Where will the mistrust in the media end? According to an annual report by the Reuters Institute, relayed by French weekly L’Obs, only 42 percent of the inhabitants of this planet still trust the media in general and 49 percent still trust the media they use.
This is a decrease of two points compared to the previous study.
Of the 75 000 respondents across 38 countries, some 51 percent believe the media helps them understand the news and 29 percent think the media cover relevant topics.
Only 16 percent of respondents think that the general tone found in the mainstream is the correct one. These estimates are obviously different depending on the country surveilled. For example, Finland or Canada tend to trust the media more but Greece and Hungary revealed a strong mistrust.
In France, only 24 percent of those questioned have confidence in what they are told, a decrease of 11 points compared to the last survey. The Yellow Vest crisis does not seem to have helped raise the ratings of the media either.
Regarding the confidence in the information consulted via search engines or social networks, the level remains stable but is still very low, with respectively 33 and 23 percent.
At the same time, the report noted that the level of trust increased with the level of education. In Germany and the United States, most graduates rate the media more positively. As for the proportion of people who pay for online information, the rate remains the same, at 15 percent.
The report took the opportunity to note a certain “saturation” of users for subscriptions, which promotes entertainment (of the Netflix or Spotify type) rather than information.
Finally, more and more people (32 percent) are actively avoiding news.