strong. Journalists internalise the ethos of their outlets and self-censor. They know which story topics and angles are acceptable to the editor.
Media owners don’t go down to a television studio and make sure that the local talk-show host or reporter is doing what they want, says American academic and activist Noam Chomsky in his book How the world works:
There are other, subtler, more complex mechanisms that make it fairly certain that the people on the air will do what the owners and investors want. There’s a whole, long filtering process that makes sure that people only rise through the system to become mangers, editors, etc, if they’ve internalized the values of the owners.
But the owners will step in to limit media content when it goes beyond tolerable bounds, he says. (Remember the firing of Peter Williams from Magic Talk radio in 2022?)
The real purpose of the news media: indoctrination for democracy
The claim of journalistic independence may be self-delusory, but Thompson’s comment about media underpinning democracy and social cohesion has a strong element of truth. This idea is supported by the New Zealand Media Council, which says an independent press plays a vital role in a democracy. That’s true (apart from the claim that the press is independent), but in a subversive way not intended by these journalists.
The media’s real purpose in a democracy is to defend the social and political agenda of the elite through the indoctrination of the masses, says Chomsky. Drawing on the early-twentieth-century writings of American journalist Walter Lippmann and theologian Reinhold Niebuhr, Chomsky argues in the 1992 film Manufacturing consent that indoctrination is “the essence of democracy.” Since democratic societies can’t force people to do things as totalitarian states can, he says, they need to control what people think so that the public submit to civil rule:
The standard way to do this is to resort to what in more honest days used to be called propaganda, manufacture of consent, the creation of necessary illusions, various ways of either marginalizing the general public or reducing them to apathy in some fashion.
We usually associate indoctrination and propaganda with authoritarian regimes like Nazi Germany. But, as it turns out, the Nazis got their ideas from the United States. German propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels was greatly inspired by the work of American public relations pioneer Edward Bernays, who used mass psychology to design publicity campaigns. Among his achievements, Bernays, who was the nephew of psychiatry pioneer Sigmund Freud, helped build public support for World War One in the United States and successfully promoted a cigarette brand as thinning in order to entice more women to smoke. In his book Propaganda, published in 1928, Bernays defended propaganda as having a key social function:
The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. … We are governed, our minds are moulded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of. This is a logical result of the way in which our democratic society is organized. Vast numbers of human beings must cooperate in this manner if they are to live together as a smoothly functioning society.
How news propaganda works
A key role in the process of propaganda is played by the mass media, including the news media. French philosopher and sociologist Jacques Ellul, in his 1962 book Propaganda: the formation of men’s attitudes, wrote that, to be effective, propaganda must be “total,” “continuous and lasting:”
…continuous in that it must not leave any gaps but must fill the citizen’s whole day and all his days; lasting in that it must function over a very long period of time. Propaganda tends to make the individual live in a separate world; he must not have outside points of reference. He must not be allowed a moment of meditation or reflection in which to see himself vis-à-vis the propagandist, as happens when the propaganda is not continuous. At that moment the individual emerges from the grip of propaganda. Instead, successful propaganda will occupy every moment of the individual’s life: through posters and loudspeakers when he is out walking, through radio and newspapers at home, through meetings and movies in the evening.
This description is reminiscent of Jim Carrey’s Truman from the film the Truman Show. Truman has lived his life unaware that he’s in a fabricated reality. But when several unusual events occur, including the unexpected appearance of people and an object from the outside world, he starts to question the authenticity of his world, eventually rejecting it.
In their 1988 book Manufacturing consent, Chomsky and Edward Herman propose a propaganda model showing how governments and dominant private interests get their messages out to the public and marginalise dissent by filtering the news. The news “filters” which achieve these aims include:
- the size, concentrated ownership and profit orientation of the dominant mass-media firms. Through their size and domination of the market, large corporations, along with governments, are able to set the agenda of the news;
- the reliance of the media on information provided by the government, businesses and “experts” funded by these agents of power. In the 24-hour news cycle, there is a constant need to “feed the beast,” with journalists particularly dependent on these sources for news;
- anti-communism as a control mechanism which helps mobilize the population against an enemy through fear. In the 21st century, anti-communism exerts much less control but still exists in anti-Chinese sentiment. It’s supplemented by anti-terrorism, anti-Islamism and anti-Russian sentiment.
These filters are part of the monolithic mainstream news system. This system offers a framework within which journalists operate without questioning its inbuilt biases, Chomsky and Herman argue:
The elite domination of the media and marginalization of dissidents that results from the operation of these filters occurs so naturally that media news people, frequently operating with complete integrity and goodwill, are able to convince themselves that they choose and interpret the news “objectively” and on the basis of professional news values. Within the limits of the filter constraints they often are objective; the constraints are so powerful, and are built into the system in such a fundamental way, that alternative bases of news choices are hardly imaginable.
So that’s how the media mind-control system works. But the mainstream media’s time seems to be running out. Consumers of news have been doing what most journalists seem unable to do: recognising the bias in the system. As a result, they’ve been voting with their fingers and moving to alternative sources of news. To give the mainstream news media their due, they are useful for reporting what government, councils, corporations and criminals are officially up to, but to find out what’s really going on behind the scenes, we need to be accessing “alternative” media. Local media sources worth checking out include RCR, the Good Oil, Counterspin, Centrist, Uncensored, Daily Telegraph, the Daily Examiner, the Platform and Waikanae Watch.