One of the sharpest contrasts in New Zealand’s advocacy ecosystem is not between left and right, but between publishing and being picked up. In the latest accessible OpenBrief lobby index reviewed for this story, the Public Service Association had no OpenBrief-captured releases but 118 earned media pickups across 12 channels. Family First New Zealand had 197 captured owned items, but just one earned pickup in one channel.[1]
That looks, at first glance, like a clean story about who gets heard and who is publishing into the void. It is not that simple. OpenBrief’s own documentation says its lobby measures are “windowed to the last 12 months”, not a one-week league table, and its methodology warns that earned-media detection is indicative rather than exhaustive.[1] The weekly scan that prompted this story cited slightly different figures — including PSA at 127 appearances and Family First at 210 releases — and described the data as a one-week scoreboard. Those figures could not be reproduced from the live index available during reporting.
The correction matters because OpenBrief is measuring visibility inside a selected corpus, not proving influence. Its lobby page describes owned activity as press releases and earned activity as reviewed pickups where an organisation or representative is quoted, featured or cited across press, radio and commentary.[1] Its methodology lists a limited set of monitored news, commentary and audio sources, meaning the figures do not represent the whole New Zealand media system.[2] OpenBrief also says social reach on the lobby page is a noisy, automatically tracked social-media mention proxy, not audience impressions or people reached.[1]
Still, even with those caveats, the pattern is striking.
| Organisation | OpenBrief-captured releases/owned items | Earned pickups | Channels | Social mention proxy | Pickups per release | Channels per pickup | |---|---:|---:|---:|---:|---:|---:| | Public Service Association | 0 | 118 | 12 | 8 | n/a | 0.10 | | NZ Taxpayers’ Union | 181 | 116 | 20 | 193 | 0.64 | 0.17 | | The New Zealand Initiative | 43 | 87 | 20 | 88 | 2.02 | 0.23 | | Federated Farmers | 22 | 86 | 19 | 33 | 3.91 | 0.22 | | Family First New Zealand | 197 | 1 | 1 | 438 | 0.005 | 1.00 | | Free Speech Union | 29 | 17 | 10 | 221 | 0.59 | 0.59 |
The scoreboard’s main lesson is that the public does not encounter advocacy voices in proportion to how much those organisations publish. Federated Farmers’ 22 captured releases sat beside 86 earned pickups; The New Zealand Initiative’s 43 captured releases sat beside 87 pickups; the Taxpayers’ Union combined high output with high pickup. Family First, by contrast, generated a large volume of indexed owned material and almost no OpenBrief-reviewed earned coverage.[1]
But raw ratios can mislead. The PSA, for example, did publish material during August in ordinary-language terms, including its Vacant by Design health-understaffing report, a pay-equity analysis and a release on science-worker strike action.[3] The accurate conclusion is narrower: OpenBrief captured no PSA releases in the owned-source feed reflected in the lobby index, while detecting roughly 120 earned appearances. That may point as much to OpenBrief’s source configuration as to the PSA’s media strategy. The PSA’s wider position also matters: it says it represents more than 95,000 workers across public services, health, local government, state enterprises and community organisations, giving reporters access to affected members and industrial events that can become news without a formal release being ingested by a data platform.[4]
Family First shows the opposite denominator problem. Its public “Latest News & Media Releases” feed mixes items labelled news, commentary, media releases, forum material and programme content.[5] If OpenBrief is counting the broader feed as releases, Family First’s 197 owned items are not directly comparable with an organisation whose feed contains only formal media statements. The stronger finding is not that nearly 200 press releases failed, but that nearly 200 OpenBrief-indexed Family First owned items produced one reviewed earned pickup in the tracked corpus.[1]
The Taxpayers’ Union sits closer to a classic rapid-response model. Its public news feed regularly carries short reactions to policy, public spending, fiscal claims and official-information material.[6] OpenBrief’s July discourse report described it as one of the most prolific and agenda-adjacent organisations in an eight-week window, with 162 releases, 114 earned appearances and 20 channels.[7] The live lobby index also contradicts the weekly scan’s claim that all six organisations had zero carried or agenda-setting topics: it lists 100 carried and 52 “Led” topics for the Taxpayers’ Union, 24 carried and eight Led topics for The New Zealand Initiative, three carried topics for Federated Farmers, and 24 carried and 13 Led topics for the Free Speech Union.[1]
Those OpenBrief terms are cautious signals, not proof of persuasion. “Carried” topics are topics pushed in owned releases that also appear in earned coverage; “Led” is the subset where the owned item came first.[1] Publication order can show sequence, but not causation. A group may anticipate a story, respond faster than others, or publish on an issue already moving through government, newsrooms or social media.
The New Zealand Initiative’s pathway appears different again. Its media operation combines reports, expert commentary, columns, podcasts and broadcast appearances; its website presents research and media activity as part of the same public-facing model.[8] Federated Farmers’ recent releases, meanwhile, have been tied to live regulatory decisions such as farm-plan changes and resource-management issues — the sort of sectoral events that routinely require a representative rural response.[9] The Free Speech Union’s recent publications focus on suppression orders, the Harmful Digital Communications Act, broadcasting standards, media freedom and related civil-liberties issues.[10] The weekly scan’s wider context — a youth social-media ban, age verification, digital ID and online-content moderation — suggests why speech and platform-governance groups may find some issues travelling through social and commentary channels even when written news focuses elsewhere.
What explains the spread? The data alone cannot answer. Academic research on New Zealand journalism points to familiar newsroom mechanics: time pressure, reliance on known reliable sources, demand for simple and quotable expertise, and repeated use of a small source pool.[11] Susan Fountaine’s 2026 study of women experts’ media work similarly found that deadlines, conflict framing and news values shape which voices are used, while journalists value people who can communicate clearly while a story is live.[12] Older New Zealand research on journalists and PR practitioners describes a highly interdependent relationship, warning that resource-rich communicators can gain initiative when newsrooms are stretched.[13]
That does not mean high pickup equals high influence. A critical mention counts as visibility. A radio interview may not move policy. A social mention proxy may reflect supporters talking to each other rather than persuading the undecided. Conversely, low earned pickup does not mean an organisation failed with members, donors, subscribers, policymakers or search audiences.
The most defensible reading is therefore modest but important: OpenBrief’s tracked corpus shows a persistent imbalance between owned output and earned media attention. Some organisations are pulled into news because they represent affected people, supply sector expertise or are useful to a live story. Others publish large volumes that remain largely within owned and social channels. Between those poles sit professional rapid-response groups whose material fits newsroom demand for speed, conflict and quotable claims.
To turn the scoreboard into a stronger account of influence, OpenBrief would need to publish frozen item-level data: release sources, earned-item URLs, timestamps, outlet or programme names, duplicate flags, topic matches and the rules used to classify social reach and channels. Until then, the table is best read not as a ranking of political power, but as a map of how unevenly advocacy voices travel through the media filters the public sees.
References
Farm Plans A Step In The Right Direction For Farmers — Scoop
Framing Public Relations: Media Portrayals and Journalistic Perceptions in New Zealand
The impact of journalism routines, practices and values on women experts’ media work
Whose News? Investigating Power Relations Between Journalists and Public Relations Practitioners