What does a cult-informed media look like?
The CIPNetwork hosted a presentation in June 26 for journalists interested in better understanding how to work with cult survivors. Dr Caroline Ansley and Anke Richter were the presenters.
Dr Caroline Ansley is co-lead of the Cult-Informed Professional Network, co-host of the radio and podcast show Cult Chat, and a medical specialist working in forensic mental health, sexual assault care, and family medicine.
I have many hats that I wear in this space, and one hat that I actually don’t talk about that much anymore, because other hats have grown bigger and heavier, is my background as a survivor of a cult here in New Zealand.
My exposure wasn’t long, but it was very significant. I lived at Centrepoint when I was seven years old. Centrepoint community, for those of you who don’t know about it, was a sex and therapy cult in Auckland in the 1980s and 1990s.
I lived there as a foster child of a family I knew, so I was without my family. I come to you speaking from two different perspectives I’ve had with the media as part of that lived experience in a cult.
Burnt by the Media
The first was actually while I was a child growing up. Centrepoint moved into my neighbourhood when I was a preschooler and then I moved into Centrepoint later on. I grew up watching the media coverage about this really notorious community next door. Many of my friends lived there when I was little and the friends of all my older siblings; these kids came into our home regularly. And then it became my home in 1983.
There was a lot for the media to report on about Centrepoint for decades, because Centrepoint was scandalous long before there was very firm evidence in the courts of the crimes that were happening there. Even after those crimes came to the attention of the nation through the criminal trials in the late 1980s and early 1990s, it continued to draw attention. There was very little about the Centrepoint story which did not grab attention. There was lots of sex, there were drugs, there was lots of nudity. Hippies were doing scandalous things which upset their very prudish neighbours. There was charitable trust corruption. There was child molestation, a failed police investigation, a neighbourhood in dispute. There were police drug raids - helicopters, dogs, that sort of thing. There was financial mismanagement. The community returned to the attention of the nation over and over again since it first came to the nation’s consciousness in the late 1970s.
Much of the reporting in the 1980s and 1990s focused on the sensational details, the scandal and the shock that were associated with this free, loving, hippie therapy cult.
While some of the reporting exposed very genuine and very concerning wrongdoing - the drug manufacturing, the selling, the sexual connection with children - it usually failed to consider what was like to be one of the children, particularly reading those headlines, or one of the adult members.
For me, well after I left the community in the mid-1980s, and for decades after, this media attention was a repeated, raw exposure to the shame of being connected to that place each time Centrepoint came up in the news. Each media reminder re-exposed me to that shame and squashed me a little bit more. Bearing in mind, in the 30 years that I had between when I left as a child and then reexamined what happened to me at Centrepoint as an adult, I had pretty much zero connection with anything to do with Centrepoint. It literally was the media who would bring Centrepoint back into my life over and over and over again. Each time Centrepoint popped up on TV on in the newspapers, I’d be thrown right back into the life I lived while I was there. The media kept bringing it right back up, destabilising me over and over again.
That went on for for decades. And it wasn’t just me that found this hard - the children of Centrepoint, my peers, repeatedly say that the media coverage of the community contributed significantly to the stigma and the shame that they experienced. Certainly it contributed to the children being treated like pariahs at the school and in their own neighbourhood. News headings that came out in the 1980s were along the lines of - and this was a real one - “Kiddie Sex Cult!”. And I think this heading, with its shock value, somehow missed the point; centring the scandal, and not the children. Remembering such a newspaper heading still makes me cringe.
Each time the photos from the community were grabbed and used in articles. Children who never had any say if their photo was taken at the time and then reused, would suddenly see their own faces in the media again, right back to that time when they were young, vulnerable, and often very unhappy.
Now, the good news about that, in the last 2 or 3 years, I’ve noticed a blurring of these Centrepoint images. But that’s only been in the last 2 to 3 years that those faces have started to be greyed out.
And those who didn’t have a hard time of it living there, they were constantly having the stigma of the “kiddie sex cult” pushed into their world. They could never escape it.
