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
https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/most-uk-say-news-media-have-helped-them-respond-covid-19-third-say-news-coverage-has-made-crisis

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
https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/most-uk-say-news-media-have-helped-them-respond-covid-19-third-say-news-coverage-has-made-crisis

Download a PDF version here
https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/sites/default/files/2020-08/UK%20COVID-19%20News%20and%20Information%20Project%20Factsheet%2010%20-%20FINAL.pdf

More info about the project here
https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/UK-COVID-19-news-and-information-project