Why people trust the media less and less

This is reported by The Conversation.

The decline in trust in parliament, the health care system, education, courts and police can be observed all over the world. However, the media occupy a special place in this row: they are not just another institution, but, ideally, a democratic expression of the interests of the public. And that is why the decline in trust in news requires a separate analysis.

New Zealand researchers Greg Treadwell and Merja Mullullahti analysed their own polling data and the Reuters Institute and Edelman Trust Barometer reports. Their conclusion: trust in the news is declining out of sync with trust in other social structures. While trust in governments, NGOs and businesses is changing in a more or less harmonised way, the dynamics of trust in the media are quite different.

In New Zealand, trust in news has fallen from 58 per cent in 2020 to 32 per cent in 2025. The main reasons cited by respondents were the perception of political bias and an overabundance of opinion presented as news. This contrasts with factors affecting trust in other institutions: wars, crises, populism and pandemics.

Interestingly, at the beginning of the pandemic, when trust in the state was falling, trust in news sources conversely rose - probably because people turn to the media for information in times of crisis. In New Zealand, however, the situation was reversed: even in 2020, trust in news was already declining and continued to fall until 2023.

The authors of the study also conducted focus groups with older New Zealanders. They found that they may not trust certain institutions - banks, insurance companies, universities - but they do not distrust the government. Their distrust of the news is formed separately, rather than in the context of a general decline in trust in other institutions.