Konrad Adenauer Foundation: Germans’ growing skepticism about political news in the mass media
A recent study monitored an increase in Germans’ skepticism about political news in the public media, and despite this, there is still a clear majority that considers this news to be credible.
According to the study conducted by the German Konrad Adenauer Foundation and published by the electronic portal The Pioneer last Tuesday, that from October 2019 to January 2020, 78% of Germans still believed that news from the media Generally reliable.
In the fall of 2020, this percentage decreased to 74%, as at the beginning of this year, the percentage was 70%.
During the same period, the fear of spreading fake news increased slightly.
According to the study, Germans in eastern and western Germany differ in their assessment of public media such as the ARD media network and the second channel of German ZDF television, as 73% of Germans in the west of the country consider the news broadcast by these platforms to be generally credible. While the percentage of those who think so in the east of the country is only 58%.
Among the party’s supporters, the majority of supporters of the populist right-wing Alternative for Germany 80% don’t believe that political news on public channels is credible.
On the other hand, 96% of Green Party supporters consider this news credible.
The percentage was also high among supporters of the Christian Alliance (78%) and the Social Democratic Party (81%).
Distrust is relatively high between supporters of the Left Party and the Free Democratic Party (23 and 30%, respectively.
Despite that, the majority of supporters of both parties express that the political news broadcast on public stations is credible.