So while the reporting may have often been about the harm which was happening to the children, it was never really about those children, or even compassionately considering what it was like to be one of the adults, or considering how the experience of living there might have been injuring to those people too.
Somehow the people who it was actually happening to were pushed to the edges of the story. Certainly to me, I never felt like these were stories I could relate to, or that centred anything like my experience.
And for me this continued until I read a 2015 North and South Magazine article by Anke Richter, who will share her story after mine. This 2015 article was all about the Centrepoint children, now adults. I had never actually heard a story about the community that helped me in any way up until that point. And this was certainly the first time I’d ever heard the perspective of others who had been children there. It asked, what was it like for those children now?
This, for me, was my first exposure to survivor-centered journalism. That was in 2015. Reading that article was the beginning of my reconnection with my own history in that community, and it was literally transformative. It changed my world, that one article. For the first time in my 30-year relationship with the media’s portrayal of Centrepoint, the media was actually part of the solution instead of part of the problem for me.
However, the tail of those painful stories is long. Still today, over 25 years since the community closed its door, the shame of being connected to Centrepoint is extremely strong, even for the people who were children there and never had any choice about being there.
It’s very difficult to get a former Centrepoint member to talk these days. There’s huge fear of what will happen to their stories should they do so.
The fear is not all related to the media, of course, but the sensationalist approach of the 1980s and 1990s media is definitely a contributor to the ongoing closed lips from the hundreds of people who were part of Centrepoint.
The Media Enabling a Platform
Now, the second experience I had with the media was participating in a documentary done by Warner Brothers which was shown on television New
Zealand in 2021 called Heaven and Hell, The Centrepoint Story.
I was given an opportunity to be involved largely because of the media shy population of former Centrepoint people. None of them would talk. At this point I was one of the very few people publicly talking and I was approached as a result. I still recall the terror I felt after speaking several times to Natalie Malcon, who was the director, and I realised that the only way to decide if I should participate or not was to simply trust her.
Trust her with my story, with my reputation, with my deepest shames. My life was going well, could I take this risk? It was like stepping off a cliff. In the end, I listened to her and decided to be part of the project because she was kind, because she listened to me, and because she didn’t chase me. She let me come to it in my own time. It was that approach that gained my trust.
There were three child survivors in the documentary. We were listened to, we were consulted, and we were respected throughout the process. Natalie listened to us, and she allowed the passions that we had for the parts of the story which had not yet been told - the parts about justice, repair, and reconciliation from the perspective of the people who were children there - to become central to the story she told about Centrepoint. She followed our lead. It was a collaborative partnership.
The day we survivors watched the completed documentary together at the Warner Brothers Studio in Auckland with the production crew was one of the most moving experiences of my life.
Centring Survivors
Today, I want to talk about why centring survivors matters. And what happens when we fail to do it, and what journalists, filmmakers, podcasters, and advocates can do differently.
Cult stories are often told as entertainment. They make compelling media stories, don’t they? They contain elements that attract audiences; charismatic leaders, sex, power, money, odd beliefs, scandal, crime, dramatic escapes.
The problem is that these features can easily become the story. When that happens, survivors become secondary characters in narratives about bizarre leaders or shocking events.
As children from Centrepoint, many of us experienced this directly. The public became fascinated by the scandal, but there was much less interest in understanding what it meant to grow up in that environment, how children made sense of it, or what happened to us afterwards.
When media coverage focuses on shock value, survivors can feel exposed rather than understood. The audience might learn what happened, but they don’t necessarily understand the human cost, nor do they come to see how cults make people do abnormal things, nor do they come to understand why. Without that understanding, cult stories just further propagate ignorance and shame.
One of the least discussed consequences of sensationalised reporting is the shame that that creates. For many Centrepoint children, media coverage reinforced a sense they were different, damaged, or somehow associated with the wrongdoings of the adults. Children who were already carrying confusion and trauma suddenly found themselves carrying public scrutiny as well.
When stories focus primarily on shocking details, survivors can experience re-traumatisation, loss of privacy, public misunderstanding, stigma and stereotyping, and a reduced willingness to speak out in the future.
