Black Friday sales. Christmas sales. Boxing Day sales. IKEA opening. Political polls. Election Year. All Blacks. Climate change. Wicked: For Good. Heat. Storms.
Whatever the topic, this year has been one of headlines, marketing, and social media at full volume. It’s only getting louder the closer we get to Christmas – and will be noisier still as we move into 2026 and a national election year.
So, what’s wrong with a bit of noise?
On a personal level, ensuring you have your own strategies to turn down the volume, switch off, and filter credible news sources from fake news (particularly as AI becomes harder to distinguish) is critical for your own mental and physical wellbeing.
But it’s not so easy to take similar measures to mitigate the negative impact of escalating noise on society – an impact that is exacerbated by our ever-decreasing New Zealand media industry.
Over the course of the past few years, NZME and Stuff have cut approximately 40 community newspapers, Newshub disappeared in the same direction as TVNZ’s Sunday programme, and, just this year, North and South magazine was suspended, all while the size of newsrooms across the country continue to reduce in line with falling advertising revenue and funding support.
As outlined in a report released in September by Dr Gavin Ellis, news closures and reductions mean New Zealand is at risk of news deserts – where there are simply no longer media outlets or journalists serving communities across the motu – and not just in isolated or vulnerable communities.
The report includes the astonishing fact that the New York Times now employs more people across its one news organisation than Aotearoa does across our entire country!
The impact of these ongoing developments (and what we’re seeing firsthand) is that numerous important stories aren’t being told – either on a local or national level – or are only receiving surface-level coverage.
The existing news media only have capacity to cover a few key stories at any one time – and any plans for in-depth investigations go out the window as soon as they need to scramble to cover breaking news, significant political developments or national scandals.
There is also limited ability to tell the good and bad news stories that knit our local communities together.
And tragically, filling the gap is an increasing level of misinformation, disinformation, ragebait, big corporations with even bigger marketing budgets, and the deployment of the global tactic to “flood the zone” to achieve a level of distraction and deflection.
Coming into a national election year, these are scary developments. When people are busy and stressed about the cost of living, they’re reliant on news bites and social media to help inform their views and voting decisions.
If those bites and stories are a light-touch at best, or deliberately misleading at worst, 2026 has the potential to be one of the most confused and unpredictable election seasons in living memory. And the onus will have to be on voters to seek the in-depth information and detail needed to make informed decisions.
But some shining lights are peeking through the gloom of media decline – the rise of independent community media, often in the form of online or printed newsletters; podcasts, which can give the time and space to long-form interviews and background information; and iwi radio, which is providing an ever-increasing community touchstone for Māori and non-Māori in rohe across the motu.
In 2026, the Shine whānau will continue to work hard to do our bit to highlight the stories and issues we believe need attention, to support our national media where we can, and to help encourage independent community and iwi media to fill the gap in our local hapori.
What will you do in 2026 to do your bit?
Note: AI can be helpful for many things, including creating graphics – in this case, it did a great job of generating an image depicting the overwhelming noise of our current environment, but couldn’t quite grasp the fact that New Zealand’s Beehive didn’t actually mean I wanted a swarm of bees!