The Otago Daily Times proudly proclaims its leading status in the AUT's annual Trust in News in Aoteroa New Zealand. Photo: Otago Daily Times
The annual Trust in News in Aotearoa New Zealand report is awaited with trepidation in our media.
The first survey from the Auckland University of Technology (AUT) Centre for Journalism, Media and Democracy (CJMAD) in 2020 found 53 percent of 1000 adult New Zealanders trusted most of the news most of the time - roughly in line with the global average.
But it then went downhill fast, plunging 20 percent in five years.
The last AUT survey showed overall trust fell 9 percent in one year, meaning just one in three said they trusted most of the news most of the time in 2024.
The slump has become a stick used by foes to beat the media.
Billboards for the alternative platform Reality Check Radio proclaim "only a third of Kiwis trust the media."
But the survey offers validation for others.
The Otago Daily Times has a banner on the front page every day telling readers it's "New Zealand's Most trusted News Brand".
Latest results
The 2025 survey results out today record another drop - but just a small one this time: 32 percent of respondents now trust the news in general.
It's the same low level the Reuters Institute recorded in the US last year. And it could be worse - only 23 percent trust the news in Hungary and Greece, and the number of Argentinians interested in news has fallen by 32 percent since 2017.
The CJMAD bases its survey on the annual Reuters Institute Digital News Report carried out in 47 countries which collectively account for half of the world's population - but excluding New Zealand.
But this year, 45 percent of New Zealanders surveyed said they trust the news they choose themselves - the same result as last year.
Still not great, but the slump has at least stalled.
Two thirds of those surveyed said they used Stuff once or more per week for news. Sixty-two percent used TVNZ and 60 percent cited the New Zealand Herald. RNZ was cited as a source by 41 percent.
Newsroom was cited by 34 percent of those surveyed, a surprising result for the smaller online-only outfit.
Who trusts whom the most?
RNZ was ranked the most-trusted of 17 national and local outlets by a small margin, with a mean score of 6.0 out of ten. The Otago Daily Times scored 5.9 and TVNZ and NBR were not far behind.
Trust in all news brands improved from 2024 levels and some of the leaps were startling.
Mean trust scores for Whakaata Māori, iwi radio, RNZ and The Spinoff were all up by 15 to 24 percent on the 2024 results (though the small numbers of people citing some outlets may make the margin of error high).
"The AUT report aligns with our own research which has seen trust in RNZ increasing over the last year" RNZ chief executive Paul Thompson said in a statement.
"This ... reflects RNZ's strategic focus to improve trust through initiatives that reinforce our role to serve the public ... reliable and trustworthy information."
"We've committed to publishing a review of an aspect of our editorial policy each year and established a new board committee focused on editorial policy and quality."
Some of RNZ's responses were prompted by an independent review of RNZ's editorial practices after the 'Russia editing scandal' in 2023, sparked by one journalists' inappropriate amendments to online international news stories.
The review also said RNZ's response "contributed to public alarm and reputational damage," citing Thompson's own description of "pro-Kremlin garbage."
RNZ accepted and enacted the review's recommendations for greater oversight and enforcement of standards.
TVNZ also responded by reviewing its editorial controls in late 2023, finding they were "robust and fit for purpose" - but potential vulnerabilities were identified.
The proportions of those who trust and don’t trust each brand Photo: JMAD trust reports
Has the trust slump really stalled?
Dr Merja Myllylahti and Dr Greg Treadwell from the AUT's Centre for Journalism, Media and Democracy. Photo: RNZ / Jeremy Ansell
"We were really hoping we have seen the bottom of it. We didn't expect this, but we have seen from the Reuters report that trust has stabilised internationally," said AUT's Dr Merja Myllylahti, co-author of the report.
"I think the news organisations are more transparent, more open and telling us more about their mistakes - and that adds to the trust perhaps," Myllylahti told Mediawatch.
"The other thing is we have moved past the Covid times and attacks against the legacy media have toned down," she said.
"We won't know if trust has really stabilised until we do another report or two," Dr Greg Treadwell - the other co-author - told Mediawatch.
"There's a lot of things contributing to this. The Covid pandemic and all the sort of half-truths and lies that were told about the media ... are receding. And I think maybe the media's also done a really good job since trust became a really prevalent issue," Treadwell said.
"[News organisations] have put trust at the heart of the operations and we see more stories explaining how news works. I think this is critical because transparency isn't just about fessing up to your mistakes. It's about letting the audience see how news is created."
"When the trust was dropping dramatically, we also saw the double-digit numbers for that. So I think we're just now recovering towards the way they were when we started the report in 2020," Myllylahti said.
However, the overall trust in news was much much higher in 2020 (53 percent) and so were the individual trust scores for media brands.
