Some hacks got very upset a few weeks ago when a Sky/YouGov poll showed how just how low they are rated in the public’s esteem, they jumped on any poll which showed they were not entirely unloved. The trend is not the media’s friend, YouGov has been tracking attitudes to coronavirus in Britain since lockdown began on 23 March. The public initially tended to think the quality of media coverage of the coronavirus crisis was good, with 41% saying so compared to 27% who thought it was bad.

Then as they watched the evening Downing Street press conferences, sentiment started to decline, with crossover taking place on 11 Apr when 34% of people said the quality was good and 35% bad. This will be no surprise to anyone who has attended to Lobby briefings…

The view of the media has steadily got worse and by the time of the most recent tracker the proportion of the public saying the quality of media coverage has been bad has reached 48%. Just 23% now think the media are doing a good job.

To combat the prevailing “narrative of decline” monthly circulation ABC audits tended to highlight, the dead tree press have come up with the cunning idea of no longer allowing ABC to publicly report their circulations. The Telegraph Media group has pulled out of ABC altogether. These are the same people who complain about a lack of transparency from others…