Reuters Institute Digital News Report 2023 surveyed more than 93,000 people in 46 markets covering half the world’s population.

Confidence in the news internationally fell two percentwith four in ten saying they trust the news the most.

However, there are big differences between different countries. Finland has the highest confidence level with this measure, at 69%. Other European countries with very high levels of trust are Portugal, Denmark, Norway and Sweden.

The report shows that there are lower levels of trust in countries with “high levels of political polarization”, such as Hungary and Greece. The report indicates that the latter has been through a year “marked by heated discussions about press freedom and media independence.”

However, beyond this single measure, there are differences between different media. For example, in the UK, where only 33% said they trusted most of the news, The BBC enjoys 61% trust and the other major networks and newspapers are not far behind.

This study also found large declines in some countries in the number of people interested in newsalso partly due to political polarization.

Digging into the numbers, the report finds that in many countries people specifically avoid news, with Greece (57%), Bulgaria (57%), Argentina (46%), Poland (44%) and the UK (41%). ) leads when people are asked “Have you actively tried to stay out of the news lately?”

The proportion of people who said they were highly interested in news in France and Spain also fell. France fell from 59% to 36% from 2015 to 2023, and Spain from 85% to 51% over the same period.

The report cited two anonymous sources, one of whom stated that he sometimes had to step away from the news “for the sake of my mental health”.

Others say he specifically avoids news about the UK economy “because it’s just depressing.”