Merja Myllylahti: AUT Research Centre for Journalism, Media, and Democracy Co-Director on the results of the Trust in News report

There’s still much room for improvement for media outlets to earn back public trust.  

AUT's annual Trust in News reports shows trust in news has increased five-points from last year to 37%.  

But news avoidance has increased five points to 78%, with respondents saying it's too depressing, too opinionated, or not relevant. 

Report co-author Merja Myllylahti told Mike Hosking trust is a tricky concept to pin down, so the report looks at people’s perception of the news.  

She says they look at perceptions of international news, local news, as well as social media, and while it can be tricky to know exactly what people come across, the upside is that things are improving.

LISTEN ABOVE 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Trust in the media. Things are improving. General trust is
up five percent, we learned this morning to thirty seven percent,
first left in six years. Fifty percent trust the news
they consume, which is up five We've got avoidance problems,
that's risen to seventy eight percent now. Doctor Miria Mililati
is the co director at the aut Research Center for Journalism,
Media and Democracy and is back with us this year.
Morning to you, Good morning. I probably asked you this

(00:22):
last year, what's that? Are you confident in the robustness
of your numbers? Where do you get them from? Who
do you ask? Do you hand out food vouchers for
them to participate or what?

Speaker 2 (00:30):
No? No, that's annual. So where we do and it's
nationally a representative sample, so it's you know, across the
New Zealanders. We ask all one thousand New Zealanders and
what they think about the trust in news. And this
is done done by the Horizon Research appalling. So yeah,
we don't go to the street corners.

Speaker 1 (00:51):
Right, How I mean, how specific is it? Because I
mean if you ask me do I trust say news talks,
it'd be my answer would be yes and no. There
are bits of the station I trust bits. I don't
do you break that down or not?

Speaker 2 (01:04):
No, we don't. Actually, you know, it's it's really the
whole concept of trust is of course really tricky what
to be what people mean with the trust. So we
are we are looking at the people's perceptions of things
and that's what the survey is, how the people perceive
the news.

Speaker 1 (01:25):
And then having said that, so I wonder if you
get yourself stuck in a bit of a hole because
main source is TV. So when you say that they
that's the main source of news. Is that international or
is that just local TV?

Speaker 2 (01:40):
Oh? The main source is for the news is news
apps and news news sites.

Speaker 1 (01:46):
So it could could be seen in could be TV one,
could be the BBC.

Speaker 2 (01:50):
Well yeah, we look around specifically of course the New
Zealand news brands how they consume newsic.

Speaker 1 (01:57):
Yeah okay, But then you go to social media and
I mean that's just a can I be blunt with you,
that's just a ship show. I mean I mean, how
do you know what's coming at you from there?

Speaker 2 (02:09):
Uh? Yeah, So social media, I know, it's a tricky again,
but we ask we follow the similar kind of you know,
method or logy lang Dan Rogers Institute in Oxford University.
You know that the social media is we ask, of course,
you know what social media they consume. So we look
at the Facebook, TikTok, Instagram, et cetera. So what what

(02:30):
people come across in in social media and what they
come across as the news is we don't really know.
And that's a tricky part.

Speaker 1 (02:39):
It is a tricky part. But I suppose the outside
is things are improving and that's encouraging.

Speaker 2 (02:44):
Yeah that's good. Yeah, a good sign for the journalism.

Speaker 1 (02:46):
Yeah, good stuff. All right, nice to talk to you,
doctor Marrigan, Miller Lanti, who's at the aut See now,
the example is not right is the social media person.
I can give a monkey space like work it, work
it out for yourself. If you think you trusted, you trusted.
If you don't, don't.

Speaker 2 (03:00):
For more from The Mic Asking Breakfast, listen live to
News Talks at B from six am weekdays, or follow
the podcast on iHeartRadio.