Media & theFacts

We help all media outlets, large and small, old and new, left, centrist, or right-leaning, written, audio, and video-based, strengthen their facts-first approach to journalism, without fear or favour, and we freely share our work with any organisation who values getting to the truth of an issue.

We’ve had some great win-wins, including:

However, we have also had many frustrating experiences where we discovered major stories that the mainstream media (MSM) refused to share.

Below is a list of these wins and losses, under the headings of:

The Great
The Good
The Bad
The Ugly

NOTE: We’re not always notified by media about the coverage we get, so if you know of any credits missing from the list below, please let us know. We’ve ignored social media as the reposts/reshares are too great to track, however, these can often reach 50,000+ impressions so thank you to everyone who reshares our work!

The Great

Murder convictions
The very first fact we launched with!
https://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/on-air/heather-du-plessis-allan-drive/audio/geoff-neal-new-website-thefactsnz-aims-to-inject-facts-into-everyday-debate/
All Black yellow cards
The front-back page of the NZ Herald.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/sport/all-blacks-v-ireland-study-reveals-all-blacks-card-stats-and-how-they-compare-to-opponents/WLVY3CSMOAE2J52U4ZT3YIVXTA/
Business closures
Multiple outlets covered this story, picking it up from RNZ. (We need to return to it, though, as it looks like the numbers have been changed.)
- https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/456929/business-closures-outnumber-new-firms-for-first-time-in-nearly-a-decade (article)
- https://www.rnz.co.nz/audio/player?audio_id=2018822754 (audio)
- https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/money/2021/12/business-closures-outnumber-new-firms-for-first-time-in-nearly-a-decade.html
- https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/covid-19-delta-business-closures-outnumber-new-firms-for-first-time-in-nearly-a-decade/OFOT2J5XVGUHJXQN2RHGWLUBYM/
- https://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/on-air/mike-hosking-breakfast/opinion/mike-hosking-the-economic-carnage-in-this-country-is-heartbreaking/
  (didn’t give us credit)
- https://www.1news.co.nz/2021/11/30/number-of-businesses-decline-for-first-time-since-2012/
  (the link doesn’t work anymore, as TVNZ take stories down, which is why we haven’t hyperlinked it)
Media bias
It was very pleasing to see some media platforms not shying away from these facts, even if their take on it was a little strange.
- https://www.nbr.co.nz/the-flip-side/the-left-wing-take-on-rejuvenating-your-bathroom/
- https://nznewsessentials.com/labours-strategy-identity-politics-to-the-extreme/ (see “left leaning” citation ~1/3 down the page)
- The Platform’s interview with Geoff (no public link)
- The Common Room/David Farrar also did a good video on both of these media bias facts, although, used the original World’s of Journalism data which has a couple of presentation errors. The corrected version can be found on https://thefacts.nz/social/journalists-political-views/.

The Good

>100,000 children not going to school each day
This soundbite has been frequently quoted by politicians and media since the day we shared it, so we suspect we helped fuel that.
School retention and qualification rates
Kiwiblog reposted our entire fact page content here!
https://www.kiwiblog.co.nz/2023/08/up_on_the_facts_nz_yesterday.html
Religion
We were pleasantly surprised to tune into Kerre Woodham on Newstalk ZB that afternoon to hear a robust discussion on talkback. We missed the start of the show, so we don’t know if we were credited or not.
Coal imports vs exports
No MSM coverage, but a couple of blogs cited our work:

Alphabetical bias in local elections
No MSM coverage on this shocking voting design, but thanks again to Kiwiblog for sharing it wider, and also the Democracy Project.
- https://www.kiwiblog.co.nz/2022/11/time_to_randomise_all_local_government_ballots.html#google_vignette
- https://democracyproject.nz/2022/10/13/political-roundup-13-october-2022/ (see The Facts: Alpha-bias- surnames in the top 3 won >50% of elections ~1/3 down the page)
Violent crime
Kiwiblog. Again.
https://www.kiwiblog.co.nz/2023/04/the_facts_on_violent_crime.html
Government debt
Kiwiblog. Again again.
https://www.kiwiblog.co.nz/2022/05/borrow_baby_borrow.html
(Click here for a more updated debt fact)
Current account
You guessed it…
https://www.kiwiblog.co.nz/2023/08/arent_we_doing_well.html
https://pointofordernz.wordpress.com/2023/08/31/this-measure-of-our-economy-our-external-deficit-might-pass-muster-with-fitch-but-they-will-be-keeping-an-eye-on-it/
GDP per capita
Various Newstalk ZB presenters did start to cite this figure more often after our squeaky wheelness on the issue, but we only found one citation in written journalism.
https://thecentrist.co.nz/gdp-better-overall-but-worse-per-capita-the-facts/
Three Waters opposition
Political bias was at its clearest with facts around Three Waters, perhaps a result of clauses from the Public Interest Journalism Fund, which prevented media from sharing such truths, but we did get one hit.
https://www.bassettbrashandhide.com/post/muriel-newman-governing-for-all (graph ~1/2 way down the page)
Other references:
- The Common Room’s polls, often tie in with our facts of the week
  https://mailchi.mp/commonroomnz/pollresults
- And WordPress lets us know when other WordPress sites link to our fact pages:
  - https://nznewsessentials.com/economic-update-june-2023/ (see the first link “latest poll” which goes to our issue ranking fact)
  - https://democracyproject.nz/2023/05/17/nz-politics-daily-17-may/ (see the final point “The Facts: Meth still dominating NZ drug use“)
  - https://homepaddock.wordpress.com/2023/04/21/quotes-of-the-day-50/ (see “apparently” 1/2 way down the page for a link to our transgender support fact)

