Journalism geared toward a younger audience seems to be in crisis, especially in the United States. With MTV News and BuzzFeed News shutting down and Vice Media declaring bankruptcy, former darlings of the new media world of the 21st century seem to be going under amid the macroeconomic turmoil caused by the last stretches of the pandemic and the war in Ukraine. As our chart based on a recent YouGov survey shows, U.S. citizens tend to rely on well-established institutions when it comes to journalism.
Topping the list with a net trust score of 53 is The Weather Channel. The publication operates weather.com and a dedicated pay television channel offering weather forecasts and weather event coverage since 1982. One of its two parent companies, The Weather Company, is co-owned by IBM since 2016. Coming in second and third are the non-commercial nonprofit Public Service Broadcasting and the world’s oldest national broadcaster, the BBC, which was founded in 1922.
On the other end of the spectrum are right-leaning or outright right-wing publications like Infowars, The Daily Caller and Breitbart News, which are distrusted by more survey participants from the representative sample than those who trust these outlets. Infowars, in particular, is seen as an untrustworthy source, with a net trust score of -16. This might be attributable to host Alex Jones being recently found guilty in two defamation cases connected to the Sandy Hook school shooting. Jones claimed the event was staged and was sentenced to $1.5 billion in punitive damages payable to the victims’ families.
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