SBS tops Most Trusted News brand

SBS News & Current Affairs has been named the ‘most trusted’ news brand in Australia.

It eclipsed ABC News in the annual global Digital News Report 2024 conducted by the University of Canberra and Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism.

SKY News registered highest in the Distrust area.

Each year the report delivers comparative data on media usage in 47 countries including Australia. The University of Canberra conducts the Australian research for the global report, examining Australians’ attitudes to news and journalism and in recent years has charted the declining trust and growing misinformation within the news and social media ecosystems.

SBS News Director Mandi Wicks said: “As SBS prepares to move into our 50th year, this report is a strong validation of the work our teams do across all news platforms to provide accurate, impartial and trustworthy news and information to all Australians.

“With more people consuming their news through social media platforms, the presence of trusted brands in that space is more crucial than ever.”

The Digital News Report also noted the growing concern about misinformation in Australia, which rose to 75% from 64% in 2022 and that audiences are reporting greater difficulty in identifying untrustworthy information.

“Trust in news has been declining during the past few years, news avoidance has been increasing, and misinformation and disinformation pervade our social feeds and threaten to undermine our democratic way of life,” wrote Wicks.

“The role is increasingly falling to news publishers to report on the news of the day, to combat ‘fake news’ and to moderate hate speech on their social media profiles, comments which are often AI generated via bots.

“Newsrooms grappled with this during the Voice Referendum in 2023 and there will be similar challenges in 2024 with AI having the potential to influence domestic and geopolitical issues, with more than 60 countries and nearly half the world’s population going to the polls in 2024.”