The Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism‘s annual Digital News Report for 2022 is out. The data-heavy report is full of findings about how and where news is consumed. The data points that struck Guido hardest were the loss of trust in BBC News. It has fallen 20 points in the last five years, from 75% to 55%. Equally telling is the proportion who say they distrust the BBC, which has more than doubled from 11% to 26%. This the Reuters Institute says is because
“The majority of these are from the political right, echoing criticism from Boris Johnson’s government about an alleged anti-Brexit and liberal bias, but we also find that low trust in the BBC also comes from those who are less interested in news altogether. … Declining trust is a particular challenge for public media organisations, as they try to fulfil their mission to appeal to all audiences.”
As the BBC becomes a cultural pump for the woke agenda dressed up as entertainment, it loses legitimacy and weakens the case for universal funding. If it dismays a sizeable section of the population the case for moving to a subscription model funded by consenting viewers becomes overwhelmingly stronger. No doubt leftie metropolitan types will point out that the least trusting of the BBC are Brexit-backing Tory blokes without degrees in media studies, so it doesn’t matter. It does because they are forced to pay a television tax to fund an organisation that despises them, a situation which cannot prevail for much longer…
A YouGov poll of 2,823 people conducted last week for the Oxford Reuters Institute at the University of Oxford, asked
Do you think each of the following is doing a good job or a bad job in responding to the coronavirus pandemic?
A majority say the UK government is doing a good job (54%) and more people think that the Conservative Party on 42% is doing a better job than news organisations trailing on 37%. Way behind the Labour Party on 15% is not so well perceived. It would appear that the elements of the media that have set themselves up as the opposition, are losing…
An absolute classic of the #DespiteBrexit genre from Reuters today. You just have admire this beauty of a headline:
They’ve certainly changed their tune from previous Reuters coverage of Brexit and the City:
Now they say those forecasts were wrong:
“London was placed first, followed by New York, Hong Kong and Singapore in the Z/Yen global financial centers index (GFCI), which ranks 92 financial centers on factors such as infrastructure and access to high quality staff. New York was 24 points behind the British capital, the biggest gap between the two since the survey started in 2007.”
Experts…
More good news: new car sales are set to reach a record high this year according to figures released by the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders. Registrations rose by 2.9 percent to 184,101 vehicles last month. Reuters reports:
“It is the first time the industry has sold more than 2.5 million vehicles in the first eleven months of the year, putting it on track to beat the 2.63 million sold last year, despite uncertainty created by Britain’s vote to leave the European Union.”
The economy is motoring #DespiteBrexit…
The Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism has a new in-depth study of British journalists out. No doubt most reports of the study will focus on the under-representation of minorities, the glass ceiling for women and ignore the finding that British journalists are more godless than most people. That’s because most journalists are lefties….
The survey asked journalists to self define their politics on a 1 to 10 scale. According to their own judgement about half of journalists take a left-of-centre political stance, with barely a quarter outing themselves as right-wing. Right-of-centre political beliefs seemingly increase with seniority:
This pattern differs somewhat between journalists of different ranks and levels of responsibility. Our survey shows that, while the proportion of journalists with a centrist political view stays fairly steady across the ranks, there is a clear increase in right-of-centre journalists in more senior roles, and a corresponding decrease in left-of-centre journalists, particularly above the rank of junior manager.
Clear thinking smarter people apparently do rise to the top in the media meritocracy. Frankly Guido is happy that most of his competitors are left-wing, it makes our output even more unique…