Unfortunately, there have been too many examples of media’s reporting on cults occurring in irresponsible ways, with survivors left devastated as a result of telling their story to the wrong journalist.
Now, I have focused in my talk on the experience of children. That’s because I was a child there. My experience was stuck at that age, and I never experienced being a young person or an adult in that community. So, I do apologise if this sounds like I’m ignoring the adult experience, but that was what it was like for me.
What does survivor-centred journalism look like?
My experience with the 2021 Warner Brothers documentary showed me a completely different model from what I’d seen before in reporting about Centrepoint in my childhood.
The producers understood that survivors were not simply sources of information. We were stakeholders. We were experts in our own experiences. The process included extensive consultation, respect for boundaries, time to build trust, attention to accuracy, genuine concern for participant wellbeing. Most importantly, the survivors retained a sense of agency. This changed everything.
Now, I have just recently interviewed someone who’s the star of a pretty big documentary internationally, Dr. Christine Marie. She’s star of the Netflix documentary “Trust Me: The False Prophet” which is about a small Mormon splinter-cult in Utah. Marie drew attention to the activities of this group, and provided the FBI video footage which was utilised in the arrest and later conviction of Sam Bateman, the cult’s leader. The documentary came out in April 2026 and within two weeks of its launch it was the number one most viewed documentary on Netflix in the world.
I talked to Christine all about the experience of being in the documentary in mid June for my podcast show Cult Chat. She said that despite the fact that there were a lot of things that the victims of this cult could be criticised for, to date there was not a single message of condemnation, nor trolling, nor vilification from the world’s general public for either her or any of the other people centred in that documentary. She credited the film crew’s capacity to centre the victims and their willingness to learn about manipulation and coercive control, which I believe they learned from her. In doing so they helped the audiences to see and understand how the cult developed, and the victims were entrapped, and to therefore feel compassion for the survivors in those stories.
That’s storytelling that changes society, and it keeps survivors at the centre.
Survivor-centred journalism asks different questions. Not, what’s the most shocking thing that happened, but instead, what does the audience need to understand about the survivor’s experience. Not, how can we make this dramatic, but instead, how can we make this truthful.
Research and survivor-led advocacy groups increasingly emphasise that meaningful understanding comes when survivors are treated as partners rather than subjects. Survivor leadership in media improves both ethical practice and the quality of public understanding.
Lessons from a Survivor-Centred Podcast
In recent years, I’ve moved to behind the mic myself, and now I’m co-host of a radio and podcast show called Cult Chat, which is focused on cults and coercive control. Now I sit on the other side of the microphone. I’m aided in this work both by the fact that I have lived experience, but also by the fact that I’ve spent 25 years as a medical practitioner listening to people tell their painful stories.
Being the interviewer and the holder of stories has reinforced several lessons to me:
First, survivors are experts. Academic expertise and investigative journalism are invaluable, but they cannot replace lived experience.
Second, people often reveal their most important insights only after trust has been established. If you rush the process, you get headlines. If you build trust, you get understanding.
Third, every survivor’s story is different. There’s no single cult experience, no single recovery journey, no single way to speak about trauma. The role of ethical storytellers is not to fit survivors into a pre-existing narrative - it’s to allow complexity to emerge.
Finally, if I could leave media professionals with a few principles, they would be:
Prioritise dignity over drama.
Remember that survivors live with the consequences of publication long after the audience has moved on.
Treat survivors as collaborators, not content.
Understand that informed consent is an ongoing process, not a one-time signature.
Ask not only what happened, but also what impact did it have?
Recognise that survivors are far more than their trauma.
The stories that we tell about cults matter. They shape public understanding, they influence policy, they affect whether future survivors feel safe enough to come forward. And right now, I feel like we’re at a bit of a tipping point. That’s why we’ve asked you all here today, because I really believe this connection, this relationship is critical right now, especially to do something that hasn’t been done before. So I really welcome you all being here.
As someone who’s experienced both sensationalised reporting and genuine survivor-centred storytelling, I have seen the difference firsthand. One approach left many of us carrying additional shame. The other helped create understanding, dignity, and healing.
