Trust in Public News Remains High in Western Europe

Despite the criticism public broadcasting agencies in Europe had to face recently, citizens’ trust in them remains high. Whilst the share of people in Sweden and the Netherlands passing a vote of trust in their public broadcasters is hovering at around 90 percent, the BBC is only trusted by some 79 percent. With 19 percent, distrust among Brits about their public media giant is considerably higher than in most other surveyed countries. The Spanish have quite an ambivalent relationship to their biggest public broadcaster: TVE is trusted by only little more than the half of Spanish citizens while being mistrusted by almost 40 percent.