Fewer than half of New Zealanders trust the news, AUT study suggests

Wednesday, 28 April 2021

Trust in the media is lower than in the very early stages of Covid pandemic, a university study suggests.

Public trust in the media has slipped over the past year despite its role in keeping people informed about the Covid pandemic, according to a study by Auckland University of Technology.

The finding appears at odds with the expectations of another academic and contrasts with survey results published by the Newspaper Publishers’ Association, which suggested the news media has a bigger place in people’s lives post-Covid.

Horizon Research polled 1224 adults in early March for the AUT study and found the proportion of people who said they trusted “most news, most of the time”, had fallen by 5 percentage points from a year prior, to 48 per cent.

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“If 52 per cent of people say they don’t trust the news, it is a worry,” one of the study’s co-authors, AUT senior lecturer Merja Myllylahti said.

The proportion of people who said they trusted the news that they themselves consumed dropped even more, though from a higher base, falling by 7 percentage points to 55 per cent.

Public trust in the Government and in the media appear to have moved in opposite directions during Covid, AUT academics believe.

The “trust scores” of mainstream media organisations were higher and mostly slipped by much lesser amounts, however.

For example, Stuff’s score edged down from “6.1 out of 10”, to 6, and that of the NZ Herald from 6.3 to 6.2.

RNZ’s trust score was down from 7 to 6.8, and TVNZ’s score fell from 6.8 to 6.6.

But Newstalk ZB’s score fell more sharply, from 6.2 to 5.7.

Myllylahti said the survey results seemed to be following the trend internationally, where trust in the media has also been declining and is generally lower than here.

But as this is only the second time the survey has been conducted in New Zealand, it was not yet possible to discern the longer-term trend here.

Comments from respondents suggested trust in the media may have eroded because of a perception news reporting was more “politicised” and opinionated, Myllylahti said.

That could in part reflect the fact last year was an election year, she said.

Some responders had singled out talk-back radio for criticism, saying it was “right wing”, she said.

Others had objected to the media pushing what they saw as “agendas”, for example on climate change and social issues.

Massey University journalism lecturer Catherine Strong said it was surprising there had been a decrease in trust over the year.

“But it is very slight and New Zealand still has more trust in its media than other countries,” she said.

The survey further underscored that Kiwi news consumers were more discerning than the average in other countries, she said.

“Participants were more concerned about fake or opinionated news and poorly-sourced reporting than those in the other 40 countries surveyed.

“This indicates they know what is fake and slanted … unlike people in other countries who are sucked in by twisted information,” she said.

A strong finding of the research this year was that New Zealanders were continuing to lose trust in “inflammatory broadcast personalities”, she said.

Two credible surveys showed people’s trust in commercial radio was dropping, she said.

“Listeners may enjoy provocative commentary, but they know the difference between being entertained and being informed.”