earth science

Reality Check Radio

Reality Check Radio is a earth science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Reality Check Radio rather than just read about it. In short: Reality Check Radio (RCR) is a New Zealand internet radio station owned by activist group Voices for Freedom (VFF). Notable hosts have included former ACT Party leader Rodney Hide, former TVNZ broadcaster Peter Williams and anti–vaccine mandate influencer Chantelle Baker.

Key takeaways

Reality Check Radio belongs to earth science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Reality Check Radio to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Reality Check Radio from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Reality Check Radio (RCR) is a New Zealand internet radio station owned by activist group Voices for Freedom (VFF). Notable hosts have included former ACT Party leader Rodney Hide, former TVNZ broadcaster Peter Williams and anti–vaccine mandate influencer Chantelle Baker. The station has promoted anti-woke, anti-transgender content, COVID-19 vaccine hesistancy, and climate change denial. In April 2024, the station went off air due to financial problems, leading to a fundraising campaign led by host Williams. They reached their fundraising target in early May and resumed streaming services shortly after.

Content and programming Notable RCR hosts include former ACT Party leader Rodney Hide, former TVNZ broadcaster Peter Williams, anti-vaccine influencer Chantelle Baker, former Radio New Zealand broadcaster Paul Brennan, VFF activist and local councillor Jaspreet Boparai, former Federated Farmers president Don Nicolson, alternative music content creator Tobias Tahi, knitter Maree Buschke, former Green Party candidate Natalie Cutler-Welsh, Alistair Harding, right-wing blogger Cameron Slater, Maree Buscke and Tane Webster. Notable guests on RCR have included New Zealand First leader Winston Peters, NZ First MPs Shane Jones and Tanya Unkovich, ACT Party leader David Seymour, ACT MP Cameron Luxton, anti-vaccination activist Dr Matt Shelton, National Party ministers Mark Mitchell and Erica Stanford. Reality Check Radio has promoted anti-woke, anti-transgender content, COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy, and climate change denial. Stuff journalist Charlie Mitchell, Auckland University of Technology (AUT) head of journalism Greg Treadwell and AUT researcher Danielle Selman Julian have described Reality Check Radio along with The Platform and Centrist as part of a wave of "anti-establishment media" that emerged in New Zealand during the post-COVID-19 period as a "backlash" against traditional media coverage of cultural and political issues.

History In March 2023, Voices for Freedom launched an online radio station called Reality Check Radio. The group's three leaders Claire Deeks, Alia Bland and Libby Jonson each own a 1⁄3 stake in the company, which was registered as NZ Media Ventures Limited. According to The Spinoff journalist Duncan Greive, Paul Brennan had previously helped establish Sean Plunket's online radio station The Platform. Rodney Hide had served as a guest on The Platform but had parted company after Plunket and Platform co-founder Wayne Wright Jr. shifted the station's focus away from covering COVID-19 vaccination issues. According to Stuff journalist Charlie Mitchell, Reality Check Radio's launch in March 2023 was greeted by animosity from some elements of the "truth and freedom movement." Counterspin Media's founder Kelvyn Alp posted on Telegram "big money behind the push to be mediocre without a real challenge to the establishment." Anti-vaccination activists Liz Gunn and Sue Grey criticised RCR for not covering their court case. In late February 2024, Reality Check Radio hosted Austrian far-right activist Martin Sellner, who had communicated with and accepted a donation from Brenton Tarrant, who perpetrated the 2019 Christchurch mosque shootings. During the interview, Sellner condemned Islam, assylum seekers and burqas. The RCR host described Sellner as a patriot who wanted to "preserve culture." Following the interview, advocacy group Fight Against Conspiracy Theories (FACT) spokesperson Stephen Judd criticised RCR for platforming extremist views and called on politicians to boycott the station. ACT leader David Seymour disagreed with FACT, saying that he talked to a "wide variety of media outlets, even niche ones like Stuff. Having a range of voices in the media can only be a good thing." He also called FACT a "left-wing lobby group." In early April 2024, The New Zealand Herald reported that Reality Check Radio had gone off air due to financial problems. Hosts Peter Williams and Rodney Hide fronted a 14 minute public relations video calling for donations to the support RCR's operations. According to BusinessDesk, RCR had struggled to secure enough donations from listeners, with only one percent of listeners donating. Rival The Platform co-founder Plunket questioned whether the donation was a marketing ploy and derided RCR as "rabbit hole radio," promoting Williams to accuse Plunket of jealousy motivated by competition. On 14 April, Voices for Freedom co-founder Alia Brand denied that the RCR donation drive was a publicity stunt during an interview on current affairs show Q+A. Despite going off-air, RCR hosts continued to publish videos and podcasts on the station's social media channels including conversations between hosts and podcast versions of their shows. On 17 April 2024, Reality Check Radio released a plan to shift towards a donor-funded model and set a goal of increasing its subscription base from 3,500 to 10,000 paying members. RCR also announced new features including talkback functionality, documentaries and a press gallery presence. On 28 April, Reality Check Radio announced that it still needed NZ$480,000 to return to the airwaves. The station claimed that it had received thousands of messages of support, with some cancelling their Netflix, Sky, and Spotify subscriptions to support RCR. The station restarted a few weeks later having reached their fundraising total of almost $500,000. In early June 2024, the Advertising Standards Authority ruled that a Reality Check Radio–sponsored advertisement in March 2024 unsubstantiated claims about COVID-19 vaccines, which breached the standards of the advertising code. The Authority ordered that the offending advertisement not to published again in its present form. In response, RCR co-founder Claire Deeks defended the accuracy of the advertisement and accused the Authority of acting like a "kangaroo court."

References

External links Official website

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Reality Check Radio

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Reality Check Radio claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In earth science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Reality Check Radio before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Reality Check Radio ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Reality Check Radio

In research: Reality Check Radio appears in earth science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Reality Check Radio in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Reality Check Radio is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 2023 establishments in New Zealand, Anti-gender movement, Climate change denial, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Reality Check Radio outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Reality Check Radio in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Reality Check Radio means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Reality Check Radio out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Reality Check Radio in simple terms?

Why does Reality Check Radio matter?

Because it connects several earth science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Reality Check Radio?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Reality Check Radio.