Public trust in news in has risen for the first time since records began in 2020.

According to the latest Trust in News in Aotearoa New Zealand report, 37% of respondents now trust the news generally, up from just 32% last year. In the context of recent trends, that’s a fairly sizeable jump.

The report also shows 50% now trust the news they personally consume, also up five percentage points from 45% in 2025.

These are the first positive results about the public’s trust in news since we began researching the subject at the AUT Research Centre for Journalism, Media and Democracy in 2020.

As we have every year, we asked New Zealanders if they felt they could “trust most of the news most of the time”. We also asked about their trust in the news they personally consume, their views on particular news brands, how much they avoid the news, and to what extent they pay for it.

Many of our questions match those asked in a global study by the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, which allows us to make international comparisons.

The survey of more than 1,000 New Zealanders is weighted by age, gender, highest educational qualification, personal income, ethnicity and region. This means respondents accurately represent the adult population in these demographics.

What explains the change?

A significant contributing factor to the upturn in trust, we think, is greater public awareness of disinformation, deep fakes and AI slop.

The prevalence of such poor-quality information, distributed on social media for commercial or political gain, and the growing public debate it, seems to........

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