Essential Report
Trust in News Sources
Q. Please rate your level of trust in the news and information from each source.
|
Total always/usually trustworthy |
Always trustworthy |
Usually trustworthy |
Seldom trustworthy |
I do not trust it at all |
Don’t know |
ABC TV news | 82% | 21% | 61% | 7% | 3% | 8% |
SBS TV news | 78% | 19% | 59% | 8% | 2% | 12% |
ABC radio news | 78% | 18% | 60% | 8% | 3% | 12% |
Commercial (free-to-air) TV news | 69% | 5% | 64% | 20% | 6% | 5% |
Internet news sites – e.g. newspaper sites, ABC, etc | 66% | 5% | 61% | 18% | 4% | 12% |
Newspapers | 65% | 3% | 62% | 22% | 7% | 6% |
Commercial radio news | 62% | 4% | 58% | 19% | 8% | 11% |
Pay TV news | 48% | 4% | 44% | 14% | 6% | 32% |
Internet blogs | 17% | 1% | 16% | 31% | 26% | 26% |
The most trusted news sources were ABC TV news (82%), ABC radio news (78%) and SBS TV news (78%).
The least trustworthy were internet blogs (57% seldom/no trust), newspapers (29%), commercial radio news (27%) and commercial TV news (26%).
Women were more likely than men to trust commercial TV news (75%/62%), newspapers (68%/63%) and commercial radio news (68%/55%).

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Read Essential's ongoing research on the public response to Covid-19.
Essential Report
In this week's report:
- Performance of Scott Morrison
- Performance of Anthony Albanese
- Preferred Prime Minister
- Views towards re-electing the federal Coalition government
- Party trust to handle issues
- Importance of Australia’s international reputation
- Scott Morrison’s impact on Australia’s international reputation
- Views towards Australia’s international reputation
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