When Detroit’s newspapers went on strike in 1955, Dearborn mayor Orville Hubbard commented, “I haven’t missed them myself. It’s better to be uninformed than misinformed.”
Well, that’s a debatable point, but the idea that the media are prime purveyors of misinformation persists. Not without reason, as the legacy media have been hell-bent on proving for all to see, in recent years. On everything from “Russian collusion”, to Covid, to “mostly peaceful” riots, the legacy media have openly and unapologetically lied to our faces.
And it’s coming back to burn their arses, big time.
The embarrassing, live-to-air shutdown of Today FM recently was only the sharp edge of a collapsing legacy media that has so thoroughly burnt its bridges with the New Zealand public that not even Labour’s $55m lifeline can save them. The latest Trust in News report lays it out in excruciating detail: New Zealanders just don’t trust the legacy media, and they’re turning off in greater droves than perhaps any other comparable country.
Since our first Trust in News in Aotearoa New Zealand report was published in 2020, general trust in news in Aotearoa New Zealand has declined. In 2020, 53% of New Zealanders trusted news in general. In 2023, the same figure was 42%.
New Zealanders trust government even less: just 30%.
Not all surveys appear to agree, though:
In contrast to JMAD’s survey, the Acumen poll showed that trust in media grew from 31% in 2020 to 41% in 2022 (JMAD’s research shows a decline of 8% in 2020- 2022).
But each are measuring slightly different things: JMAD surveys “trust in news and news brands”, while Acumen “ascertains trust in the media”. While we tend to use those terms interchangeably, “media” in fact includes everything from newspapers and tv, to search engines and social media. The legacy media can perhaps take some comfort that Kiwis trust social media even less. Still, “Hey, at least we’re better than Facebook and Twitter” hardly seems the proudest boast to make.
Cue self-serving whingeing from legacy media journalists.
At the same time as trust in the news is low, abuse of journalists has become more sinister. In early 2023, Stuff journalist Paula Penfold, who has received death threats for her work on disinformation, wrote that civil discourse in New Zealand had become “ugly”.
Does that include creepy, government-funded far-left extremists calling everyone who disagrees with them “Nazis” and “white supremacists”? The media hysterically whipping up a lynch mob to attack a women’s rights speaker in Auckland?
Penfold and her cronies have set fire to the house; now they’re whining, “Look what you did!”
From personal experience, the public doesn’t hate journalists per se: they’ve grown exasperated and infuriated with mainstream media journalists in particular. Covering public events, often the first question asked is, “Are you an independent journalist?” Answering in the affirmative invariably brings forth smiles and a welcome. Where mainstream media journalists are heckled, independent journalists like Avi Yemini and Rukshan Fernando receive rock star receptions.
The public is angry: not stupid.
But New Zealand is just a microcosm of trends across the Western world. Everywhere, trust in the legacy media is plummeting. In the US, unsurprisingly perhaps, trust is lowest of all, at just 26%.
What should worry the legacy media even more is that an angry public knows it has at least one option: the Off button.
JMAD Research
More worryingly, the survey found that the “proportion of news consumers who say they avoid news, often or sometimes, has increased sharply across countries”.
As we see, New Zealand has one of the highest rates of “news avoidance”.
The legacy media have lied so baldly and so often that more people are just turning off.
And Jacinda’s Team of $55m has become a massive own goal: 61% said that government financial support for the media means that they could not trust them. Nearly half of respondents “strongly disagreed” that “news media is independent of undue political or government influence most of the time”. Slightly less than a third agreed.
It’s hard to trust the news when views or opinions that go against the opinion or theme of the media / government are silenced.
survey respondent
Expect a lot more crying from the Duncan Garners and Tova O’Briens, as the death spiral of the New Zealand legacy media continues. Pass the popcorn.