Amid a deluge of fake news stories, do people still believe what they hear on the radio, watch on television and read in their newspapers every morning? Fact and fiction are becoming increasingly blurred in global news columns with the U.S. presidential election in particular experiencing a flood of misinformation. Worryingly, a recent survey from Buzzfeed and Ipsos claimed that Americans are fooled by news headlines 75 percent of the time.
The Reuters Institute For The Study Of Journalism recently released a report showing trust levels in news provision across different countries. The report found that trust is highest in affluent Western European and Scandinavian nations, primarily due to the presence of well-funded public service broadcasters. 65 percent of Finns agreed that “you can trust most news most of the time”. In the United Kingdom, trust levels were lower at 50 percent while in Australia, they fell further to 43 percent. In the United States, the epicenter of the fake news storm, only 33 percent of people agreed that you can trust news most of the time.
Niall McCarthy
Forbes
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