Thread by @risj_oxford

Most in the UK say news media have helped them respond to #COVID19, but 35% say news coverage has made crisis worse, acc. to our new factsheet, #10 from UK COVID-19 news and info project supported by @NuffieldFound

📱Read here
reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/most-uk-say-ne…

🧶Key findings in thread

2. Despite important investigative reporting on government response, a third (35%) say they think the coronavirus situation in the UK has been made worse by how the news media has covered it.

Only 7% say the crisis has been made better by their coverage. 46% stay on the fence

3. The percentage of people who say they have used news organisations as a source of information about #COVID19 in the last week has plummeted since April.

📺 TV: -22 percentage points
📱 Online news: -17
🐦 Social media: -25
📻 Radio: -11
🗞 Print: -1

4. Only 45% of our respondents rate news organisations as relatively trustworthy sources of information about #COVID19, down from 57% in April.

-Trust in the UK government has plummeted from 67% in April to 44% in August.
-Only 22% trust politicians, 16 points down from April

5. Here's how Brits think the news media have covered the pandemic:

🦠56% say the news media have helped them understand the pandemic
😷61% that they have helped explain what they can do in response to it
🤥27% say they feel the news media have exaggerated crisis

6. People in the UK are more concerned about misinformation from the UK government (38%) & from individual politicians (37%) than from misinformation from news organisations (30%).

📌 Concerns over politicians have grown since April. Concerns over news orgs have remained stable

7. Finally, only 20% think that the coronavirus situation in the UK is heading in the right direction. 29% think the UK is on the wrong track. 45% think the picture is mixed.

📌 % of people who think the UK is on the wrong track has gone up 19 points since April.

Authored by @rasmus_kleis @antoniskalog & @dragz, this is the last factsheet from the UK #COVID19 news and info project.

📱 Read it here
reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/most-uk-say-ne…

Download a PDF version here
reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/sites/default/…

ℹ️ More info about the project here
reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/UK-COVID-19-ne…