UK shows where trust holds strong
Opinion
Despite the depressing global trends on trust in news, the UK picture provides hope, writes Newsworks’ insights director.
Reuters Institute released its latest Digital News Report and, as ever, it is a fascinating read. Unfortunately, it also tells a familiar story: trust in news is declining globally.
The big takeaway is the rise of the platforms and their impact on our society. In fact, their influence and dominance are a common thread throughout the whole report. There is no getting away from it; the global outlook looks pretty bleak.
It won’t come as a shock that overall, interest in news is in decline as people addictively scroll, scroll, and scroll even more. The rise of the creator news economy is fuelled by platforms, and it’s worth noting that many of these ‘creators’ are not producing credible, fact-based journalism.
Indeed, one of the most poignant findings in the report is that among politically right-leaning Americans, trust in news sits at just 15% – very nearly the lowest reported figure of any political demographic covered. Reuters says it is “almost certainly a consequence of direct attacks on news outlets and individual journalists, with a cumulative effect of undermining confidence in journalism overall”.
As Ray Snoddy rightly commented in his latest article: “You don’t have to be a genius to work out that there just might be a connection between those trends.”
The UK picture provides hope
However, the UK has its own perspective, often scoring either the highest or lowest percentage points in the report, which, despite the depressing global trends, gives me heart.
For example, nearly three-quarters of Brits (73%) distrust news on social media. Even more (77%) are concerned about fake news. AI chatbot use for news is the lowest among the 48 markets surveyed, at a mere 4%. Similarly, only 18% turn to content creators for news (far below the global average of 47%).
Instead, UK news websites received the highest proportion of news viewership (56%) across the media surveyed, and significantly higher than social media.
But most heartening is that trust in individual established news brands is holding up better than trust in news overall – a significant and important distinction.
We know that the loyalty people have with their own news source, which aligns to their values, matters hugely. In fact, the Reuters report finds that, among those who pay for news, the UK has the highest percentage of all markets (66%) paying via ongoing subscriptions or memberships. People care about their news brand.
Trusted sources
For me, this shows that audiences aren’t disengaging from journalism; they are choosing to align with sources they trust. That distinction matters.
It suggests that other factors are behind the erosion of trust. Perhaps it is less about journalism and more about the environments that surround it. Platforms – often unregulated and algorithmically driven – blur the line between verified reporting and unchecked content. The result is a dilution of trust that affects everything around it.
For advertisers, the implications are clear.
Brands should consider the impact that platforms like Meta and TikTok have on society and ask whether they should get the vast majority of marketing budgets.
Instead, advertisers could eek out the sources of trust that still exist and embed their brand in those media environments. It is both the right thing to do for society and commercially.
In fact, Newsworks’ Trust study found that ads in news-brand environments (vs non-news-brand sites) boosted trust perceptions for well-known brands by 1.3x and for newer niche brands by 1.8x.
Moreover, ads in high-quality, trusted environments like news brands receive stronger attention, which in turn boosts campaign metrics, including consideration and intent to purchase.
As trust fragments across platforms, the value of credible, accountable environments becomes even more important. UK news brands are one of the few places where scale, attention and trust meaningfully intersect.
For advertisers, it is simple: in a low-trust landscape, where you show up matters as much as what you say.
We’re losing trust and interest in current affairs. What should be done?
Heather Dansie is the insight director at Newsworks