And if trust in all the individual news brands - big and small, local and national - is up significantly across the board this year, why is overall trust in news still so low?
More people consume certain news brands than actually trust them
Among the paradoxes in the 2025 report, "the negativity of news is not a major concern for people in regard to the news consumption of particular news brands".
But 73 percent avoided the news some of the time, and many cited negative or depressing news as a reason.
Can both things be true?
"There are a lot of paradoxes that are emerging as our research deepens - and that's one of them," Treadwell said.
"Negativity of news is not a major concern for trust - so it can be a negative story that people trust entirely to be accurate.
"But negativity contributes strongly to the sense of the overwhelming nature of news. While they're connected, news avoidance and news mistrust are two separate things.
"That explains actually why you also have the finding that more people consume certain news brands than actually trust them. If you didn't read it, you wouldn't know whether you trusted it or not," Treadwell pointed out.
Mistrust high on the right - and among the old
When people were asked if they trusted specific news publishers, between 20 and 30 percent said they don't trust each one of them.
"I think there is a level of unshakeable mistrust - and you can also see that represented in people's political leanings. For the first time this year we asked our respondents who they voted for at the 2023 general election. The right and the centre-right are more likely to mistrust the media."
Focus groups conducted last year with those who mistrusted the news gave them important context, Treadwell said.
"They really reflected more people's thinking at this time last year and I think it's this year that we've seen these changes."
The results were also broken down by age group, which showed the most prevalent mistrust of the news was among 55 to 64 year olds, even though they were much less likely to pay for it and subscribe.
"That's perhaps surprising but I think they feel that something is missing for them," Myllylahti said.
"But when conducting those focus groups a lot of that age group really wanted more in-depth and international news. They say they go to the New York Times or Guardian or Al Jazeera or whatever," she said.
"No doubt from that focus group that there was a very strong rejection of New Zealand media and a sort of nostalgic reach for 'quality journalism,'" Treadwell said.
"Older people seem to feel the media ain't what it used to be - and younger people don't know what it used to be."
Recorded trust was strongest among the younger groups - 18 to 24 and 25 to 34 - who were also much more likely to use free sources such as social media for news.
Another paradox here: while use of social media for news was up in the latest AUT survey, it was rated as less trustworthy.
Fifty-eight percent said social media platforms were their first choice for news this year - up from 53 percent in 2024.
Forty-three percent of respondents used YouTube - up from 33 percent last year. Thirty-nine percent of New Zealanders used Instagram as a news source and 17 percent picked Tik Tok.
News fatigue up, 1 in 3 'worn out'
Thirty-four percent of New Zealanders in the AUT survey said they were "worn out" by the news - and four in 10 of the female respondents said so.
But they were not alone. The Reuters Institute survey last year found even greater proportions of Germans, British, Americans, Spanish and French people were worn out by the news in 2024.
However, when asked if they actively avoid news at least some of the time, 73 percent of New Zealanders said they do. That was much higher than the Reuters Institute 2024 survey's international average of just 39 percent.
And on top of all that a whopping 93 percent of respondents here also expressed concern about poor journalism, including factual errors, clickbait, and bias.
Interest remains high - as does AI scepticism
Sixty percent expressed discomfort with the use of artificial intelligence (AI) for news production.
The New Zealand Herald used it to write editorials last year without disclosing that to readers, eventually admitting to "a lack of rigour" enforcing its own policy.
In February, Stuff quietly changed its policy of always declaring the use of AI tools.
Only 8 percent of the AUT survey's respondents were comfortable with news produced "mostly by AI with some human oversight."
That mirrors the Reuters Institute's international results. "Not OK, computer" was how it summed up public scepticism about that in its first report.
News turns us on - even if we turn it off?
In spite of increasing news weariness, a healthy 69 percent of New Zealanders surveyed by AUT this year were 'interested' or 'extremely interested' in news, though that was down by 3 percent on 2024.
Only 8 percent had no interest in news at all.
The AUT survey also found more than seven out of ten people were interested in local news, international news and news about politics.
But only about one in five said they were interested in news about entertainment, celebrities - and only a quarter cared about 'fun news'.
"These three things are colliding - a really high interest in news, a really strong sense of being overwhelmed by it and really low levels of trust in news," Treadwell told Mediawatch.
"We have New Zealanders who really want to be informed but feel overwhelmed when they are - and then start avoiding it. And then they go back to it again.
"When we're asked about news avoidance, we're not asking if you find yourself actively avoiding the news to some extent. And a lot of us do that."
"As we go into this, as we get deeper into this, it becomes more complex and not more easy. But things are coming out of this that give us a clearer picture of what's really going on."
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