Public Give Quake Coverage A Big Thumbs Up

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

21 March 2011

Public Give Quake Coverage A Big Thumbs Up As NZ News Media Reporting Improves

A large majority of New Zealanders say the New Zealand news media have done a good job reporting on the 22 February Christchurch earthquake.

Public ratings of the accuracy and balance of reporting on the earthquake though are much higher than for the media’s reporting in general. Even so, ratings of the New Zealand media’s news coverage have improved since 2009 when it was last measured .

Almost one in four (79%) said the media had done a good job covering the earthquake with 77% saying the reporting was accurate and 67% that it was balanced. Very few (6%) thought the media had done a poor job.

Doing a good job was rated on a 1-5 scale where 1 meant ‘very good’ and 5 meant ‘very poor’, accuracy was rated on a similar scale where 1 meant ‘very accurate’ and 5 meant ‘very inaccurate’, and for balance 1 meant ‘very balanced’ and 5 ‘very one-sided’. Those who gave a 1+2 rating were deemed to rate the media as doing a good job or being accurate or balanced and those who rated 4+5 were deemed to rate the media as doing a poor job, or being inaccurate or one-sided.

“These results show that with the quake the media have well and truly excelled public perceptions of how it covers the news generally. In comparison, 41% said the media’s coverage of the news generally was accurate and 35% said it was balanced,” a UMR Executive Director Tim Grafton said.

“Despite being lower ratings, they were a significant improvement on our 2009 survey,” Mr Grafton said.

Then, only 35% said the media was accurate and 30% said it was balanced. There has also been a fall in the number who think the media are inaccurate (21% down 4%) or unbalanced (26% also down 4%).”

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