In fact - funny story - those same Centrepoint children who had ignored the opportunity in 2021 to be part of the documentary that I ended up being in, realised after seeing it on TV how spectacular it was, and how it powerfully centred people like them.
The result? Many rushed to be part of the 2022 podcast series The Commune by Adam Dudding and Eugene Bingham. This closed-lip group of Centrepoint survivors saw survivor-centred journalists and journalism, and suddenly, many of them got FOMO.
When survivors are centred, the story doesn’t become less powerful, it becomes more truthful. And ultimately, truth is what good journalism should be seeking.
Anke Richter is freelance journalist, author of “Cult Trip” and Director of Decult. She has a commitment to increasing public understanding of what cults are and the harms of cults, and will be doing so at Decult Conference 2026 in October 24-25.
I’m originally from Germany. I started my journalism in Los Angeles as a showbiz reporter where I walked past the Scientology building quite a few times but I would have never thought cults would play such a big role in my life one day. For the last 23 years, I’ve been a foreign correspondent for the German media here in New Zealand, while also freelancing for many New Zealand publications and broadcasters.
About twelve years ago, I accidentally fell into cult journalism. That journey eventually became my book Cult Trip, which came out almost four years ago. Much of it focused on the children from Centrepoint: where they are now, how they were doing all those years later, and trying to understand the long-term impact of growing up in that environment.
I’ve also worked as a researcher and consultant on a number of documentaries, including Heaven and Hell: The Centrepoint Story and I’ve helped kick off several other cult documentaries, including one currently in production in New Zealand and another in Germany about a similar group to Centrepoint.
I haven’t done a major investigation myself for quite a few years now. If you’ve read Cult Trip, you’ll understand why. At a certain point I found it too hard, and as a freelancer I don’t have the legal support or resources that large newsrooms do. Those investigations take enormous amounts of time and energy. Instead, I’ve increasingly become a kind of liaison person—a news broker in the background. I hear a lot, I see a lot, and I know many survivors and stories that would otherwise never make it into the media.
Wearing Two Hats: Journalist and Advocate
Running Decult over the last three years has given me a very unusual perspective. The conference was originally only supposed to happen once, but here we are in year three.
The conference generated a lot of media, which was incredible. I think we had about 30 stories around the conference and in the lead up. That was a very interesting experience for me because as a journalist, I could immediately see the stories many of our speakers had to tell. Some of them were extraordinary stories that had never been told publicly before. So naturally I found myself pitching them to media organisations.
I also had my conference organizer hat on and felt a certain level of responsibility and care for how these people were then portrayed or how they were being treated or how media was dealing with them. And because I then also saw the other side - the fallout for some of those people who maybe weren’t prepared enough, didn’t quite see what was coming, or what the headlines would be.
Why Media Matters
As you all know, media is so crucial when it comes to exposing cults. If you think of NXIVM in the US, for example, where the FBI ignored all the evidence presented to them for years, and only when the New York Times had Sarah Edmondson with her branded hip on the front page did the FBI actually step in. Keith Raniere, the cult leader, was later sentenced to 120 years in prison.
Media can play a really crucial role. There’s been some excellent reporting across all our news outlets, exposing The Truth - Two by Twos, Gloriavale, obviously, but also the Sons of the Most Holy Redeemer. I think the quality of reporting about cults in New Zealand, at least from where I’m sitting now and what I’m observing, has changed, and there is a lot more awareness out there.
The Frustration of Persistent Ignorance
Saying that, though, there is still a level of ignorance that is sometimes so frustrating. A recent example was the International Jehovah’s Witness Convention in Auckland. They have a massive convention every year somewhere around the world. And this year it was in New Zealand. Around 30,000 people or so came to Auckland. It’s a big deal in the Jehovah’s Witness world. The coverage focused heavily on tourism, economic benefits, and the positive atmosphere.
I found myself screaming at the television. The spokesperson was saying, oh, it’s just all love (the volunteer work behind the event). And this just went out on the news, totally uncritical.
