Report: U.K. Trust in Media Hurt by Phone-Hacking Scandal

LONDON: The U.K. public finds TV to be the most trusted media outlet, according to a new YouGov survey commissioned by PBS, which also found that more than half of British respondents say the phone-hacking scandal has damaged their trust in newspapers.

In the U.K., 64 percent of those surveyed reported TV as the most trusted media outlet, while 58 percent said the same about radio. Websites saw a particularly high level of trust (55 percent), with newspapers being cited by 38 percent and magazines by 25 percent. The PBS UK Trust Report found that 58 percent say the recent phone-hacking scandal reduced their level of trust in the newspaper industry, while 51 percent say it has reduced their trust in the British media as a whole. Three in every four people (74 percent) in the U.K. think media outlets sometimes or frequently lie to their audiences. More than half (55 percent) report that the content in the U.K. media has been dumbed down in recent years.

Of U.K. adults, 21 percent say they never trust the U.S. media in terms of its content, while only 7 percent of the U.S. public say they never trust the U.K. media.

In the U.S., according to the PBS USA Trust Report, newspapers are viewed as the most trustworthy by 44 percent of respondents. TV and magazines both garnered 42 percent.

Looking ahead at future trust, TV is said to be the medium that both the U.K. (35 percent) and U.S. (41 percent) will go to more in 2012 to keep up with current affairs.  One in 5 (17 percent) of those in the U.K. say they will be less likely to look to newspapers for their current-affairs content in 2012.

Richard Kingsbury, PBS’s general manager for the U.K., said: "We wanted to understand the issue of trust in the media given that we are launching America’s most trusted broadcaster in the U.K. It is salutary how public trust has been corroded across all media and yet encouraging that television still enjoys a high level of trust."