An increase in public trust in news announced last week has obscured a much less welcome statistic: More New Zealanders are actively avoiding reports of what is happening around them.

The 2026 JMAD Trust in News Report from AUT shows the number of people who sometimes avoid the news has risen to 46 per cent – up five percentage points on last year. The number who occasionally avoid (a higher frequency than ‘sometimes’) is up two percentage points to 19 per cent. Those who often avoid the news has dropped two points to 13 per cent.

Cumulatively, that means that more than three-quarters of us feel the need to switch off at some point. Why? More than half said it was because the news negatively affected their mood and more than a third were” worn out” by the news.

News is now an avalanche that never stops. The old circadian rhythm of morning newspapers, evening television news, and hourly radio bulletins in between has been destroyed by a galaxy of online 24/7 news sources and intrusive smartphone notifications. Updates have turned coherent stories into confusing textbites.

This avalanche may be why a quarter of those surveyed felt there was nothing they could do with the information they received and 17 per cent questioned its relevance to their lives. Forty per cent felt there was too much coverage of conflict or politics and, given the adversarial approach our journalists take to political coverage, it’s probably difficult to distinguish between the two. Continue reading “Every silver lining has a cloud: This one is news avoidance” →