The British public are more inclined to trust what they read on social media websites such as Twitter and Facebook than anything published in tabloid newspapers, according to a study by Edelman.
An overwhelming 68 per cent of people asked said they didn’t trust red top newspapers such as the Sun to “do what is right”. Social media fared better, with 56 per cent of the study group claiming they didn’t trust popular social networking sites.
The online survey of 2,101 UK adults also suggests that television and radio news is the UK public’s most trusted source of news, with 58 per cent of those asked saying they had a degree of trust in what they heard on the likes of the BBC and Sky News.
Mid-market papers such as the Daily Mail and Daily Express sit middle of the pack, sandwiched between the more trusted online news sources and lesser-trusted social media outlets. 26 per cent of respondents said they trust these kind of newspapers, a statistic likely to raise the eyebrows of the team behind Tabloid Watch – which spends most of its time pointing out the factual errors rife in those papers.
(Source: MediaGuardian)
