Trust in NZ news edges up, but nearly four in five still avoid it - survey

New Zealanders' trust in the news has risen for the first time in six years, an AUT survey suggests – but a record 78% say they still actively avoid the news to some degree.

The findings come from the seventh annual Trust in News survey, released today, which has been attracting growing attention from the Government and media industry and is one of several barometers of public confidence in news.

The survey, carried out by an online market research firm, found 37% of about 1000 respondents said they trusted "most of the news most of the time", up from 32% in 2025 — the first increase since tracking began in 2020, when trust had sat at 53%.

Co-author and AUT associate professor Merja Myllylahti said the size of the rebound had surprised her and pointed to two factors she believed were driving it: growing distance from the Covid-19 era, and the sheer volume of "AI slop" flooding social media timelines.

"What we see from the comments coming from those who participated in the survey is that they see so much misinformation," she said.

"The vast amount of AI slop and fake news – people don't quite know what to trust, and then we kind of see that revival of people [thinking], 'OK, journalists are doing their job'."

Though at 37% it remained below the international average of 40% recorded in the most recent Reuters Digital News Report.

RNZ topped the trust rankings at 6.2 out of 10, ahead of the Otago Daily Times at second and TVNZ at third. Trust improved across all 18 brands surveyed.

Myllylahti said there was now greater distance from the pandemic period, when contested public health messaging had fuelled anti-media sentiment.

Politicians had also "kind of calmed down" in their attacks on the media, she suggested.

AUT senior lecturer Greg Treadwell said in a statement that while trust levels remained "alarmingly low", results showed many valued professional journalism and respondents wanted to push back against online narratives that the media could not be trusted.

Myllylahti said: "There were comments like, 'at least the journalists are verifying the information [and] can be held accountable for their actions if they defame someone.'

"We got very specific comments which demonstrate that people are, you know, turning to the news as a source."

But she was clear about the study's limitations — it captured how people perceived the news, not necessarily how they consumed it.

"We don't exactly know what people are actually doing ... We found that people actually consume news outlets they say they don't trust," she said of results from previous years.

"It's really difficult for us to know based on this survey how strong that link between the consumption and the trust really is."

Overall trust in news on social media also apparently climbed, rising from 13% to 17%.

Myllylahti said the increase was interesting given the sentiments expressed about online misinformation but could be linked to rising overall news consumption on social media, which was now almost level with television as a main news source in the survey.

Additionally, trust in the news people consumed themselves was 50%, up from 45%.

Despite the improvement in trust, the proportion of New Zealanders actively avoiding news rose five per centage points to 78% – the highest level since the survey began.

Approximately 53% of respondents said they avoided the news because it negatively affected their mood, while 34% said the volume of news wore them out.

New Zealand's rate of news avoidance remains far above the international average of 39% recorded in the most recent Reuters report.

The report also found the proportion of Kiwis comfortable with artificial intelligence-produced news edged up from 8% to 11%.

Around 60% remained uncomfortable with news produced mostly by AI, while about 12% of said they had used ChatGPT as a source of news.

The online survey of 1040 adults was conducted by Horizon Research in February and is one of several measures of trust used by Government and the industry.

In recent years the AUT survey has drawn heightened focus.

Media Minister Paul Goldsmith cited its findings alongside other data to both RNZ and TVNZ last year, pressing the public broadcasters to set "ambitious targets" for themselves to tackle "significant concern" over Kiwis' trust in news.

Both broadcasters have written trust targets into their performance expectations.

Myllylahti said the report had become "much more impactful" than the researchers had anticipated when they began in 2020.

"There were a lot of people in the media who didn't like that we did this survey [when we started it], and we were told 'why are you investigating this, it is harming us'," she said.

"Now they actually kind of, you know, are asking to be included in it."

A briefing to Goldsmith last May devoted eight pages to trust in New Zealand media, drawing heavily on the AUT researchers' findings to brief the media minister.

TVNZ had written the AUT survey into its statement of performance expectations alongside other metrics, including the Kantar reputation index and NZ On Air audience research. RNZ had set its own trust targets, including an internal goal of 60% of Kiwis agreeing it could be trusted — measured against a Verian survey.

Myllylahti said the Journalism, Media and Democracy Research Centre, which commissioned the survey, received no government funding and operated on a small AUT research budget to collect data — a point she was keen to make clear.

Asked whether she was comfortable with ministers using the survey data to help set expectations for Crown-owned broadcasters, Myllylahti said she did not think it was the role of ministers to set specific trust targets for media organisations.

"I don't think the Government should give specific numbers or targets to any media organisation. I don't think it's their role and I don't think they do," she said.

The survey had a margin of error of +/-3%. Myllylahti said the methodology was similar and that results were broadly aligned with other surveys on institutional trust.

She opined the research had been used to discredit the media by some, but said the centre had no control over how its findings were used once released.