Tag: Reuters Institute

News avoidance and lack of trust MUST send a message to media

More than two-thirds of New Zealanders actively avoid news coverage and more than one in ten do so regularly.

Findings released this morning by AUT’s JM&D journalism research centre make sober reading. Its latest Trust in News report shows Kiwis are avoiding the news because they think it is depressing and biased.

In its 2023 survey, which is based on an international study by the Reuters Institute at Oxford University, JM&D asked for the first time about news avoidance and political influence. It used Horizon Research to conduct a nationwide online survey of 1120 adults in February.

Sixty nine per cent said they sometimes or often avoided the news. That is a statistic that sits well above the Reuters Institute’s multi-nation findings. That study found 54 per cent of Brazilians avoided news, followed by 46 per cent in the United Kingdom, 42 per cent in the United States and 41 per cent in Australia. At the bottom of the avoidance table were Japan (12 per cent) and Finland (20 per cent).

At the other end of spectrum, New Zealand’s international ranking of those ‘highly interested’ in news was equally alarming. Little more than a third expressed a strong focus, compared to more than two-thirds of Finland’s population. Continue reading “News avoidance and lack of trust MUST send a message to media” →

News media face distrust by association

A new study suggests that the news media’s tanking levels of public trust may made worse merely by association with social media.

The study, released this month by the Reuters Institute at Oxford University, has exposed gaps between trust in news via conventional delivery and the same thing consumed via social media.

It doesn’t matter whether people use social media or not: Levels of trust is lower if they simply associate news with the platforms.

The gap varies between platforms and between countries but the overall finding is that levels of trust in news on social media, search engines, and messaging apps is consistently lower than audience trust in information in the news media more generally.

And our media is becoming more and more associated with social media. Continue reading “News media face distrust by association” →

Low trust in media has underlying cause

Trust me, I think I know when I’m wrong.

For a very long time I have advocated quality journalism as the antidote to declining trust in news media. Three reports last week convince me that doing a better job is not the cure I thought it would be.

Of course, better reporting and analysis will always contribute to improving the regard with which journalists are held by the public. And it can always be done better.

However, a new survey by the Journalism Media and Democracy ((JMaD) centre at AUT and the latest Acumen Edelman Trust Barometer on New Zealand, together with further analysis by the Reuters Institute’s Trust in News project, have led me to conclude that journalism is not the cause of diminished trust but a victim of a deeper malaise. Continue reading “Low trust in media has underlying cause” →

Journalists do not play piano in a brothel

A decade ago, a renowned Spanish editor wrote a book on the future of journalism. For its title he drew on a popular saying: “Don’t tell my mother I’m a journalist. She thinks I play piano at the whorehouse”.

In The Piano Player in the Brothel, Juan Luis Cebrián (a former editor of El País) wrote of the restoration of democracy after Spain’s repressive fascism ended with the death of Franco, and journalism’s regression in the face of ambiguities that are part and parcel of the globalised Digital Age. After a long life in the trade, he concluded: “Although I have stated that our profession has low-life origins, it also aspires to a higher truth, where honesty and transparency play an essential role.”

The vast majority of journalists that I know aspire to that higher truth. Unfortunately, the public doesn’t seem to recognise that reality.

Instead, their view of New Zealand journalism is like plaque: A nasty build-up, caused by the things they shove down their throats, that only gets worse the longer they neglect to clean their teeth. Continue reading “Journalists do not play piano in a brothel” →