#DNR21: South African media scores positively in trust stakes
The annual Reuters Digital News Report reveals trust in media up across South Africa
By Chris Roper
The Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism’s Digital News Report has been running for 10 years now, and is based on a survey of 92,000 online people in 46 media markets. This represents more than half the world’s population. In Africa, it includes South Africa, Kenya and (for the first time) Nigeria.
The first big takeaway from the 2021 report is that trust in news is up in almost all countries. Globally, trust in news has grown, on average, by six percentage points in the wake of the pandemic. 44% of people surveyed say they trust most news most of the time.
This is the start of a reversal of the downward trend we’ve seen over the last few years, a trend driven by the opportunistic use of the media as a scapegoat by politicians and others invested in diminishing the ability of the fourth estate to hold them accountable for corruption and criminality.
Nic Newman, the report’s lead author, said that “the focus on factual reporting during the Covid-19 crisis may have made the news seem more straightforward, while the story has also had the effect of squeezing out more partisan political news. This may be a temporary effect, but in almost all countries we see audiences placing a greater premium on accurate and reliable news sources.”
The trust gap between news and social media has grown, too, with only 24% saying they trust news in social media.
The global results are both an interesting snapshot of where the South African market could be headed, as well as an enlightening comparison with where we are now, although you need to do a lot of qualification. The sample groups are different, and represent different types of digital audiences. In South Africa, for instance, these data are based on a survey of English-speaking, online news users, who “are generally more affluent, younger, have higher levels of formal education, and are more likely to live in cities than the wider South African population.” But still, the report can provide some valuable insights within the constraints of the survey sample.
Finland, as was the case last year, is the country with the highest levels of overall trust at 65%. What might surprise some, though, is that the United States — on a list that includes some autocratic dictatorships dedicated to suppressing freedom of the press — has the lowest levels of trust of all 46 countries surveyed, at 29%. In Northern Europe, the UK (36%) has the lowest trust levels, in Western Europe it’s France (30%). In Southern Europe it’s Greece (32%), and in Eastern Europe, Slovakia and Hungary share last place with 30%. Taiwan (31%) and Argentina (36%) are lowest in Asia-Pacific and Latin-America. There are many ways to unpack these numbers, so I recommend reading the Reuters report in full.
In South Africa, trust in media has grown, and the country is above the global average. 52% of people surveyed say they trust the news most of the time, which is 4 percentage points up on the 2020 report. In Kenya, the figure is 61%, and in Nigeria 54%. The growth in trust in South Africa comes despite some journalism blunders in the reporting period. There could be an argument made that the transparent way that reputable media houses addressed the issues of bad journalism when they arose had the effect of educating readers on what proper, professional journalism actually is. When you read research on what news organisations need to do to keep their audiences, one thing often mentioned is that readers don’t actually know how journalism works. They have very little sight of the robust checks and balances that credible news organisations have in place, which means they judge all news by its lowest forms. When news organisations surface the bad practices of those media practitioners that deviate from the rigorous norm, they are also showcasing their own best practice.
And trust is important for many reasons. In a number of countries surveyed, “especially those with strong and independent public service media, the [Reuters] report also documents greater consumption of trusted news brands. The pattern is less clear outside Western Europe, in countries where the crisis has dominated the media agenda less, or where other political and social issues have played a bigger role.”
In South Africa, 57% of people trust news brands that they use frequently, versus the 54% that trust news in general. Our most trusted news brands are the BBC (83%) and News24 (83%), with only 7 and 8 % of people respectively saying they don’t trust them at all. eNCA is a close third at 82%, followed by SABC News (78%), Sunday Times (76%) and Mail & Guardian (75%). The Daily Maverick, a publication that continuously produces important, excellent journalism, is at 12th position out of the 15 brands surveyed, with a trust score of 66%, and with a very high percentage of respondents (23%) saying they neither trust nor distrust the site.
Concern about misinformation remains high globally, with 58% of people expressing concern about what is true or false on the internet when it comes to news. This number is much higher for African countries surveyed, with an average of 74% concerned about misinformation.
More respondents said they had seen more misinformation about coronavirus than any other subject, including politics. They expressed most concern about the role played by politicians in spreading inaccurate or misleading information about Covid-19, followed by ordinary people, activists and journalists. Concern was even higher in Brazil (41%) where President Jair Bolsonaro has made many false claims about the pandemic.
Who people are concerned about when it comes to spreading misinformation regarding Covid-19 is revealing. The global figures show that 29% are most concerned about politicians, 16% about ordinary people, 15% about activists, 11% about journalists spreading false information, and 9% about foreign governments.
Across all markets, only 25% prefer to start their news journeys with a website or app. Those aged 18–24 have an even weaker connection to traditional news sites and are almost twice as likely to prefer to access news via social media, aggregators, or mobile alerts. Facebook has become significantly less relevant for news in the last year, while WhatsApp, Instagram, TikTok, and Telegram have continued to attract more use, especially among the young.
In South Africa, the number of people who access news online (including social media) is at 91%, marginally up from 2019’s 90%. Those who read their news in print has dropped from 40% in 2019 to 32% in 2021. TV has grown from 68% to 74%, a growth echoed across a number of European countries, where the report found that “consumption of television news is significantly higher than a year ago when no restrictions on movement were in place. This is not surprising, given that so many people have been stuck at home, but has reaffirmed the importance of a medium that is accessible, easy to consume, reaches a wide range of demographics, and is mostly well trusted.”
There’s also yet another warning sign about loss of audience for traditional journalists, with the report showing how influencers play a much bigger role in TikTok, Snapchat and Instagram than in older networks like Facebook and Twitter. “Journalists have traditionally led the conversation in news-focussed Twitter but struggle to attract attention in these newer networks compared with celebrities and other personalities.” In a sense, the seismic shift from print to online that so irreparably disrupted the journalism model is being echoed by a shift from old-school social media to new, more youth-driven platforms. It’s going to be interesting to see how this plays out across categories of trust and consumption going forward, and whether we’re going to see more stories about miracle births from news organisations desperate to stay alive in challenging times.
[A shorter, but substantially similar, version of this post was originally published in the Financial Mail (June 24, 2021). Read it here]
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Code for Africa (CfA) is the continent’s largest network of civic technology and data journalism labs, with teams in 21 countries. CfA builds digital democracy solutions that give citizens unfettered access to actionable information that empowers them to make informed decisions, and that strengthens civic engagement for improved public governance and accountability. This includes building infrastructure like the continent’s largest open data portals at openAFRICA and sourceAFRICA, as well as incubating initiatives as diverse as the africanDRONE network, the PesaCheck fact-checking initiative and the sensors.AFRICA air quality sensor network.
CfA also manages the African Network of Centres for Investigative Reporting (ANCIR), which gives the continent’s best muckraking newsrooms the best possible forensic data tools, digital security and whistleblower encryption to help improve their ability to tackle crooked politicians, organised crime and predatory big business. CfA also runs one of Africa’s largest skills development initiatives for digital journalists, and seed funds cross-border collaboration.