The Bad

GDP per capita
GDP is used as the headline figure, and often the only figure, by most media, even though GDP per Capita is a better measure of:
- Productivity
- Economic impacts on households
- How well a country’s economy is going relative to its changing population.
  For example, some have downplayed our 2023 recession as a GDP drop of only “-0.1%”. However, GDP per capita decreased -0.7% since our population increased by a significant 35,000 in that quarter alone.
  We believe that Stats NZ, other government departments, ministers, politicians, and media should all lead with GDP per Capita as the primary metric and have GDP as the secondary metric.
Victimisations of Crime
We discovered that Maori and Indian New Zealanders are far more likely to be the victims of crime. The former is sometimes covered by politicians and media, but no media published our fact on the impact to Indian New Zealanders. This was really disappointing.
Employee leave days
The rapid increases here might seem good for employees, but they’re causing significant problems for employers to maintain productivity levels, profitability, and, therefore, jobs for the country. We haven’t seen any politicians or media speak about this.
Social and racial division
Anecdotally, this feels like a significant issue for New Zealand right now but is rarely researched so it’s hard to know the true extent of the problem. It feels like most politicians, media, and researchers lack the courage to confront the facts when it comes to topics of division. This makes the rare work done by NZ Herald, Dynata, 1 News, and Verian even more valuable, so thank you for providing us with some quantitative evidence!
- Off-one research:
  - NZ Herald and Dynata did a one-off piece of research and found that 2/3 of voters believe NZ has become more divided (except for 18-24-year-olds)
  - 1News Verian found that almost half of New Zealanders believe race relations are getting worse.
- Regular pollsters:
  - IPSOS includes only “Race relations / racism” as an issue option rather than splitting those different terms out, only allows respondents to give their top three issues overall, and doesn’t ask for how good or bad each issue is going either.
  - Curia only asks for a top #1 issue, and doesn’t share their full issues list, but we believe they are not including a “Social unity / division” option.
  - For Kantar Public, we don’t know what they test. We only get a top ten list from what they do ask, and only once per year.
  - For Essential, it appears as though they don’t test social/racial unity/division issue. We have contacted them to learn more.
Stuff and the ODT
These are the only two MSM outlets who have refused to publish any of our facts to date despite offering them many breaking stories. We hope this will change.

