The UK Has One of the Lowest Level of Trust in Journalists in the World

The recent crises that the world has been embroiled in have had a lot of different types of consequences. One of the biggest byproducts of these crises is that trust in journalism is at an all time low. A report that was recently published by Press Gazette revealed the extent to which public sentiment has turned against news outlets all around the world.

With all of that having been said and now out of the way, it is important to note that British people seem to have among the lowest level of trust in journalists based on this report. Only 37% of the Brits who responded to this survey said that they trust journalists. Quite surprisingly, this is actually a bit of an uptick from the proportion that was seen just a couple years ago when 35% said the same.

Also, the UK isn’t alone in having a uniquely low level of trust in journalists. Things are even worse in Japan where just 34% of people said that they trust what journalists have to say, and South Korea is at the very bottom of the list with just 27%. South Korea’s journey has been especially notable since trust in journalists has dropped 6 points in 2 years from 33%.

As for the top of the list, China appears to be sitting pretty with 79%. This is a bit difficult to trust, though, since the Chinese government is known for being authoritarian so any data coming out of there needs to be taken with a pinch of salt.

Following China we have Indonesia with 72%, Thailand with 67%, Kenya with 63% and India with 62%. It’s pretty interesting that people in developing countries have a higher level of trust in journalists. That might indicate that developed countries either have people who are more prone to trusting conspiracy theories or they are experienced enough to know when journalists might be lying.

Journalists appear to be among the least trusted professionals out there, with only 47% of survey respondents saying that they trust them in a global survey. The only profession that ranked lower was that of politicians who got a measly score of just 41% which highlights a serious crisis of confidence that world leaders are facing right now.

So, if people don’t trust journalists as much as they used to, who do they turn to in order to stay up to date on current events? Well, social media isn’t much of a contender since only 41% of people said that they trust it as a source of news. That’s way lower than journalists, so it’s fairly unlikely that social media will become anyone’s primary news source anytime soon.

Surprisingly, it appears that search engines and traditional media appear to be the most trusted news sources as of right now. 63% of survey respondents said that they trust search engines as a source of news, and 59% of them said the same for social media.

It appears that people who directly follow journalists on social media might not trust them for news. Instead, they prefer news that has been filtered through an editorial process and potentially fact checked.

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by Zia Muhammad via Digital Information World