Centrist: How much is framing versus misinformation fuelling media distrust?

Is it really about trust, or is it about framing?

Each year, surveys show media trust falling. Commentators blame social media or disinformation. But perhaps the public isn’t rejecting facts. Maybe they’re rejecting how those facts are framed.

“Framing” is the editorial layer added to facts. Which details are spotlighted, which are buried, and what tone guides interpretation? Readers know who the prime minister is. What drives disengagement is the slant: whether stories are cast as triumphs, failures, or excuses.

Ele Ludemann: Where’s the balance?

The Opposition, their allies and most of the media have seized on changes to improve pay equity legislation as a stick with which to beat the government.

News reports repeated speeches by opposition MPs and quoted union representatives and others who wouldn’t support anything the government does.

Peter Williams: Trust in the Media is still dropping

Would ownership or management changes make a difference?

Only five short years ago over half of us said we trusted the media. That was 2020 in what was the first of the now annual AUT Journalism, Media and Democracy Centre surveys.

The baseline number that year was 53 percent, hardly a glowing endorsement of the country’s news industry.

JC: Media Still Not to Be Trusted

The 2025 AUT Trust in Journalism Survey has been released and it has once again found trust in the media is at an all-time low. This year it has fallen a percentage point from last year: 32 to 31. When the trust is already very low a huge drop is not to be expected but again, there has been no improvement in how people view the news and the outlets that produce it.

Mike’s Minute: A good example of why people don’t trust the media

I have a good example as to why so many people don’t trust the media.

Like most things it's got complicated and a lot of it is fuelled by emotion.

So a simple survey, the likes of which was published by AUT over the weekend, can never come close to capturing exactly what the relationship between the industry and the punter really is.

David Farrar: 2025 Trust in Journalism survey

The 2025 AUT Trust in Journalism Survey has just been released. Key aspects are:

Bob Jones: Political Journalists

The most futile job in New Zealand right now is that of a political columnist. With four weeks to go to the election, they pretend the outcome is uncertain when they know full well the election is done and dusted. That’s because this is easily the most unpopular post-war government and they’re about to pay the price and be decimated, as I forecast on this Blog 18 months ago. But instead of saying so and writing about relevant things such as likely cabinet position allocations, or policy issues instead they moan that Luxon is boring and such-like trivia.