I like https://rnz.co.nz/, but this is a government news source. It has editorial independence and doesn't have adverts so you know they aren't considering advertisors in their angles, but it is government owned, and has been threatened with having funding cut on occasion.

https://stuff.co.nz/ I believe is currently independently owned but it was owned by a big Aussie company until it wasn't doing well and the local CEO bought it for a token $1.

If you want a more Left leaning, non-mainstream source, then thespinoff.co.nz

There aren't many other sources I'd read, but others may chime in with others I've forgotten.

Its nice to think of us as a strong democracy but we have the same influences as the rest of the western world, so even if we have a nice voting system you could argue it's not a good democracy if everyone is manipulated by big tech and billionaires.

Edit: oh, I forgot to mention a lot of syndication happens, so it's common to see articles from one NZ news source on another news site.

[–] Sunshine@lemmy.nz 1 points 22 hours ago (1 children)

It depends on exactly what you mean by independent.

I suppose I'm really interested in locally-owned media outlets that receive their funding from the readers/grants thus avoiding the ownership of oligarchs/conglomerates.

Thank you for the recommendations. I will check out the outlets https://rnz.co.nz/ & http://thespinoff.co.nz/.

you could argue it’s not a good democracy if everyone is manipulated by big tech and billionaires.

However a large amount of those billionaires who reside in the United State are enabled by the problems of: first-past-the-post, corporate media, partisan district drawing, corruption, electoral colleges, attacks on the journalists, insider trading, lack of political party competition, partisan district drawing, voter suppression, scapegoating, market consolidation, declining unionization rates, propaganda and lack of campaign contribution limits. The international companies that originate from there tend to grow too large in size leading them to expand into the smaller countries thus displacing the local businesses with the corrupting influence that entails.

The country Russia also causes major issues by employing teams of individuals to operate as online troll farms to flame the divisions on wedge issues every nation has, to push the public to support the parties who align the most with them ideologically. Not mention the concerning developments from the BJP and the CCP persecuting those who do not align with their vision of their countries.

Authoritarians tend to support those with similar tendencies.

We must keep encouraging people to support local cooperatives, democratic participation, transparency and decentralization. We will need to be creative in how we defend democracy around the globe.

[–] Dave@lemmy.nz 1 points 15 hours ago* (last edited 15 hours ago)

I suppose I’m really interested in locally-owned media outlets that receive their funding from the readers/grants thus avoiding the ownership of oligarchs/conglomerates.

Yeah so rnz.co.nz is government funded, so doesn't really meet this definition, which was the source of my question as it's my most trusted but not really "independent", though it's not billionaire owned.

Stuff.co.nz is probably the closest to what you've asked for. It's funded by ads, subscriptions, and user donations, among grants etc. But I wouldn't normally call them high quality, though they do occasionally impress me.

RNZ are general news sites. They report on anything and everything and generally do 24 hours a day, with a lot syndicated from Reuters or Associated Press. They report on world news not just NZ.

The spinoff is funded from ads, grants, and donations, and is a lot smaller outfit. They don't do general news, they do more opinion pieces and long form journalism (and various other things). You wouldn't read them for news about the pope, it's more NZ focused and often opinionated or with a clear angle. They talk about important issues but pretty much all of their content should be read as if it were an opinion piece.

We must keep encouraging people to support local cooperatives, democratic participation, transparency and decentralization. We will need to be creative in how we defend democracy around the globe.

Yes for sure. I think NZ's democracy is certainly in a better state than the US and many other countries, I was just pointing out it's not a utopia of democracy. Something to learn from but not without it's own faults to correct for.

[–] BlueEther@no.lastname.nz 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Dave has covered off what I would read, but sometimes the editorial styly of stuff can be a bit lackluster.

[–] DevotedOtter@lemm.ee 3 points 1 day ago

Have to agree. Stuff is mostly clickbait these days. I mainly read RNZ, but occasional articles from anywhere I see posted here or reddit

[–] simon2k6@piefed.social 7 points 1 day ago

newsroom.co.nz likes to advertise their independence from government NZ on Air funding: https://newsroom.co.nz/about-newsroom/

BHN is a left-leaning (attempting to be "fair") podcast which analyses mainstream media. They are funded by Patrons instead of corporate funding. They broadcast every week-night (local time) on YouTube and others: https://youtube.com/@docnzstudios