June 8, 2020 7:00am by David Farrar

Which media are seen as most left and right leaning

Over 2,500 responses to my survey on how people see major NZ media outlets in terms of political leanings. People could assess them as strongly left leaning, somewhat left leaning, neutral, somewhat right leaning or strongly right leaning. I’ve attributed a score of -100 for strongly left, -50 for somewhat left, 0 for neutral, +50 for somewhat right and +100 for strongly right.

The weighted average for each media outlet, in order from most left to most right is:

The Guardian -82
Radio New Zealand -80
The Spinoff -78
Stuff -72
One News -62
NZ Herald – 59
Newshub -51
Scoop -46
Newsroom -46
Interest.co.nz -9
NewstalkZB +16
NBR +31

The Guardian is known as a explicitly left-wing newspaper. It is shocking (but maybe not surprising) that Radio New Zealand is seem as just as left leaning, making a mockery of the claim of impartiality.

Stuff is seen as more left leaning than the Herald. One News as more left leaning than Newshub.

Interest.co,nz comes closest to neutrality.

NewstalkZB and NBR both seen as right leaning.

Now some may say this means nothing, as the respondents to the survey are not representative of all media consumers. This is correct in terms of the absolute scores, but still tells a story in terms of variation between different outlets.

But we also asked them for their voting history so let’s break it down by that.

Those who say they always vote left say Radio NZ is left leaning, as is the Guardian, The Spinoff and Scoop. They see One News, Stuff and Newshub as fairly neutral. They think the Herald is right leaning.

Those who normally vote left also see Radio NZ as left leaning, along with Stuff.

Those who swing between voting left and right rate the media as follows: