What factors affect people’s willingness to trust the news?

Posted on by Isabelle Justice

Written by Marica Davis, Emily Manwaring, Isabelle Justice, Carly Amon, and Dallin Jenkins

Trustworthy news appears to be a thing of the past. With how easy technology has made it to share information, journalism as a whole seems to be questioned by the public. However, this may not be an accurate narrative.

A BYU-Idaho survey1 discussed what factors affect people’s willingness to trust the news and how this affects on-campus students. Looking closely into the data, 6 questions arose and their implications were studied.

Question 1

The first question tackled was: Does the frequency of news consumption correlate to more trust in the news? When the data was placed, there was a clear relationship between news consumption and trust. The more news is consumed, the more trust a viewer has for it. 

In a BYU-Idaho context, this makes sense. When students are researching a political topic, the use of news is one way to find more information on these issues. The journalists and guests on the news have a sense of knowledgeability that is impressionable to viewers. If an individual becomes available and is heavily influenced by constant news exposure, they grow a dependency according to the data. As this continues, they begin to see and trust what they want to hear.

Question 2

The next question was: Do political leanings affect people’s trust in the news? Knowing where someone stands politically can affect their interpretation and feelings toward the news. This is proved by the data. From the data in the graph below, we can infer that the political leanings are consistently varied, with the lowest percentage at 3%, the highest percentage at 100%, and no clear trend.

That being said, those who trust the news are not led to trust the news more or less depending on their political standing. In a study written by Y. Tsfati2, it states that “the more one consumes news and public affairs information, the more likely one is to feel confident in their ability to understand politics.” This point is also proved by the data.

Question 3

The third question addressed was: Does enjoyment of the news affect perceived reliability? The numbers of a BYU-I survey were looked at closely to find the answer. The results of those who said they enjoyed consuming the news were addressed, but also those who felt the news media understood them. The average answer of those who thought the news understood them was 5.2 (out of 10). On the other hand, the answer of those who enjoyed the news was only 4.6 (out of 10).  

From this, we can see that just because people may feel that they are understood doesn’t mean they enjoy what they are being fed as news. In general, people didn’t trust the news. The average answer was a low 33.1 (out of 100) in whether they trusted the news. From this, we learn that enjoyment of the news doesn’t seem to affect reliability as much as feeling understood by the news media.

Question 4

Then the fourth question: Does actively searching for news effect perceived reliability? This seemed to be contradictory at first, but after looking at the numbers from a BYU-I Survey, it does seem to affect the way people view the news, but in the negative. When people were passively intaking news, they seemed to be more apathetic with what they were reading.

  

As you can see from the chart, a good majority of the people were NOT actively looking for their news, and most people who responded did not trust the news in general. Those that were actively looking for news seemed to believe what they were reading more readily than those that stumbled on it via social media, etc… In general, the people looking for their news tended to trust what they were reading more than those that passively found it. 

Question 5

The fifth question was: If people think the government has a hand in the news, do they trust it less? While one may think that people deem the news to be more reliable when the government stays out of the source, the data in this study at BYU-Idaho says otherwise. When asked if the government funds much of the news, students’ answers were nearly split even, favoring the affirmative answer. 

In addition, those who said that the government does fund much of the news responded with an average rating of trust of 30/100. Those who responded that the government does not fund much of the news, also provided a similar average rating of trust, 37/100. This insinuates that they each have only about 33% trust in the news, which means that 67% of their sentiment toward the news is distrust.

Seeing as the trust on both sides of the question is very low, the instance of whether or not the government funds the news, does not seem to have any bearing on how much BYU–Idaho students trust the news.

Question 6

The next question added a new dimension to this topic, which was: Which programs are the most trusted and least trusted? For BYU-Idaho students, the top three viewed news sources were the Huffington Post, now known as the HuffPost, CNN, and the Wallstreet Journal. If we infer that perceived news viewership correlates to viewership trust, the chart below would be correct. 

These results are surprising, especially based on BYU-Idaho’s “conservative” stereotype3. While BYU-Idaho is a church school and Latter-day Saints are a mostly conservative group, the most trusted news sources were CNN and HuffPost which are very left-leaning. 

For a deeper context, the average accuracy for news sources is 61.9%. The HuffPost, has 54.6% accuracy4. CNN has a 53.3% accuracy5 and the Washington Post6 has 64.4% accuracy. HuffPost and CNN are considered left-biased sources, while the Washington Post has an above-average grade and a moderate right bias.

The news sources with the least perceived viewing were Vogue, Vox, and The Atlantic also. Vogue7 had a 39.86 Reliability Score and is left-biased. Vox8 had a high accuracy at 74.2% and is left-biased. The Atlantic9 had a 67.3% accuracy and is left-biased. This small data sample shows little correlation between low news reliability and low perceived viewership levels.

Our Findings

In conclusion, there is overall low trust in the news, whether or not the government is involved. There are varying levels of political views at BYU-Idaho and the more news is consumed, the more it is trusted. Most viewed news sources are left-leaning and have low accuracy scores. 

Footnotes

  1.  BYU-Idaho. (2016). News Media Trust Survey Results. Retrieved 2022, from https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/e/2PACX-1vSytSCV-Dg4QNK-eS4W-t8UTdspXNrCZ84VIT6FygHHVZ1jcb_v3O7rPv3mD4F2gg/pubhtml
  2.  Tsfati, Y. (2002). The consequences of mistrust in the news media: Media skepticism as a moderator in media effects and as a factor influencing news media exposure (Order No. 3043970). Available from ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global. (305508791). Retrieved from https://byui.idm.oclc.org/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/dissertations-theses/consequences-mistrust-news-media-skepticism-as/docview/305508791/se-2
  3.  Most conservative colleges in America. Niche. (n.d.). Retrieved December 10, 2022, from https://www.niche.com/colleges/search/most-conservative-colleges/
  4. Barak, P. byG. (2022, September 20). Is Huffpost Reliable? The Factual | Blog. Retrieved December 10, 2022, from https://www.thefactual.com/blog/is-huffpost-a-reliable-news-source/ 
  5.  Meylan, P. byP. (2022, January 7). Is CNN reliable? The Factual | Blog. Retrieved December 10, 2022, from https://www.thefactual.com/blog/cnn-credible-trustworthy-news/
  6.  Meylan, P. byP. (2021, December 24). Is The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) conservative? The Factual | Blog. Retrieved December 10, 2022, from https://www.thefactual.com/blog/is-the-wall-street-journal-wsj-conservative/
  7. Designer, W. (2022, July 25). Vogue bias and reliability. Ad Fontes Media. Retrieved December 10, 2022, from https://adfontesmedia.com/vogue-bias-and-reliability/
  8.  Meylan, P. byP. (2022, September 23). Is Vox reliable? . The Factual | Blog. Retrieved December 10, 2022, from https://www.thefactual.com/blog/is-vox-reliable/ 
  9.  Umapathy, P. byV. (2022, September 20). How biased is the Atlantic ? The Factual | Blog. Retrieved December 10, 2022, from https://www.thefactual.com/blog/how-biased-is-the-atlantic/

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