I was so frustrated to see the ignorance of reporters who don’t normally cover cults. If you write about Jehovah’s Witnesses, the word cult should be somewhere in there maybe, or at least bring that angle in to balance out that they’re good for local business.
The Problem with “Both Sides”
The next thing to be aware of is the new Gloriavale documentary that is dropping on ThreeNow at the end of June. It’s called Devotion; The Gloriavale Story. The way it’s been pitched and promoted on social media is that there are two equally valid sides.
One tagline I saw was “They call it faith. Others say it is a cult.” And I was thinking, if there’s a textbook example of a cult, it’s Gloriavale. It couldn’t be more of a stereotypical cult. There are some great voices in there, from journalists to survivors, but also Gloriavale is getting a lot of airtime. This tendency to present everything as a simple debate can sometimes dilute public understanding of what coercive control actually looks like.
Setting Expectations
I think it’s important for your interview subjects, that they really understand what you’re actually doing and how that works, and also the limitations of that. It’s a big difference in having a documentary where you have time, where no one’s going to measure afterwards how many clicks your story got online, which is a reality for a lot of news reporters these days, how they’re being seen amongst their peers or by their bosses.
I recommend doing a bit of a reality check with the people that you talk to. They have to know that maybe only a little fraction of their interview will actually end up in the story in the end. They give you the whole story and this could be the most traumatic, painful, intimate part of their lives. They’re sharing that with you, but they may be one of 20 people where you can only use one sentence in the end to corroborate someone else’s evidence.
And that feels awful, but it’s also the reality of what we do as journalists - how to find that balance between a story and the reality of newsrooms, plus certain publications and their time pressures and the commodification of all that. On the other hand are the people you need to consider and who have to accept that in the end, they don’t have full control of the story.
When Good Reporting Meets Bad Headlines
When the Heaven & Hell: The Centrepoint Story documentary came out in 2021, we had an exclusive story for the Herald for Canvas magazine. We had a big, wonderful piece in the magazine, and that was all good and all looked over and so on and ticked off.
And then the newsroom also did an accompanying shorter piece and something online. I thought I’d looked at everything and I’d seen everything and I made sure everyone’s happy with everything. But what I didn’t know was what the headline online would be. It was an awful headline. So I called the editor at eight o’clock in the morning on a Saturday and said, you have to change the headline. It’s awful. It’s just focusing on their sexual abuse. And again, that wasn’t on purpose. It was the same editor who had done a good job with the print story and was very pleased with what we brought to the table together. But not everyone always has that awareness.
Changing the Story We Tell About Cults
The general public still think that stupid, lost, uneducated, weak people end up in cults.
That’s one of stereotypes that are really hard to change, and this is where I see my role is for Decult and for responsible journalism more broadly.
We need to tell different stories. We need to show who people in cults really are. We need to explain why intelligent, capable people become involved. We need to highlight the experiences of those born into these groups. We need to change these narratives, because otherwise, we’re never going to change the stigma.
As long as the general public believes, “oh yeah, poor people in cults, but I mean, you know, it’s kind of their own fault”, we’re never going to find the level of support for those who are damaged by cults. We’re not going to change the laws. We’re not going to get the momentum. We won’t get better support systems.
If the public, enforced by the media, still think it’s just weirdos and crazy beliefs and that’s really what makes a cult, and they still think “yeah, they shouldn’t be abused, but I mean, who would go there in the first place?” then we won’t create the public understanding necessary for lasting change.
Final Reflections
I want to finish by recommending a resource called Shock Value produced by Survivors of Coercive Cults and High Control Groups in Australia. They’ve been very instrumental in the Victorian inquiry into Cults in Australia. The guide provides practical advice on ethical reporting in this space.
Because ultimately, journalism can be one of the most powerful tools we have. It can expose abuse, drive accountability and challenge stigma. But it can also unintentionally reinforce harmful narratives. The challenge for all of us is not simply to tell cult stories. It’s to tell them in ways that help the public understand coercive control, understand survivors, and understand the human reality behind the headlines.
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