RNZ media bias and reliability
Ad Fontes Media and Media Bias/Fact Check place RNZ in the centre. We have seen it on 7 published stories of ours.
The short answers
Is RNZ biased?
Ad Fontes Media and Media Bias/Fact Check place RNZ in the centre. An outlet rating describes a broad pattern in its output, not every article it publishes.
Is RNZ left or right?
Ad Fontes Media and Media Bias/Fact Check place RNZ in the centre. In the three-way grouping used on story pages, that puts it under Centre.
Is RNZ reliable?
The factual-reliability assessments we hold for RNZ are Media Bias/Fact Check: High factuality. These are outlet-level assessments, not a guarantee that every report is correct.
What RNZ has been covering
Our account of each story, written from every outlet that ran it, with RNZ’s own report linked underneath.
New Zealand's Parliament has passed legislation to implement its free trade agreement with India. The deal will eliminate or significantly reduce tariffs on approximately 95% of New Zealand's exports to India and includes a NZ$20 billion investment commitment.
RNZ reported it asIndia free trade agreement edges closer after Parliament passes legislation (opens RNZ in a new tab)
Goldman Sachs has warned that oil prices could surge to $120 per barrel if attacks on ships in the Middle East intensify. The bank also projected prices could fall to $80 per barrel if regional exports normalize. Brent crude was trading around $97 per barrel on 7 September 2026.
RNZ reported it asOil prices could reach $US120 (opens RNZ in a new tab)
A United Nations report published on September 2, 2026, states that global temperatures are likely to exceed the 1.5°C warming threshold within a few years. The UN Environment Programme (UNEP) calls for rapid emissions cuts and carbon removal to limit damage.
RNZ reported it asGlobal warming will inevitably overshoot 1.5°C Paris Agreement target (opens RNZ in a new tab)
Republican congressman Thomas Massie has accused Prince Andrew of committing sex crimes in the US during a speech in the House of Representatives. Massie named Andrew as one of Jeffrey Epstein's 'co-conspirators' while calling for an investigation into the late financier's associates.
RNZ reported it asRepublican congressman accuses Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor of committing sex crimes in US (opens RNZ in a new tab)
The Metropolitan Museum of Art has cancelled its planned 2027 Met Gala exhibition featuring designer John Galliano. The decision follows significant backlash over the designer's past antisemitic and racist comments.
RNZ reported it asThe John Galliano 2027 Met Gala has been cancelled (opens RNZ in a new tab)
US President Donald Trump is pressing aides to arrange a meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un as early as this autumn, according to the Wall Street Journal. The discussions are linked to Trump’s planned November trip to China for the APEC summit, though no date or location has been confirmed.
RNZ reported it asTrump seeks meeting with North Korea's Kim Jong Un before end of year (opens RNZ in a new tab)
China conducted its first known ballistic-missile test into the Pacific since September 2024 last month, exposing divisions among Pacific Islands foreign ministers who could not agree on a collective condemnation. The test coincided with Fiji and Australia signing a defence treaty, highlighting tensions between regional security partnerships and the Ocean of Peace Declaration endorsed in 2025.
RNZ reported it asUS and several Pacific countries hit out at Chinese nuclear missile test, after PIF misses chance (opens RNZ in a new tab)
Who says so
2 organisations have published a rating for this outlet, in their own words. Where they disagree, the disagreement is the useful part and it is left standing.
How reliably it reports fact
A rating of the newsroom in general, by others, and a different thing from the Trust score we publish on each story, which judges one piece of reporting.
Very high factuality
- Media Bias/Fact CheckhighCheck it
Who owns it
- Ministry for Culture and HeritageGovernmentdirect owner
Where it publishes from
What we have seen ourselves
Counted across the stories this site has published, which is the only denominator a reader can check: every one of them has a page, and every page lists the reports it was written from.
- Stories
- 7
- Reports listed
- 7
- We could read
- 0
- First seen
- 4 August 2026
7 of those reports were paywalled or blocked to us. Our reading of this outlet is built on the 0 we could open, not on everything it published.
A blindspot is measured against one side of the spectrum. RNZ is rated centre, so there is no side for it to be counted against and we publish no figure here.
Across the 7 stories of ours where at least three of the reports we listed carried a time, another outlet was always ahead of RNZ: its report arrived a median of 26 hours after the earliest one we logged.
Measured 19 September 2026. Last seen in a coverage list 18 September 2026. Ratings pulled 4 September 2026.
Think this page is wrong?
The leanings above are published by AllSides, Ad Fontes Media and Media Bias/Fact Check, and we republish them rather than make them. If you think one is misapplied, the strongest place to say so is with the organisation that made it, and every verdict here links to their page.
What we are responsible for is everything else: the ownership chain, where RNZ publishes from, which of our stories we have listed it on, and whether we have the right publisher at all. Tell us what is wrong and an editor reads it.
Report something wrong on this page
Anything we correct is written up in the public corrections log. We do not publish reader votes as a rating, because an unattributed rating is the thing this site exists to argue against.
Every rating on this page is a named third party’s published work, republished with its author and, where one exists, a link to it. Our own coverage record is the section we measure ourselves. Neither is a judgement of any individual report: those are scored story by story, and the reasoning is on our methodology page.