New Zealanders’ trust in news is up after years of slumps

Source: Radio New Zealand

“News and information you can trust,” a serious voice intoned at 7.30am last Monday morning – with a suitably serious soundtrack – before the familiar voice of Nicola Wright kicked in with the headlines during Morning Report.

On the daily promotional trailers, the new co-host John Campbell also promises “news and information you can trust on Morning Report.”

Trustworthiness is a message RNZ wants listeners to get.

In an interview last week looking ahead to his Morning Report debut last Monday, Afternoons host Jesse Mulligan asked John Campbell if public perception of him as left-leaning might be a problem.

“I’m not worried about that. We need to ask the people who are saying that why they’re saying it and what their agendas are,” Campbell replied.

Perception bias was common today, Campbell said – and it’s in the eye of the beholder.

He promised to stay faithful to the requirements of journalism to be fair and “ignore the chatter”.

But the pressure on state-owned broadcasters to increase reported levels of trust in them is hard to ignore – and it comes from the top.

“Trust in the media remains an important issue for shareholding ministers, and we continue to expect RNZ to lead by example and share its experience to strengthen the public’s trust in the wider media sector,” the broadcasting minister Paul Goldsmith said in a recent letter to RNZ’s chair.

He wants the state-owned broadcaster to set “ambitious” targets for trust in its next Statement of Performance Expectations.

Who trusts who the most?

Trust – like bias – is also in the eye of the beholder, and difficult to measure meaningfully.

But the most meaningful measure comes in the annual report on trust in the news produced by the AUT’s Centre for Journalism, Media and Democracy (JMAD).

And this year the news was better for RNZ – and the rest of the media.

“In 2026, New Zealanders’ trust in news in general improved significantly, with 37 percent of New Zealanders trusting the news, compared to 32 percent in 2025,” said the 2026 report.

But it’s still a lot lower than the first time Horizon Research surveyed New Zealanders in 2020 for and 53 percent trusted “most news most of the time”.

Over the next five years the same survey recorded successive slumps, before stabilising last year.

This year trust in the news people consume themselves was also up to 50 percent from 45 percent in 2025.

That’s closer to the global average recorded by the latest Reuters Digital News Report’s survey of 48 other countries.

RNZ was perceived as the most trusted news brand this year, closely followed by the Otago Daily Times and TVNZ – just like last year.

The ODT was the marginal front-runner in 2024, prompting the paper to boast on its masthead it was the country’s most trusted news brand.

Newsroom, Interest.co.nz, The Listener and the Waikato Times were jointly perceived as the fourth-most trusted brands in the JMAD survey.

Trust in significant New Zealand news brands increased this year across the board.

Other evidence of an uptick in trust

Another survey modelled on an international one – the Edelman Trust Baromoter – also recorded a boost.

This year’s survey – conducted here by communications agency Acumen – found 39 percent of New Zealanders trusted the media compared to 35 percent in 2025.

A 2024 survey commissioned by the News Publishers’ Association found higher levels of trust in the media outlets New Zealanders know and use.

An independent report in 2024 for the Ministry for Culture and Heritage which surveyed more than 2000 people over 18 found 48 percent agreed “news reporting is fair and balanced.” But a healthier 57 percent agreed that “news reporting is trustworthy”.

An RNZ survey of 1500 New Zealanders found trust in RNZ rose from 49 percent in 2024 to 58 percent in 2025.

The number of complaints upheld by the watchdog bodies – the Media Council and the Broadcasting Standards Authority – has also remained steady in recent years in spite of an increasing number of complaints made.

Why is the perception of trust bouncing back?

“The impression we have is a growing consciousness in the public mind about the risks of low-quality information like AI slop, deepfakes and mis- and dis-information. People are looking for verified information. And of course the bottom line is that’s the news,” JMAD’s Dr Greg Treadwell told Mediawatch.

JMAD’s Dr Merja Myllilahti told Mediawatch respondents specified that journalists can be held accountable.

One quoted in the report said: “Traditional mainstream media may not necessarily tell the whole story or there might be a slant on it, but I don’t expect they’re going to lie. Podcasters and influencers don’t pay a penalty for lying and they lie frequently.”

Social media conundrum

Two reasons suggested for trust in news slumping between 2020 and 2024 were too much opinion in the media – and unreliable stuff circulating on social media.

“It’s social media that is dragging the media category down. Trust in social media is at 23 percent, which is firmly in the ‘distrust’ category,” Accumen CEO Adelle Keely told Mediawatch in 2024.

“It would suggest local media, and local journalists where they are bylined – (are) more trusted than more just general news.”

Last month Keely told The Fold podcast it was up to respondents to define media themselves when asked: ‘how much do you trust media to do what is right?’

“If they get most of their news from Facebook, they might think of Facebook as the media rather than the distinction that you or I might have.”

But New Zealanders’ trust in news on social media is also up from 13 percent in 2025 to 17 percent in this year’s JMAD report – even at a time when social media’s had more bad press than ever before.

Turning off and tuning out

The JMAD survey again recorded a level of news avoidance in New Zealand much higher than the global average.

While respondents said they had a high level of interest in news in 2026 as well as greater trust, 78 percent avoided news to some degree – compared to 73 percent a year ago.

“You may trust the news but still avoid it. It’s overwhelming in its negativity and the world is in a web of different crises all impacting each other at the moment. People are avoiding it – even if they trust it – for their own well being,” JMAD’s Dr Greg Treadwell told Mediawatch.

“We all understand it’s good not to be on your phone scrolling negative news too much. So people avoiding it makes sense.”

You can read the full report here.

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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand