PETALING JAYA: An annual study of news consumption trends across the world has found that Astro Awani and The Star are the two most trusted Malaysian sources of news.

The Reuters Institute Digital News Report 2018, the seventh edition of an annual series, found that when it comes to trust, Astro Awani and The Star scored 6.05 and 6.03 respectively, with independent news portal Malaysiakini nipping at their heels with a score of 6.02.

“In today’s digital and social media era, news come from a variety of sources, and Star Media Group takes pride in that our team takes the time to verify all sorts of news before we upload or publish it.

“We are aware that people look to us to verify information, and we take this responsibility seriously,” said Star Media Group chief content officer Esther Ng.

Ng added that with fake news becoming a concern all over the world, in December 2016, The Star Online also launched a special section called “True or Not” to verify or debunk viral messages on social media and messaging apps.

However, Malaysian news organisations still lost out to international news aggregator Yahoo! News, which had the highest trust score (see Fig 1).

This is for those who have heard of the brands.

For those who use the brand, Astro Awani scored 7.03, followed by Yahoo News at 6.61 and the Borneo Post at 6.59.

“There appears to be greater trust in what are perceived as international media as opposed to local, with Yahoo! News being the most trusted brand,” said Prof. Zaharom Nain of Centre for the Study of Communications and Culture, University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus.

“This has much to do with the structures and patterns of media ownership and control. There are some brands that buck this trend,” he wrote in the report, published by the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism.

To establish the trust scores, survey respondents were asked to indicate their trust in selected news brands on a scale of 0 (completely untrustworthy) to 10 (completely trustworthy).

They also had the option of choosing “I have not heard of this brand”. The trust scores were calculated after excluding those who claimed not to have heard of the brand in question.

“This analysis shows that some brands are trusted much more than others but also underlines how strongly trust can be influenced by pre-existing views about politics,” said Antonis Kalogeropoulos, research fellow at the Reuters Institute.

“It also suggests that traditional brands with a long track record may have an advantage over digital-born brands and tabloids, even though these also frequently produce high-quality and accessible journalism, as Facebook starts to implement brand trust scores into its algorithms,” he added.

The report also stated that the data suggests that “consumer trust in news remains worryingly low in most countries, often linked to high levels of media polarisation, and the perception of undue political influence”.

“Adding to the mix are high levels of concern about so-called ‘fake news’, partly stoked by politicians, who in some countries are already using this as an opportunity to clamp down on media freedom,” it said.

Malaysia passed an Anti Fake News Act in Parliament on April 2, pushed through by the former Barisan Nasional government. Prior to the 14th general election, Pakatan Harapan, then the Opposition, had pledged to repeal the law if it ever took over Putrajaya.

However, since winning the election, Pakatan said it would study the law further, adding that it might only need to be tweaked to prevent it from becoming a tool to suppress media freedom and free speech.

A Danish national was the first to be punished under the new law, over a YouTube video he had posted regarding the shooting of a supposed Hamas member here.

Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad is also being investigated under the same law over his claims that the private jet he was using had been sabotaged to prevent him from spearheading a ceramah during his election campaign.

Meanwhile, in terms of usage, The Star was the No 1 newspaper in any language (see Fig 2), although TV3 was No 1 in the overall “TV, Radio and Print” category.

When it comes to online portals, Malaysiakini – which has English, Chinese, Malay, and Tamil editions – was No 1 in usage while The Star Online was No 2 and Berita Harian Online came in at No 3. By contrast, Yahoo! News came in sixth.

The Reuters Institute Digital News Report 2018 was based on a survey of more than 74,000 people in 37 markets, along with additional qualitative research.

This year’s study also covered six markets in Asia (Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Malaysia, and Singapore).

The study was commissioned by the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism to understand how news is being consumed in a range of countries.

Research was conducted by YouGov using an online questionnaire at the end of January/ beginning of February 2018.