I’ve spent a lot of time over the years watching how racism is covered in our media here in Aotearoa. Sometimes it’s what’s said that shocks me. More often, it’s how things are said — or what gets left out altogether. While racism, and the reporting of it have been longstanding issues, what we can see is that when racialised conflicts and political racism increases, so too does poor racism coverage in media.

I don’t believe most journalists set out to cause harm. Many genuinely want to shine a light on injustice. But intention doesn’t cancel impact. And when it comes to racism, our media has too often become a megaphone for harmful narratives — not because journalists are all bad actors, but because the structures, habits, and “rules of the game” they’re working within are unsafe.

This isn’t just a local issue. Globally, media has played a role in shifting the boundaries of what’s seen as normal — especially when it comes to racism and far-right politics. What used to be fringe is now mainstream. What used to cause outrage now barely raises an eyebrow. And that shift doesn’t happen by accident.

Media isn’t neutral

One of the myths I often hear is that media “just reports what’s happening”. But media doesn’t simply reflect society; it shapes it. Every headline, every decision about who to interview, what photo to use, what gets described as “a clash” versus “a racist attack” — these all tell us something about whose voices are prioritised, and whose experiences are minimised.

Scholar Daniel Nyberg talks about this in his research on democracy and corporate power. He describes how corporations shape political life not just through lobbying or donations, but by influencing the public sphere — the space where we talk about what matters. Media is a huge part of that public sphere. When media organisations depend on corporate funding, clicks, or political access, it’s easy for certain narratives to dominate while others are drowned out. That isn’t a conspiracy; it’s a structural reality.

Much of the wealth that is today invested in large-scale media corporations is racialised wealth (by racialised wealth I mean wealth that is derived or accessed by racist means), it drops out of a history of colonial privilege that has lined older, white male pockets. This is not an accidental or innocent investment, media platforms are purchased by the wealthy in order to powerfully influence the public sphere in a way that protects their privilege. Just as its true that no journalist sets out to do harm, it’s also true that no media magnate invests in a platform without self-protection in mind. I can tell you now, for free, who holds the trump card in that scenario (pun intended). This is as true for social media oligarchs as it is for mainstream media oligarchs. The age of a “democratised internet” are well and truly over.

So even when journalists do have the intention to tell important stories which hold power to account and expose colonial harm, the colonial political-economy can operate against them. For example, political and social figures and corporations in Aotearoa with access to racialised wealth regularly threaten defamation suits against media companies and journalists. Mainstream media outfits are now more cautious than ever, and this leads to their lawyers consistently compelling journalists to censor themselves. Even though they may not ultimately win the case, the result can still be an expensive courtcase, which is affordable to the politician/public figure/corporation but financially harmful to the journalist, and the media corporation will also often opt to censor rather than taking on the expense. Ironically, some of the most litigious politicians and public figures in Aotearoa are also some of the loudest proponents of “free speech”.

In a democracy, when the space where we form our collective understanding gets distorted, everything else follows. It becomes harder for certain communities to be heard, for injustices to be named, and for racist structures to be challenged. This is exactly how racism infiltrates institutions of power, eventuating in racist policy and legislation.

Journalists who ignore their own power in this space are particularly unsafe. I have often heard journalists describe themselves as just “one of the public”. When your readership or viewership runs into the multi-millions every quarter, you are not just “one of the public” – you have a responsibility to deeply consider the language and framing you employ. Many journalists, like much colonial power, prefer to sit in the background, named maybe once if you look hard enough, but have their hands on powerful levers of influence, which they will use to manufacture and direct scorn or praise as they see fit. Accountability in this space is thin – the public can complain to the media council or broadcasting standards, but these, too, are shaped and constrained by colonial privilege and norms, and limited in enforceability.

How harmful narratives spread

In 2018, researcher Whitney Phillips wrote The Oxygen of Amplification — a project that should be required reading for anyone working in media. She studied how well-meaning journalists ended up amplifying extremist content by covering it in ways that gave it more reach than it could have ever achieved on its own.

Sometimes this happens through endless “both sides” framing. Sometimes it’s by giving a platform to bad-faith actors and treating their views as just another perspective in the debate. And sometimes it’s through uncritical repetition of language, images, or memes that extremists have deliberately crafted to be catchy, relatable and shareable.

Once these narratives enter mainstream media, they don’t stay fringe. They get laundered. They get normalised.

A recent study by Bolet and Foos tested what happens when audiences are exposed to interviews with far-right figures. Even when the interviewer pushed back critically, the mere act of platforming those voices shifted audience perceptions — people started to think those views were more widespread and acceptable.

That’s the quiet power of media: it doesn’t need to shout for norms to shift. Just repeated exposure will do.

