A poll just released by GlobeScan for the BBC found that al-Jazeera is by far the most trusted news source in Egypt (not "in the Arab world", as al-Jazeera itself spun it) - with 59% of an urban-only sample naming it in an open-ended question about the most trusted source for news. Here's the Egypt summary:
Among urban Egyptians, the most important sources of news in a typical week are television (mentioned first by 72%), newspapers (17%), and the Internet (6%). Men have a greater preference than women for newspapers (24% to 10%), while women are more likely to have television as their main news source (81% compared to 61% of men).
Due largely to the influence of Al Jazeera, Egypt is unique in this survey in that its trust for international television: 77 percent have a lot or some trust in it. There are also more than three-quarters (77%) who trust national television, 68 percent who trust local newspapers, 65 percent national/regional newspapers, and 64 percent each of public radio and friends and family. There is little (28%) trust for international newspapers, while 30 percent trust blogs and 32 percent news websites.
Specific news sources mentioned spontaneously by Egyptians as being trustworthy were Al Jazeera (mentioned by 59%), Channel 1 Egypt TV (12%), Al Ahran (6%), Al Akhbar (5%), Nile News (4%), Yahoo and the CNN website (each 2%), Google and BBC World Service radio (each 1%).
Egyptians (43%) are the most likely to say they trust the international media more than their national media. They also have higher than average faith in the media to report news accurately (73% agree it does), although 61 percent agree that the media is too focused on Western values and concerns. Egyptians are among the most likely to have turned away from a media source due to a loss of trust, with 40 percent reporting having done so.
Very interesting - certain media sources (al-Hurra, say, or al-Arabiya) are notable by their absence, even with the important caveat that this is a survey of urban Egyptians, not of "the Arab world." We certainly wouldn't want to do something like extrapolate survey findings from one country to the entire region!
One other finding of interest: in a question asked in all 10 surveyed questions about most trusted brands, "Al Jazeera (23%) came next [after Time and Newsweek] but it also had the highest percentage of people (19%) expressing no trust or not much trust in providing the information they want." The BBC scored the highest across the board [48%] as a trusted brand... raising the interesting conundrum of how much trust to place in a BBC-commissioned poll that finds the BBC the most trustworthy!
Comments