New Report: News Media Bests Social Media In Trust

A new explores the underlying reasons for low trust in the news media and social media across nine countries (United States (US), UK, Ireland, Spain, Germany, Denmark, Australia, France, and Greece).

The study is based on analysing thousands of open-ended responses from the 2017 Reuters Institute Digital News Report, where respondents were asked to give their reasons for low trust in their own words, using open-ended text fields. By coding and analyzing responses, then they were categorized to the specific issues that are driving public concern across countries.

Based on these categorizations, the report makes suggestions about ways in which journalists, platforms, and regulators could contribute to an improvement of trust over time in both the news media and social media.

The key findings:

• Among those who do not trust the news media, the main reasons (67%) relate to bias, spin, and agendas. Simply put, a significant proportion of the public feels that powerful people are using the media to push their own political or economic interests, rather than represent ordinary readers or viewers. These feelings are most strongly held by those who are young and by those that earn the least.
• In many countries, particularly the US and UK, some media outlets are seen as taking sides, encouraging an increasingly polarized set of opinions. Others are criticized for not calling out lies, keeping information back, or creating a false equivalence of partisan opinions that are obscuring facts and understanding.
• In talking about trust, people mention television brands more than any other type of media (e.g. print or online). TV is considered less open to manipulation than online media, because live pictures and reporters on the spot give consumers confidence that what they are seeing is true. But TV brands are also criticized in many countries for putting speed ahead of accuracy, favoring opinion over facts, and for pushing partisan agendas.
• For those that do trust the news media (40% across the nine markets surveyed), a significant proportion feel journalists do a good job in checking sources, verifying facts, and providing evidence to back up claims. There is more confidence in the professional integrity of journalists (and the transparency of their processes) in the US, Germany, and Denmark than in the United Kingdom, France, and Australia.
• Social media (24%) is trusted less than the news media in its ability to separate fact from fiction. There is a sense from respondents that feeds are becoming polluted with inaccurate information, extreme agendas, and strong opinions, perhaps encouraged by social media algorithms. But, people also blame other social media users for fueling these stories by sharing without reading them. Despite this, the report also found a substantial minority who trust social media for its broad range of views and authenticity. Some of these are people who distrust the mainstream media or complain about its biases and agendas. Others revel in a wide range of sources and feel confident in their ability to spot inaccurate or agenda-filled news.