The Media in Figures: Trust and impartiality perceptions of viewers, listeners and readers

THE BBC commands a huge amount of trust among the general public, when it comes to its news output – according to a survey of almost 2,000 adults – commissioned by the BBC and carried out by Ipsos MORI in February.

Says the survey report, its aim was to gauge “public perceptions of impartiality and trustworthiness of the BBC”.

Various questions were asked of the survey respondents, with the following responses:

Q: Of all the news sources (TV broadcaster, radio, newspaper, magazine or website), which one source are you most likely to turn to if you want accurate news coverage?

BBC 59 per cent

ITV 11 per cent

Sky eight per cent

Channel 4 two per cent

The Guardian one per cent

Daily Mail one per cent

Al Jazeera one per cent

Telegraph one per cent

The Independent one per cent

The Times one per cent

Metro one per cent

Google News one per cent

The Sun one per cent

Other  five per cent

Don’t know two per cent

None four per cent

Q: Of all the news sources (TV broadcaster, radio, newspaper, magazine or website), which one source are you most likely to turn to for news you trust the most?

BBC 58 per cent

ITV 11 per cent

Sky six per cent

Channel 4 three per cent

The Guardian two per cent

Daily Mail one per cent

Al Jazeera one per cent

The Sun one per cent

Metro one per cent

Telegraph one per cent

The Times one per cent

Twitter one per cent

The Independent one per cent

Other five per cent

Don’t know two per cent

None seven per cent

Q. How biased or impartial do you think each of the following news sources is? 1 = very biased, 10 = very impartial

BBC 6.5

ITV News six per cent

Channel 4 News six per cent

Financial Times 5.7

The Independent 5.6

Commercial radio 5.6

Sky News 5.5

Five News 5.5

The Guardian 5.3

The Times 5.3

i 5.3

Google News 5.2

Metro 5.2

The Daily Telegraph 4.9

Yahoo! News 4.7

Al Jazeera 4.7

MSN News 4.6

The Huffington Post 4.6

Daily Express 4.2

The People 4.2

Daily Mirror 4.1

Daily Mail 4.1

Twitter 3.9

Facebook 3.9

Daily Star 3.6

The Sun 3.5

Q. To what extent do you trust as a news source? 1 = very biased, 10 = very impartial

BBC 7.4

ITV News 6.6

Channel 4 News 6.2

Sky News 6.2

Financial Times 5.9

The Guardian 5.9

The Times 5.9

The Independent 5.9

Commercia radio 5.8

The Daily Telegraph 5.7

Five News 5.5

i 5.0

Metro 4.9

Google News 4.8

Daily Mail 4.7

Daily Express 4.5

MSN News 4.3

Yahoo! News 4.3

Al Jazeera 4.2

The Huffington Post 4.1

Daily Mirror 4.1

The People 3.8

The Sun 3.7

Facebook 3.4

Daily Star 3.3

Twitter 3.3

Q. Of all the news sources (TV broadcaster, radio, newspaper, magazine or website), which one source are you most likely to turn to if you want impartial news coverage?

BBC 50 per cent

ITV 13 per cent

Sky seven per cent

Channel 4 four per cent

The Guardian two per cent

Al Jazeera two per cent

Daily Mail one per cent

The Sun one per cent

Metro one per cent

Google News one per cent

The Independent one per cent

The Times one per cent

Twitter one per cent

Telegraph one per cent

Facebook one per cent

Other five per cent

Don’t know five per cent

None seven per cent

Source: ‘Public perceptions of the impartiality and trustworthiness of the BBC‘, July 2014.