NZ News Media Accountability

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

7 October 2009

NZ News Media Accountability

One in four (25%) New Zealanders say the country’s media are inaccurate reporting the news, almost one-third (30%) say they are one-sided in presenting the news, and half (50%) say the media are unwilling to admit to mistakes.

These are findings from UMR Research’s most recent survey which has surveyed a representative sample of New Zealanders about their views on the media .

“The media play a critical role in telling us what’s going on, so we measured three key aspects of the way they go about doing that – accuracy, balance and willingness to admit to mistakes,” a UMR Executive Director Tim Grafton said.

“What was of most concern was how few people said the media was accurate and balanced in it news reporting. Only 35% said the media was accurate, 30% said the news was balanced and 27% said the media was willing to admit to mistakes,” Mr. Grafton said.

Respondents were asked to rate accuracy on a 1-5 scale where 1 meant ‘very accurate’ and 5 meant ‘very inaccurate’, balance on a similar scale where 1 meant ‘very balanced’ and 5 ‘very one-sided’, and willingness to admit mistakes where 1 meant ‘very willing’ and 5 meant ‘not willing at all.’ Those who gave a 1+2 rating were deemed to rate the media as accurate, balanced or willing to admit to mistakes and those who rated 4+5 were deemed to rate the media as inaccurate, one-sided or unwilling to admit to mistakes.

There is a general pattern that the older people are the less accurate or balanced they say the news is. Also, men (51%) are significantly more likely to say the media is unwilling to admit to mistakes than women (43%).

“The results do not come as a great surprise as other research we do each year shows that the media fare poorly in the confidence people have across a range of institutions,” he said.

Perceptions_of_the_NZ_Media_Sept09.pdf

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