Economist, Reuters, BBC and the Guardian rated highly by US readers, while Breitbart and BuzzFeed among least trusted

This article is more than 3 years old

This article is more than 3 years old

Four of the 10 most trusted sources of news among US readers are based in Britain, according to a survey.

The Economist was the most trusted source, with Reuters third, the BBC fourth and the Guardian seventh, according to a study by University of Missouri’s Reynolds Journalism Institute.

The least trustworthy sources of news included Breitbart, BuzzFeed and social media. Donald Trump was rated the fifth least trustworthy source of news. Occupy Democrats, which describes itself as a grassroots political organisation, was bottom of the table.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Table of trusted versus non-trusted news sources in a new survey. Photograph: www.rjionline.org

The online survey, accessible earlier this year via 28 different news providers in the US, attracted almost 9,000 respondents, who were asked to name three news sources they trusted and three they did not.

The other news providers in the top 10 were public television, NPR, PBS, the Wall Street Journal, the LA Times and Dallas Morning News.

The Washington Post was ranked 15th, the New York Times 19th and Fox News 29th out of 39.

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The study also asked respondents how they decided what news was credible. Common responses included “other news sources”, “both sides [of the] story” and “check multiple sources”.

The researchers said: “There was a relatively large difference between users with different political ideologies. Specifically, liberal respondents were a lot more trusting and supporting than conservative respondents. Given the rhetoric used in the most recent general election, however, this result may not be entirely surprising.”

The study found women were significantly more likely than men to trust information from mainstream journalism, as were white respondents compared with non-whites.