The slow slide of what’s “normal”

This is where things get dangerous. Over time, repeated exposure to racist or far-right talking points through mainstream media leads to what researchers call discursive normalisation. Basically, the edges of the conversation move. The unacceptable becomes debatable. Then it becomes “just an opinion.” Then it becomes mainstreamed, and then it becomes policy.

Normalisation can also influence what is perceived as the “middle-ground”, a favoured site of media positioning. The “middle”, however, is always shaped by the edges of the conversation. Within the “middle ground” we find conservatives who may not use overt hate-speech, but cloak their racism in more neutralised terms. They function to make “racism-lite” seem reasonable and rational. Their most powerful purpose is to make folks in the center feel interested, and accommodated enough to shift across to increasingly more conservative forums.

So the concept of locating the discussion on the “middle-ground” can often be a bad-faith one. When we apply a power and privilege analysis to discussions on racism, and take into account the way in which conservative political power and finance have shaped and dominated the conversation for centuries – accommodating conservative views is not actually the “middle-ground”.

But more important than that – racism is not a collection of debatable opinions and vibes. It is a human rights framework backed with decades of activism and scholarly discipline, and it is ultimately, unavoidably tied into people’s rights of existence. It is not subject to debate, and cannot be “won” by debate. Even if an antiracism “wins” a debate on racism, the fact it has been promoted it as a debatable issue means anti-racism has lost.

We’ve seen this happen overseas — with the rise of far-right populism in Europe and the US — and we’re seeing it here too. What used to be called out as racism is now often framed as “free speech” or “cultural debate.” Journalists might think they’re holding space for diverse views, but without critical framing, they can unintentionally legitimise exclusionary ideas.

Common patterns in unsafe reporting

Here are a few patterns I see over and over in Aotearoa’s media:

• “Neutral” language that hides racism: Using vague terms like “clashes” or “tensions” instead of naming racist attacks for what they are (e.g. NZ media coverage of Israel’s invasion and genocide in Gaza is a prime example of this)
• Both-sidesism: Giving equal weight to racist positions and anti-racist positions, as if racism is just a difference of opinion.
• De-expertising: Removing racism from its disciplinary context (a context that has grown out of decades of activism and scholarship) to re-frame it as social issue that everyone can have an equally valid opinion upon.
• Centring colonial authority: In some instances Police, politicians, and other colonial institutions are quoted as the default authorities, while communities experiencing harm are treated as secondary (for example, most media stories regarding incarcerated people are told with input from police, politicians and ministries, but rarely incarcerated people or their families themselves).
• Coded language: Words like “radical”, “welfare dependent,” “cultural clash” get used as if they’re objective, but they carry heavy racial undertones.
• Platforming provocateurs: Giving airtime to those who deliberately incite racial division, under the guise of “balance” or “controversy.”
• Radicalising justice: One way in which hate is normalised, occurs when simple justice or affirmative action measures (like self-determination, decolonisation or even stepping stones like co-governance) are framed as “radical” and “dangerous” rather than corrections to a state of injustice.
• Racialised ideas of what is “newsworthy”: News items that cast racialised groups in a negative light can often be picked up and recycled repeatedly, compared to similar instances where the exact same behaviour from conservative corners are ignored, or only covered once.
• Racist sub-editing: Headlines that use intentionally inflammatory language or misrepresent the issue entirely in order to entice clicks.

Most journalists don’t intend to reinforce racism when they do this. Often they’re just working fast, with little support, under pressure to deliver clicks or to appear “balanced.” But in a country where racism is still deeply structural, and at a time where race relations are at their most strained, these patterns actively contribute to harm, regardless of intent.

A better way is possible

This isn’t about blaming individual journalists. It’s about recognising the responsibility and power that comes with controlling public narratives — and then making conscious choices to use that power responsibly.

There are some excellent resources already out there to help journalists do this:

The Oxygen of Amplification – Tips for Reporters: https://datasociety.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/FULLREPORT_Oxygen_of_Amplification_DS.pdf
Ethical Journalism Network – Racism Reporting Toolkit: https://ethicaljournalismnetwork.org/resources/publications/racism-reporting-toolkit

The Race Forward Race Reporting Guide: https://www.raceforward.org/resources/toolkits/race-reporting-guide

Some tips for covering Indigenous communities, for non-Natives by Valerie Vande Panne: https://www.poynter.org/commentary/2023/here-are-some-tips-for-covering-indigenous-communities-for-non-natives/

UNESCO’s guide on reporting migration, xenophobia and hate speech: https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000378157

An invitation, not a condemnation

I’ve worked with journalists who genuinely want to do better — and many of them are frustrated, too. They want support, better training, safer editorial environments, and less pressure to chase controversy for clicks.

This is an invitation: let’s have that conversation more openly. Let’s build media practices that don’t just avoid harm, but actively strengthen our democracy and our collective capacity to name and address racism.

Media has incredible power. With that power comes responsibility. And if we take that responsibility seriously, media can be part of dismantling racism, not reinforcing it.