The public has little trust in journalists – but people used to think even less of our trade

Back in 1983 journalists scored a trust rating of just 19 per cent; by contrast, last year’s 27 per cent was an all-time high

When your friendly TV newsreader is beamed into your home to tell you what’s going on in the world, do you trust what they tell you? Do you see Huw Edwards and Jon Snow as bastions of verity or do you suspect their motives?

The results of Ipsos Mori’s annual Veracity Index suggest that newsreaders are increasingly raising eyebrows, with just 62 per cent of respondents trusting them to tell the truth – a fall of five percentage points on last year. Scepticism of the dreaded “MSM” (the mainstream media) appears to be denting even the credibility of those who were once beyond reproach.

Oddly, trust in “journalists” is much lower, down at 26 per cent. Since most newsreaders would regard themselves as journalists, it is a peculiar (if regular) discrepancy. Even if newsreaders are not producing the journalism they read, who – as Michael Crick put it – do the public think writes it?