Trust In The News

The Reuters Institute For The Study Of Journalism released its 2021 Digital News Report this week which polled 92,000 consumers in 46 markets about a range of digital news topics ranging from the pandemic's impact on consumption to the progress of paid business models as well as trust and misinformation. When it comes to the latter, the research found that overall trust in the news rebounded strongly over the past year across the majority of the 46 markets analyzed.


Finland had the highest share of respondents agreeing "you can trust news most of the time" at 65 percent which marks a nine percentage point increase since the last edition of the report. The United States made little progress and it is rock bottom of the report with only 29 percent of people trusting the news most of the time.

The research states that the trust gains across most markets might be due to extensive coverage of Covid-19 which may have had the effect of making news more straightforward and fact-based in addition to pushing partisan politics off the main agendy. According to the report, the United States did not record the gains seen in other countries due to deep division about an allegedly stolen election as well as the aftermath of George Floyd's killing.