The Ugly

True Covid vaccination rates
This was easily the ugliest political and media mistruth of them all.
- 8 March 2022 – we discovered that the Ministry of Health had been misleading the nation on the true Covid vaccination rate by using their own health database as the total, and not the total population. 91.8% of 12+ Kiwis were fully vaccinated, NOT the 95-96% reported. 8% unvaccinated is obviously twice as many as the 4% reported. We contacted all MSM outlets and provided them with irrefutable data, but they all refused to publish it. We can only assume that they were scared to challenge the Government narrative through the Covid years.
- 7 June 2022 (3 months later) – under pressure from other statisticians who were also picking up on this, with some leading with the angle of Māori being undercounted, a plethora of stories finally came out in written and television news:
- We asked all MSM providers why they refused to run the story when we provided the data 3 months earlier, but then did ran it later. Just 1 replied.
- Our hope and expectation at theFacts, which we’re sure most of you will share, is that:
  - Central and local governments must provide honest data to citizens, not twisted statistics to suit a narrative or hide from the truth.
  - Media companies should share the truth on major issues once it is known (especially if taxpayer-funded).
Childhood vaccinations
~1 in 4 Kiwi children are not getting immunised for all vaccines. The figure increased from ~75% to almost 90% of children under the previous National Government, but has now decreased back to just over 75% again under the current Labour Government. Again, all we can assume is that the MSM have felt uncomfortable raising this as it suggests a negative side-effect from the way Covid vaccinations were created, released, and mandated.
Violent crime by race
- Marama Davidson, Co-Leader of the Green Party, famously said “I am the prevention violence minister, and I know who causes violence in the world – it is white cis men. That is white cis men who cause violence in the world.” This received significant media coverage.
- So, we thought we’d go and take a look at NZ’s violent crime data by ethnicity and sex and found:
  - Māori females are more likely to commit violent crimes than European/Other males (9% of violent crimes vs 8.9% of the population, compared to 27.3% and 35.5%).
- We sent the data to all MSM outlets. None produced a story.
Official unemployment rate
- From December 2008 to December 2017 (9 years), the number of Kiwis unemployed was higher than the number receiving the Jobseeker Benefit, as you would expect. However, from December 2018 onwards, the number of Jobseekers has far outstripped the official number unemployed, and is currently around 65,000.
- We’ve also learnt some very questionable criteria around this formula:
  - If all you do in a week, is mow a friend’s lawn for 1 hour, unpaid, then you are considered 100% employed. There is no weighting to allocate you as 2.5% employed (1/40 hours) and 97.5% unemployed (39/40 hours).
  - A full-time work week is considered 30 hours.
  - Individuals are being moved from the Jobseeker Benefit to the Sickness Benefit to mask the true unemployment rate.
- With more financial support, we would like to create a true unemployment metric for New Zealand.
‘Fair share’ of tax paid
- The Wealth Report press releases were a statistical disgrace for the way they compared apples (unrealised income/capital gains) vs cabbages (realised income only) and were widely criticised for this, but not before disinformation had made its way into the minds of many who read the many misleading headlines like:
- A key part of this tax discussion is what we all pay in income tax. We found that we have a 50:10 income tax rule in New Zealand:
  - The top 10% of income earners pay 50% of all income tax.
  - The bottom 50% of income earners pay 10% of all income tax.
    However, this is based on tax assessed BEFORE tax credits, like Working for Families, so it is possible that it might be closer to a 55:5 rule. We are trying to get to the bottom of this, but it is proving difficult to get the data. Like the true unemployment rate, if we get more support from our country, we can get the truth of such matters for our country.
Three Waters
There were 3 shocking discoveries here (and another to come soon) which we could not find covered in any media:
- 2:1 Kiwis oppose the Three Waters proposals (3.6 to 1 if we include Council surveys)
- Water safety issues lie predominantly with smaller water suppliers – the 92% who only serve 12% of the population, but at <50% compliance rates. We could not see this fact shared by politicians in any public facing communication, and the MSM did not pick it up either.
- 99% of submissions opposed the Water Services Entity Bill. A massive 85,584. We’ve never heard of any proposed legislation having a great number or proportion of submissions against it, but we also can’t find this shared anywhere in the MSM. We suspect this is due to the Public Interest Journalism Fund criteria preventing, or supressing, such comments.
Obesity
From 2019/20 to 2020/21 (July-June year):
- Adult obesity increased from 31.2% to 34.3% (a 10% increase, or 3.1% more obese adults)
- ~1.5 million New Zealanders were obese (including children)
- Pacific People’s obesity increased from 63.5% to 71.3%.
  This should have been 6 o’clock news. We sent it to all of the leading print/radio/television media outlets, yet not one published a story. Again, all we can assume is that because this was a negative side effect of the Covid response, MSM didn’t want to touch it.

Alphabetical bias in local elections
- 19/78 (24%) of local councils ran alphabetical, not randomised, name lists on ballot papers.
- In the Auckland local elections alone:
  - Surnames in the top 3 positions won >50% of election seats.
  - For the Local Board Members and Licensing Trustees:
    - Based on probability, candidates in the first three positions should have won 30% of the elections.
    - However, they won 57% = almost twice as many.
    - In other words, those 105 candidates in the top three positions won 20 out of 35 elections (a 1 in 5 chance) vs the other 323 candidates who only won 15 of the elections (a 1 in 22 chance). That’s a 4.4x difference in probability!
  - For the 6 Licensing Trustee Elections, all of those who received the most votes were either listed in the top 3 or bottom 2.
  - Candidates with surnames starting with A, B or C won over 1/3 (12/35) of those Auckland elections (Allan, Amosa, Atkinson, Autagavaia, Batucan, Bonham, Brown, Carter, Catchpole, Churton, Cole, Cooper).
- There is also alphabetical bias, and not surname randomisation, in our general elections.
- As mentioned earlier, only two independent media outlets covered this important democracy story:
  - https://www.kiwiblog.co.nz/2022/11/time_to_randomise_all_local_government_ballots.html#google_vignette
  - https://democracyproject.nz/2022/10/13/political-roundup-13-october-2022/ (see The Facts: Alpha-bias- surnames in the top 3 won >50% of elections ~1/3 down the page)

If you’re a media outlet willing to shine a light on truths like this, please let us know!

Other Media Qs

Q. You’re media yourself, and just as bad as the rest
A. In many ways, we have become a media platform now, especially for issues or facts that can’t be found anywhere else. And, we recognise that trust in media is declining, but that is exactly why we started and why we have a role to play in increasing that trust again. We are committed to working with other media outlets, especially the MSM, and want see a return to greater facts-first journalism, free of fear or favour towards any political or social agenda.

Q. Why do you cite references to more extreme media outlets?
A. We have a philosophy of talking to anyone who is interested in covering the truth, even if we don’t agree with everything they say. Whenever interviewed, we always come back to the facts on issues and don’t stray from this even when the interviewer tries to push us to. This can make us a frustrating interviewee for those seeking more opinionated soundbites.

Q. Who is your media spokesperson
A. Geoff.