The British public’s trust in the media has fallen off a cliff in the last five years, particularly among leftwing voters, research suggests.
Just 15% of left-leaning voters now say they trust most news most of the time, down from 46% as recently as 2015, Oxford University’s Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism found.
The precipitous decline has coincided with enormous growth of social media audiences, rounds of cuts at almost every major news outlet, and strong criticism of media coverage of issues such as Brexit and Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership of the Labour party.
“Trust in the news has fallen over 20 percentage points since 2015,” concluded the authors of the Reuters Institute’s annual digital news report. “Even the most trusted brands like the BBC are seen by many as pushing or suppressing agendas, especially over polarising issues like Brexit.”
Not all outlets have been equally affected by the collapse in trust. Broadcasters’ reputations have taken a hit but they continue to score relatively highly, while the Guardian is now the most trusted non-financial newspaper among the general public.
However, the figures suggest there has been a substantial negative shift in attitudes towards the wider media industry among Britons. As a result, Britain now ranks below the likes of the US and Hong Kong when it comes to public trust in the media.
The research also suggests it may be time to reappraise which news outlets are considered to be the biggest in the country, in an age where print newspaper sales continue to collapse and even Rupert Murdoch’s News UK – the owner of the Times and the Sun – is moving towards a digital-focused operation.
Rather than the traditional ranking of outlets by print newspaper sales, the report points towards the emergence of a group of four major British news outlets with mass online audiences: BBC News, the Guardian, MailOnline and Sky News.
The BBC remains the most trusted national news outlet, but support among the most politically partisan consumers – on both the left and right – has fallen by 20 percentage points since 2018.
The study found there was a “silent majority” of Britons who still strongly wanted the news to be presented in a “neutral and detached” manner, backing BBC news bosses who discourage their reporters from expressing personal political views on social media.