LONDON: One-quarter of consumers abandoned a news source over the past year
because they lost trust in its reporting, according to a new survey that also
found the BBC, Fox News and Al Jazeera the most trusted brands in their
respective home regions.
Results of a poll of more than 10,000 adults in 10 countries by the British
Broadcasting Corporation, Reuters Group Plc and The Media Center were released
yesterday, with an additional finding that media worldwide were trusted by an
average of 61 per cent of respondents compared with 52 per cent who said they
trusted their governments.
"National TV is still the most trusted news source by a wide margin, although
the Internet is gaining ground among the young," said Doug Miller, president of
London-based research firm GlobeScan, which conducted the polling.
"The jury is still out on blogs," he added. "Just as many people distrust
them as trust them."
The survey confirmed that media consumption is shifting online for younger
generations, as 19 per cent of those aged 18 to 24 named the Internet as their
most important source of news compared with 9 per cent overall.
Seventy-two per cent of all respondents said they followed the news closely,
including 67 per cent of those 18 to 24 years old.
Asked to name the news source they most trusted, without any prompting, 59
per cent of Egyptians said Al Jazeera, 52 per cent of Brazilians said Rede
Globo, 32 per cent of Britons said the BBC, 22 per cent of Germans said ARD and
11 per cent of Americans said Fox News, each leading their respective nations.
The most trusted news brands globally were the BBC, Britain's publicly funded
broadcaster, and CNN, which is owned by the world's biggest media conglomerate,
Time Warner Inc.
Three Internet portals Google, Yahoo and Microsoft/MSN
received the next highest trust ratings across the 10 countries, when
respondents were prompted with 16 different brand names.