Trust and Trends in Media

BBC has come out with a series of reports on the level of trust people have in the media. The report also throws some light on what forms of media are more popular and trustworthy in the various countries. Although India has been included in the report, the general trend has not impacted India because of the low levels of Internet penetration. Hence Indians (atleast the sample of 1000-odd people) still rely on TV and newspapers for their news. The report touches upon the impact of blogs and also the growing importance of Internet based news sources. In case you are interested in reading the full report, you can download the PDF file here.

I have just listed some points, which might be of interest to you:

* Most trusted news brands in India: Aaj Tak, Doordarshan and Dainik Jagran. Surprisingly, Sun TV is the 4th most trusted news brand in India with 5% of the votes. English news sources like STAR News, NDTV and ToI make up the rest of the pack. One of the reasons for this could be the fact that the English media doesn’t have the same reach (viewership / readership) as the media in Indian languages.

* 59% of people believe that the media covers too many bad stories.

We The Media

Reuters and BBC are co-hosting a high-profile Media Conference in London. A glance through the participant list will give you an idea about the heavyweights who are attending the two-day conference. Our very own pundit blogger is a panelist in the discussion on South Asia. Sunil Lulla (remember Indya.com?) of Times Broadcasting will be another panelist who will be joining via satellite from Delhi. BBC and Reuters are providing live streaming of the event.