A new study into the media habits of people in the age of social media has found that old school news sites and newspapers are still the most trusted source of quality news.
The study by the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism found that 40 per cent of respondents said they trusted traditional news publishers over the likes of Facebook or Google.
The study included interviews with 70,000 people from 36 countries.
Interestingly, the study also revealed that an increasing number of readers are prepared to pay for their news amid all this talk of “fake news” and the likes of Google – namely via its YouTube platform – bring busted for running advertising content against hate and extremist sites.
The study found it was the Millennials (those aged under 35) who were increasingly prepared to pay for quality journalism as they’d happily pay for online content such as Netflix or Spotify.
Americans, in the age of Trump, said they’d most likely pay for quality news.
The report noted there was “significant growth” among the Gen Ys to pay for news and that provided a “powerful corrective to the idea that younger groups are not prepared to pay for online media let alone news”.
But traditional publishers aren’t out of the woods just yet. Co-author of the report, Rasmus Kleis Nielsen, found there may be increasing suspicions around news and social media, however, traditional news sites were also viewed with suspicion.
“We find profound scepticism of news media and especially news on social media in almost every country we cover,” said Kleis Nielsen whose comments were reported on The Financial Times.
“We still see about half the population say they trust the news in some countries, especially in northern Europe, but it is clear that professional journalists, news media and technology companies are all viewed with considerable scepticism by most people in most countries,” he said.
