The Economist is the most trusted news source in America, while President Trump, Yahoo and BuzzFeed rank near the bottom, according to a new survey from the University of Missouri’s Reynolds Journalism Institute.
The weekly magazine published in the U.K. is more trusted than a variety of American mainstream news organizations, according to the Trusting News Project survey.
Public television, Reuters, BBC and NPR round out the top five most-trusted sources. Another British news organization, The Guardian, ranks sixth, proving that many American’s don’t trust news from their own country. In fact, Donald Trump himself is among the least-trusted sources, with only Occupy Democrats, BuzzFeed, Breitbart and social media ranking lower than the president.
Trump regularly attacks the media as “fake news” with the New York Times and Washington Post being among his frequent targets. Although both papers were deemed more trustworthy than the president, they ranked lower than The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, Dallas Morning News and Denver Post.
The results are based on the Trusting News Project survey featuring more than 8,000 people, conducted by 28 media organizations in the U.S.
“As we expected, people who rated themselves likely or very likely to trust the news were more willing to fill out journalists’ questionnaires than people who don’t trust the news. They account for 67.3 percent of responses. The other 32.7 percent —people unlikely or very unlikely to trust the news — perhaps have even more to teach us,” Joy Mayer of the Trusting News Project wrote.
The study showed that older respondents are more likely to pay for the news. Over two-thirds of respondents indicate they provide financial support to at least one news organization.
Liberal respondents were found to be more likely to both trust and pay for the news than conservative respondents, according to the survey.