LONDON (REUTERS) - The coronavirus pandemic stoked hunger for trusted news in a time of global crisis and a clear majority of people want media organisations to be impartial and objective, The Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism said on Wednesday (June 23).

Trust in news grew during the pandemic, especially in Western Europe, helping brands with a reputation for reliable reporting, though mistrust was particularly apparent in the polarised media of the United States.

A clear majority of people across countries believed news outlets should reflect a range of views and try to be neutral, the institute said in its annual Digital News Report.

The 10th edition of the report reveals new insights about digital news consumption based on a YouGov survey of over 92,000 online news consumers in 46 markets including Australia, India, Indonesia, Singapore and Thailand. The 46 markets represent more than half the world's population.

"We've been through a very dark time and much of the public recognise that news organisations have often been the ones shining light in that darkness," said Rasmus Nielsen, director of the Reuters Institute.

"There has been a greater appreciation of trustworthy news overall," he told Reuters. "It's very clear in our research, in country after country, in age group after age group, that large majorities want journalism to try to be neutral."

Among the key findings, trust in the news has grown, on average, by six percentage points in the wake of the Coronavirus pandemic - with 44 per cent of the total sample saying they trust most news most of the time.

This reverses, to some extent, recent falls in average trust - bringing levels back to those of 2018. Finland remains the country with the highest levels of overall trust (65 per cent), and the USA now has the lowest levels (29 per cent) in the survey. A total of 45 per cent of Singaporeans say they trust the news, versus 41 per cent for Malaysia, 39 per cent for Indonesia, 40 per cent for Hong Kong and 43 per cent for Australia.

The accelerating technological revolution means 73 per cent of people now access news via a smartphone, up from 69 per cent in 2020, while many use social media networks or messaging apps to consume or discuss news.

TikTok now reaches 24 per cent of under 35s, with higher penetration rates in Asia and Latin America. Facebook is seen as the main artery for spreading false information, though messaging apps such as WhatsApp also play a role.

But the tech giants also served as an avenue for dissent, The Reuters Institute said, citing protests in Peru, Indonesia, Thailand, Myanmar and the United States.

More people distrusted the news than trusted it in the United States, where Mr Donald Trump's defeat in the 2020 US presidential election reduced demand for news.

Broadly, those who felt the media has been unfair were those with a right-leaning political outlook. Young people aged 18-24, Black and Hispanic Americans, East Germans and certain British socio-economic classes felt they were covered unfairly.

But the overall message was that most people want fair and balanced news, and despite deepening problems for the business model of print news, many will pay for it.

"While impartial or objective journalism is increasingly questioned by some, overall people strongly support the ideal of impartial news," Dr Craig Robertson, a postdoctoral research fellow at the Institute, wrote in the report. "People want the right to decide for themselves."

The Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism is a research centre at the University of Oxford that tracks media trends. The Thomson
Reuters Foundation, the philanthropic arm of Thomson Reuters, funds the Reuters Institute.

The institute found increased consumption of mainstream news particularly in countries with "strong and independent public service media".

But it also said printed media remained in steep decline, worsened by the impact on sales and advertising revenue of the pandemic.

This has accelerated the shift towards digital subscriptions, especially in countries where physical sales had stayed relatively high like Germany, Austria and Switzerland.

However, in the roughly 20 countries where newspapers were actively developing their digital sales, only 17 per cent of respondents said they paid for news online, up two points on last year's report and five compared to 2016.

The number of people paying for news online was highest in wealthier countries with traditions of subscribing to physical newspapers, such as Norway (45 per cent) and Sweden (30 per cent).

The numbers were lower for the US (21 per cent), France (11 per cent), Germany (9 per cent) and Britain (8 per cent).

In Singapore, it was 14 per cent.

"Subscriptions are beginning to work for some publishers but it won't work for all publishers and most importantly, it won't work for all consumers," said co-author Rasmus Kleis Nielsen.

"Given abundant access to free news, publishers will need to develop compelling options to bundle publications or more ways of paying a smaller amount for limited access."

Misinformation

Meanwhile, trust in news shared on social media remained very low at 24 per cent.

There has been a gradual increase in concern over misinformation, though it varies greatly between countries, from 82 per cent in Brazil to 37 per cent in Germany.

A large majority still want media to be impartial (74 per cent) and believe opposing views should be given a balanced hearing (72 per cent).

The report also found younger generations had weak links to traditional media, and were more likely to get their news from social media, aggregators and notifications.

Facebook has lost ground to its subsidiaries WhatsApp and Instagram as a source of news.

It said TikTok has become an increasingly popular sources of news, particularly among younger audiences, in the wake of the pandemic and race protests of 2020, as well as becoming a key way to mobilise political protests in places like Peru, Indonesia and Thailand.

Government funding?

The institute also asked people whether their government should step in to help commercial news organisations that can't make enough money on their own.

"Although the reasons behind people's responses will be varied, and it is not possible to know what these are from the data we have, it is clear that public appetite for government intervention is low. Just one-quarter (27 per cent) think that the government should step in to help, compared to a 44 per cent that think they should not," the report says.

In Britain, 11 per cent of those surveyed said governments should step in and help news organisations when they cannot make enough money, while 18 per cent of respondents in the US agreed. Elsewhere, 20 per cent in Japan said government support was acceptable, while in Singapore the number was 32 per cent, and 51 per cent for India.