Trust in UK Government and News Media COVID-19 Information Down, Concerns Over Misinformation from Government and Politicians Up

Abstract

In this RISJ Factsheet we examine changes in attitudes towards the coronavirus pandemic response in the UK from mid-April to the end of May. This is the fourth in a series of ten factsheets based on an ongoing online panel survey of a representative sample of the UK population, fielded from 21 May to 27 May 2020. We find that: (i) trust in the UK government as a source of information about coronavirus has declined substantially, and that trust in news organisations has also decreased, (ii) the percentage of people who say they are concerned about false or misleading information about coronavirus from the UK government has increased, and (iii) the proportion who say that the UK government is doing a good job responding to the coronavirus crisis is down 21 percentage points since April, with a fall of eight points for news organisations.