The Tragedy of Errors: Political Ideology, Perceived Journalistic Quality, and Media Trust

ABSTRACT

Media trust is at near-record lows, arguably lowering news consumption, threatening the viability of journalism, and increasing citizen polarization. In examining the causes of low media trust, researchers often look at intrinsic audience factors rather than audience perceptions of journalism—in particular, documenting media trust's strong inverse correlation with conservatism, but seldom investigating trust's relationship with perceptions of journalistic quality. The quality connection is worth investigating because studies have found that journalistic errors are common, and such inaccuracies are also widely perceived. This study asked which has a stronger impact on media trust, audience ideologies or perceived journalistic errors. Using a survey of 1026 U.S. adults, the study found an inverse relationship between error perceptions and trust levels. The most frequently perceived errors were sensationalized or understated stories and stories missing essential information. Three types of errors and both social and economic conservatism were found to have statistically significant, negative relationships with trust, while a fourth error type—misspellings—had a positive relationship. The two ideological factors had a slightly stronger media trust impact than the collective error types. Nonetheless, perception of errors accounted for significant variation in trust levels. These results bolster the imperative for rigorous reporting and editing.

KEYWORDS:

• Trust
• media trust
• errors
• credibility
• accuracy
• ideology
• news
• quality

Acknowledgments

This paper is a project of the Digital Media Research Program at the University of Texas at Austin. It received partial funding from the Center for Media Engagement at the Moody College of Communication, University of Texas at Austin, as well as the university's Graduate School. The authors would like to thank Thomas Johnson and Heloisa Aruth Sturm for their valuable input, and Martin J. Riedl and Ivy Ashe for their assistance.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Center for Media Engagement, Moody College of Communication, University of Texas at Austin; Graduate School, University of Texas at Austin.