Media Trust Still Rock-Bottom
The latest 2026 Quality of Life survey is out – and it confirms the bad news for the news media. Not only do we distrust the media, but they’re not winning back any of that lost trust.
Transcript:
The latest 2026 Quality of Life survey is out – and it confirms the bad news for the news media.
Not only do we distrust the media, but they’re not winning back any of that lost trust
The 2026 Quality of Life survey is a collaborative local government research project which is run by Ipsos – a large international polling company.
The primary objective of the survey is to measure residents’ perceptions of aspects of living in larger urban areas. The survey provides data for councils to use as part of their planning.
But it also contributes to public knowledge and research on quality-of-life issues in New Zealand.
The Quality of Life survey was first conducted in 2003, repeated in 2004, and has been undertaken every 2 years since. The number of participating councils has varied each time. Nine councils participated in the 2024 Quality of Life survey and seven in the latest. In 2026, Christchurch City Council did not participate.
So the seven were ▪ Auckland Council ▪ Hamilton City Council ▪ Tauranga City Council ▪ Hutt City Council ▪ Porirua City Council ▪ Wellington City Council ▪ Dunedin City Council.
In 2026, a total of 5725 respondents aged 18 years and over completed the Quality of Life survey – so that’s a significant survey.
What is noteworthy is that it doesn’t include a lot of more rural areas in NZ – it’s the major cities – so I would say that this survey would already be slightly left-bias or liberal-bias – which actually makes the results even more astounding.
Now just a quick recap on trust in media
A quick recap…
In the recent 2026 global survey across 29 countries by the Edelman Trust Barometer, trust in media has slightly increased worldwide. 2% points. Blue is trust, red is distrust, grey is neutral.
For NZ specifically, in 2023, trust in NZ media was sitting at 41%. But worldwide, it averaged 50% – so we’re disproportionately low. It then plummeted to 35% last year – from 41% two years before but has had a rebound up to 39. Cause for celebration? It’s still a net loss of 2% from two years before.
Here’s the “global” rate again for trust in media. Increase of 4 points since 2023. But NZ has had a net LOSS of 2% over the same period.
I’ve circled where NZ would sit with its score of 39. 2nd to bottom equal with the UK tabloids including the BBC, The Guardian, The Sun and the Daily Mirror.
In a statement, Acumen chief executive Adelle Keely said media could “Write accurate headlines instead of exaggerated or fear-inducing ones”; and “Dedicate equal time and coverage to different viewpoints on big issues”.
Good thinking.
A 2024 survey by academics from Victoria University and University of Otago reported that 60% of survey participants reported they sometimes, often, or almost always avoid the news. But this total of 60% is higher than any other national figure reported in other studies. The average news avoidance across the 46 countries surveyed by Reuters was 32.6%. The average. We’re almost double that! Yes – we have some of the highest rates of news avoidance in the world.
Also at the end of 2024, the Human Rights Commission released (Horizon) research on Treaty trust, and who do we trust and not trust for reliable information on the Treaty of Waitangi and the associated Treaty Principles Bill. They surveyed at the end of 2023 and then again at the end of 2024 in the heat of the Treaty Principles Bill being introduced into Parliament and the associated Hikoi.
Only 13% – one three – 13% of us trusted English-language news media to provide us with accurate information about the Treaty. It’s 16% for Maori-language news media.
So that means that 87% of us are suspicious of the information we’re receiving from the news media.
The most recent measure of trust was released in April
It’s the Trust in News in Aotearoa New Zealand report produced by the AUT research centre for Journalism, Media and Democracy (JMAD) in collaboration with the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism – a survey of 47 countries.
In 2020, 53% of New Zealanders trusted news in general. That figure is now at 37%. A slight improvement from the low of 32%. A similar rise to what was shown in the Edelman report I referred to at the start.
But still a 16% percentage point drop from 2020 when the surveys started.
Just over 1 in 3 NZ’ers trust “most of the news most of the time”. So that’s not even “fully trust”.
The international average is 40% – so we’re below average.
BUT “news avoidance” had increased significantly – up five percentage points to 78%. News avoidance is classified as people avoiding the news “to some degree (sometimes/ occasionally/often)”.
Almost four out of five of us are avoiding the news.
Approximately 22% said they never avoid the news, which is a significant drop from 27% in 2025.
So what did the 2026 Quality of Life survey show? Did it show an increase in trust that the media could crow about?
Well, the fact that this is probably the first you’ve heard about this latest survey – and the media’s silence on it – is probably a big hint about what it shows eh
Respondents were asked to rate their general level of trust in New Zealand’s institutions. The police saw the highest level of trust among the institutions listed, with 66% of respondents saying they trust them. The media has the lowest level of trust, with 27% of respondents expressing trust in it, while almost half 46% said they do not. The other 27% were sort of in the middle. Maybe they’re on TikTok or Instagram instead.
But charteddaily – a very handy account on X which does some great analysis – has combined the results. It doesn’t look good for the media, does it.
Despite claims that media were rebuilding trust, this latest survey debunks that claim.
The media remained the least trusted institution in New Zealand.
Its 27% score is unchanged from 2024.
But trust rose 5 points for both the public education system (to 55%) and local govt (to 33%) and rose 2 points for central government – yes, trust in the government rose!
The police suffered a 2 point drop but I don’t think anybody would be surprised by that finding, given the events of the past 12-24 months.
Broken down by council, Wellingtonians were the least likely to distrust the media, while Tauranga residents were the most likely to distrust it.
But that trust in media result?
One in four of us have a decent level of trust in the media. Three in four don’t.
Perhaps the media could adopt the Labour election slogan for this year – Better Starts Now.
The problem is that I’m not sure the media want to drop the narratives and the bias and simply report the news in a non-partisan way.
They will go down kicking and screaming and blaming everyone else including misinformation, disinformation and social media – but they’ll only have themselves to blame.
