Verica Rupar

Verica Rupar (born 17 March 1957) is a Serbian–New Zealand journalist and academic, and is professor of journalism at Auckland University of Technology (AUT). She researches comparative and historical epistemology of journalism.

Academic career
Rupar earned an honours degree in political science at the University of Belgrade in Serbia. She worked as a journalist for Politika for more than twenty years, in Hungary, Serbia and Slovenia, as a foreign correspondent and political journalist. Seeking greater stability, she moved to New Zealand, and in 2007 she completed a PhD titled Investigating the Journalistic Field:The Influence of Objectivity as a Journalistic Norm on the Public Debate on Genetic Engineering in New Zealand at the University of Waikato. Rupar then joined the faculty at AUT, rising to full professor in 2021.

Rupar's research is on the historical and comparative epistemology of journalism. She says, "What motivates me now is the idea of public good, and the notion of public interest." She has written on politics and journalism in New Zealand, as well as commenting on international issues such as Zuckerberg's apology after the Cambridge Analytica scandal, and Trump's use of social media. In 2021 she edited the book Journalism and Meaning-making – Reading the Newspaper (Hampton Press), a collection of essays about "how journalism affects our public life". She said: "Journalism’s power to facilitate social inclusion and exclusion, has significant consequences on public life. At its highs, when performing the highest standards of profession, journalists can affirm tolerance, pluralism and social harmony actively contributing to the cultural changes in the society. At its lows, unethical journalism reinforces prejudices and stereotypes whose diffusion contribute to racism, hate speech, discrimination and violence."

In 2022, Rupar gave the 2022 Quaker Lecture in Christchurch, on 'The Search for Truth - Information, Disinformation and the Algorithms of Social Media'. The lecture was recorded and later broadcast on Plains FM.

Rupar is a consultant for the London-based Media Diversity Institute.