The 10 news sites NZers should check out daily

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According to the latest PEW international news consumption research, most social media news consumers only get news on one site…

That is  pretty disturbing truth in a post truth world.

We have moved from a ‘I think therefore I am’ environment to a “I believe therefore I am right’ kind of landscape.

Having a diverse news diet is as important for you as a proper nutritionally balanced meal and here are the 10 NZ news sources you should check out daily to have a better comprehension of the world around us.

10: Waatea News

Waatea News is the best source of an indigenous voice on the politics of the day. Waatea News is an incredible resource for some of the best journalism in NZ. It often has unique perspectives and breaking Maori news that helps explain much of the symptom news you get on the mainstream a few weeks later.

TDB Recommends NewzEngine.com

 

9: Vice NZ News

Vice offers some of the best cultural investigations and news critiques around. Their new TV channel on Sky is the most exciting thing to happen to NZ media landscape since the launch of TV3.

 

8: Aljazeera

One of the best international news sites on offer. They have a journalistic focus on people and power that insures a wide range of news events get covered that you simply never see appear in Western media.

 

7: Democracy Now

The best liberal news organisation in America, they were the first non-indigenous media at Standing Rock. Their passion to hold the Military Industrial Complex to account for America’s appalling foreign affairs policy is never ending. Noam Chomsky is on the site all the time, and his wisdom and insights are always worth watching.

 

6: The Villainesse 

The best feminist blog in NZ. Powerful insights and great journalism. A daily must read.

 

5: No Right Turn

Excellent analysis of NZ and international trends on politics.

 

4: The Wireless

The youth arm of radio NZ, it’s always well written and interesting. A bit like a Christian Vice though. They don’t have sex at The Wireless, but if they did they would have consent forms counter signed in triplicate by a local JP.

 

3: The Guardian

One of the best liberal perspectives from the UK although their anti-Corbyn stance highlights the cultural divide of the elites and why Brexit happened.

 

2: The Intercept

The best critical analysis of mass surveillance and American political corruption. A must read each day.

 

1: RNZ

You have to check RNZ daily just to watch CheckPoint, but you also get some of the best journalism on events that are occurring in NZ.

 

 

22 COMMENTS

  1. I note that your recommendations are all left wing media sources, hardly a source of unbiased reporting.

    My source of information is:
    RT – anti American and pro Russian
    Aljazeera – anti Israel and pro Arab
    Fox News – right wing and pro-Trump
    Clinton Network News (CNN) – left wing and anti-Trump
    BBC – left wing
    Sky news – balance reporting

    I don’t read the print news media as it is mainly left wing and lost all credibility for neutral reporting.

    • Thats because the left has nothing to hide, cover up or profit from so they tell the truth.

      The print media is left wing ? what rock are you living under !

    • That’s how polarised we are – I don’t see the BBC as lefty, they feel pretty old-guard conservative in places to me. As for AJ: having a Muslim and/or Arab perspective isn’t particularly pro-Arab is it? And arguing for Israel to obey international law is actually pro-Israel if you think about it. Netanyahu is effectively the most anti-Israel influence there is, he’s sowing the seeds of its dismantling, and that is abominable.

  2. You should add ZNet:
    https://zcomm.org/znet/

    More analytical than ranty with the likes of Albert, Pilger, Chomsky, Goodman, Sawant, Shiva, Levi, Swanson, Greenwald even Stiglitz, Assange, Sanders, Stein from time to time, and others.
    I quite like their ‘this is how it is’ and ‘this is what we do about it’ style rather than feeling they need to lambast and shock everyone about how much of a catastrophe the world is in. The latter has its place too of course, especially in this country.

  3. Some essential sites to follow.
    1. Seemorerocks – environmental and news blog
    2. Rachel Stewart – twitter
    3. The Canary (UK news)
    4. Off Guardian
    5. The Automatic Earth.
    6. Zero Hedge
    7. The Independent – has Cockburn and Fisk on Syria
    8. Abby Martin
    9. Wake Up New Zealand – Facebook page

    • To be fair Bradbury did highlight how the editorial of the Guardian is off. The Guardian has a lot of good opinions – sometimes they have Zizek, for example.

      RT is good for another angle, but they can’t be trusted on Russia’s issues…they’re a mirror image of CNN on USA’s issues.

  4. You have to check RNZ daily just to watch CheckPoint, but you also get some of the best journalism on events that are occurring in NZ.

    True…

    Except…

    The period between 25 December and 22 January (inclusive) is a drought as Radio NZ replaces their normal scheduled programming with what is euthemistically referred to as “summer programmes”.

