Straight Up NZ exists because bad health claims cost New Zealanders money, time, and sometimes their wellbeing. We check those claims — calmly, transparently, and on the record.
New Zealanders are generous — we give to charities, sign up to wellbeing programmes, and trust that the claims made to us are honest. Most of the time that's fine. But some organisations dress marketing up as science, borrow credibility they haven't earned, or make promises the evidence doesn't support. When those claims target vulnerable people — the suicidal, the traumatised, the unwell — the stakes stop being abstract.
We started Straight Up NZ to do one thing well: take a public claim, quote it exactly, and grade it against primary sources — peer-reviewed research, regulator decisions, official statistics, and the Charities Register. Then publish the whole working so anyone can check us.
We are independent and non-commercial. We are not affiliated with any charity, church, political party, regulator, or competitor of any organisation we cover. We do not accept funding from organisations we investigate, and we don't take advertising.
We are not a regulator, a court, or a medical body. We publish findings of fact and honestly-held opinion based on cited evidence — nothing more. Where the register proves a fact, we say so; where something is merely concerning, we say that instead. Precision is the whole job.
Every claim we check receives one of six verdicts. They are deliberately plain words — a verdict you have to look up is a verdict that failed.
The claim matches the published evidence as stated. We cite the source so you can read it yourself.
A genuine finding or a real event, framed to carry more than it does — accurate in part, wrong in conclusion.
True fragments arranged to imply a conclusion the evidence doesn't support — selective statistics, omitted context, overstated certainty.
We could not find primary evidence, a named source, or any disclosure to check the claim against. A statement about the record, not about whether the claim is true.
Scientific vocabulary applied to a method with no published clinical evidence — "science-based" used as decoration.
The claim contradicts the published evidence, misrepresents a source, or invents statistics the record does not contain.
Before any report publishes, the named organisation receives our findings and a genuine window to respond. Responses are published in full, unedited.
If we get something wrong, the correction goes in the document with a dated note. We don't quietly edit history.
Every report that touches mental health points readers to free, evidence-based help — 1737, Lifeline, Youthline — before it asks anything of them.
Tips: [email protected] — send the claim verbatim, with a link to where it was published.
Right of reply: [email protected]
Corrections: [email protected]