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Media trends digest – 2006

Media, politics and the question of trust (15 August)

Media or government -- who would you trust? It’s a question that has unearthed some surprising results and shed light on the credibility of traditional news sources versus the internet.

A recent ten-country opinion poll conducted by Globescan on behalf of the BBC, Reuters and The Media Center, found more people trust the media than their governments – especially in developing countries.

Only the US and Britain bucked the trend with the government ahead of media on trust.

And while an annual MORI poll in Britain found journalists still well below politicians as a trusted profession, the Globescan survey made a surprising discovery: television news readers are people that 63% of the public would trust to tell the truth – just behind scientists, priests and judges.

This finding highlights the growing dichotomy between print and broadcast media in terms of trustworthiness.

But it seems that the internet is stealing the march on national TV, particularly among the young in the developed world according to Globescan President Doug Miller.

 “National TV is still the most trusted news source by a wide margin, although the internet is gaining ground among the young. The jury is still out on blogs – just as many people distrust them as trust them.”

However, Dean Wright, Managing Editor of consumer media at Reuters said he believed even blogs would eventually come of age, as newspapers once did.

 “It’s a relatively recent phenomenon that people believe what’s written in a newspaper. One hundred years ago, newspapers were incredibly partisan: they were the blogosphere of their day.”

Doug Miller, President of Globescan says the question of trust has a number of elements.

 “It’s not just about objectively but about a sense of what people most use, what they like.”

Indeed, the growing popularity of the internet cannot be questioned. In the US, the Pew Research Center biennial study of news consumption found that ten years ago, one in 50 people in the US got their news from the internet, now that number is one in three.

And with the increasing of broadband in the developed world, we may soon see the internet overtaking traditional media, and perhaps our governments, as the most trusted source of news.

By Kate Hanlon

Links

Globescan survey -- http://www.globescan.com/news_archives/bbcreut.html

Pew Research Center survery -- http://pewresearch.org/obdeck/?ObDeckID=42

Results of MORI poll – blog -- http://blogs.reuters.com/2006/04/27/polls-fuel-debate-over-trust-in-the-media/

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