    This includes a watered down “Morning Report” and bastardised version of “Nine to Noon”. “Checkpoint” is neutered to ten minutes (!), followed by twenty minutes of replaying international news stories.

    From 12.30pm to 5pm is filled with two “broadcasters” (I use the term loosely) who would be better suited on “The Rock”, “The Edge”, or over-the-f*****g edge. If you’re curious what a commercialised Radio NZ might sound like, listen to these two charachters.

    This has been the system for several years. Evidently there are no stories of events in New Zealand and bugger-all internationally.

    For one month, Radio NZ becomes a shadow of it’s greatness.

    Thank god my car has a CD player, is all I can say.

    • Frank- granted, “Matinee Idle” is something of an acquired taste but it’s only for a few hours in the afternoon for 3 weeks, it’s fun and it’s still ad free! If any breaking news of significance were to happen during that time I’m pretty sure said show would be interrupted.

      But agree with everything else you say. However, would the lack of new reporting, replaying of “highlights” and shutting down/reducing the major shows have anything to do with the fact they really can’t afford to keep them running 365 anymore?

      • News is driven by the PR nachines of politicians, govt depts and business – the rich and powerful – and they tend to be on holiday during the summer period. Hence no news. News is just an elitist construct. Save the bother by reading Orwell and you need never worry about a scrap of news again. Read The Idler instead.

        • ‘News is driven by the PR nachines of politicians, govt depts and business – the rich and powerful’

          Spot on. So what is presented as news it isn’t actually news at all but is social conditioning.

          Almost everything presented as news is in the western world fake. And what isn’t fake is a catalogue of human stupidity -road accidents, drownings, cats rescued from trees, who wore what where, blah, blah, blah -to keep the masses from thinking about anything that matters.

          • Afewknowthetruth;

            “So what is presented as news it isn’t actually news at all but is social conditioning.”

            Bang on.! See; http://www.thedailybell.com/

            Extremely useful in that it analyzes todays topics from an unique historical perspective and language of Dominant Social Themes/Memes.

            Cheers.

    • Oh dear Frank! Now you’re showing your age!

      I’m officially elderly now, and I have a Gold Card to prove it. I wouldn’t miss Matinee Idle for all the tea in China. It’s noisy, raucous and excellent fun; or do I just like its anarchic ambience?

      As for RNZ (I HATE that name; it’ll always be Radio NZ for me) I’m more concerned with how much its excellent journalists have been shying away from any news that is anti-corporate or anti-government.

      This seems to have been achieved by focusing completely on ‘inclusivity’ (whatever the fuck that might mean) so that stories that cover a wider range of interest groups get pumped at the expense of real stories. It’s a brilliant camouflage because every time it’s pointed out, shouts of racism, chauvinism and anti-feminism can be heard derailling the original argument.

      As if that wasn’t bad enough by itself, Ms Hirshfeld’s suggestion of keeping costs down by repeating every programme AT LEAST four times irrespective of its broadcast value, seriously undermines R(adio)NZ’s position as principle broadcaster.

      Oh the times they is a changin’…

      And Frank, PLEASE have as many coffees as it takes before you blog. Your grammar and spelling tends to perish in the mountaineering Death Zone with insufficient cafeine. Not like you at all old chap… 🙂

  5. Martyn, that’s a pretty dismal list for anyone wishing to become informed.

    RNZ is a business-as-usual mouthpiece of NZ banks and corporations and will not report anything that actually matters without putting political-business spin on it, as required by ‘the owners’. I stopped listening to the crap that RNZ churns out over a decade ago.

    And as for The Guardian, well that was morphed into a mouthpiece of the business-as-usual British Establishment several years ago. It’s a good source of propaganda and little else these days.

    Indeed, the only reason to follow those would be to keep track of the disinformation is being promulgated.

    The only Internet sites worth studying are the ones that provide basic data without the political spin and pabulum that the vast majority of journalists are required to inject into their reporting in order to keep their jobs.

    What is really disturbing is that you have omitted all reporting of the only thing that actually matters: the collapse of the global environment and the acceleration of that collapse, which is underway.

    Zero Hedge keeps me appraised of the state of corruption and lies around the world, the surveillance state, the machinations of the military-industrial complex and sudden shifts in finance (which I follow, not to make money but to not get caught out by the next financial collapse, which could arrive at any time).

    RT keeps me informed about which nation is likely to be the next target of American interference, which nations are progressing towards war with one another, and what weapons are likely to be used.

    seemorerocks was a good site for a quite a while but has gone down the drain over the past six months or so, probably as a result of Westenra’s worsening physical and mental condition, so a quick glance there usually suffices.

    Indeed, the number of reliable sources of information declines as time goes on. Which is exactly how TPTB want it.

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