Despite a global decline in trust in the media over the last decade, a new report has found that Nigerians’ level of trust in news is increasing.
The Digital News Report, published by the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, said 68 per cent of Nigerians still trust the media, which is the highest in the world. Nigeria is followed by Finland, where 67 per cent trust in the media. Citizens of two European countries, Hungary and Greece, have the lowest trust in the media (22 per cent).
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The research said Nigerians’ trust in the news has increased significantly since 2021, alongside some recent improvements in the press freedom index scores from RSF.
“68 per cent of Nigerian audiences remain highly interested in news and despite – or perhaps because of – the challenges posed by misinformation and press freedom,” the report said.
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Trust ranges from 68 per cent in Nigeria and 67 per cent in Finland to 22 per cent in Hungary and Greece. The UK has seen a particularly steep 16-point decline since 2015 to just 35 per cent, the report said.
However, global trust in news averaged at 40 per cent for three consecutive years, the report said.
The Reuters Institute published its 14th annual Digital News Report on Tuesday, offering ground-breaking insight into the trends shaping newsroom strategy, audience behaviour and tech disruption.
The Digital News Report is based on an online survey of almost 100,000 people in 48 markets, including Nigeria.
It found that 40 per cent of people worldwide now sometimes or often avoid news, matching the highest level ever recorded and up from 29 per cent in 2017.
“The reasons are universal: negative mood impact (39 per cent), feeling overwhelmed (31 per cent), too much conflict coverage (30 per cent), and powerlessness to act (20 per cent).”
Younger audiences increasingly find news “too hard to understand,” while AI-generated content adds to concerns about information authenticity and overload, the report said.
The report acknowledged the resilience of Nigerian journalists amidst rising threats. Press freedom in Nigeria remains under serious threat, with an alarming increase in attacks on journalists.
The study found that high trust levels often coexist with lower levels of press freedom.
During the 2024 #EndBadGovernance protests, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) recorded 56 cases of journalists being assaulted or detained by security agencies. The Nigerian Guild of Editors (NGE) and the Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP) have since raised the alarm, calling for urgent international intervention to safeguard press freedom and protect journalists from threats.
When verifying potentially false information, the report said, audiences increasingly use multiple sources including social media and AI chatbots alongside traditional outlets, indicating a “flatter” trust hierarchy.
“Low trust also creates opportunities for alternative voices but undermines democracy’s information infrastructure,” the report said.
“Publishers need radical transparency and must prove value through accuracy, impartiality, and original reporting – though in polarised societies, these concepts themselves are contested.”
At least 94 per cent of a sampled group of Nigerians rely on any online medium as their main source of news, the report found.
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Some 79 per cent rely on social media as their primary source of news, the report said, adding that 65 per cent of respondents source news on TV while only 34 per cent of the sampled audience rely on print media for news.
Despite their popularity, online influencers and personalities are seen as the biggest sources of false or misleading information worldwide, along with politicians, the report found.
About 58 per cent of Nigerians and 59 per cent of Kenyans said they remained concerned about influencers’ ability to tell what is true from what is false when it comes to news online
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