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When they hear “news,” most people think “fake”—except for local news

by | Jul 26, 2018 | Public Relations

A new national survey shows that although nearly one in five Americans immediately associate the word “news” with the word “fake,” only a tiny number use that word to describe local news, new research reveals.

The News Co/Lab at Arizona State University’s Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication, with support from Google Surveys, asked a nationally representative sample of more than 6,000 people from May 7-10 to do a simple word-association test using the word “news” and the phrase “local news.”

When asked the question, “What is the first word you think of when you hear the word news?” the word “fake” was the most popular answer.

When they hear “news,” most people think “fake”—except for local news

But when asked “What is the first word you think of when you hear the phrase local news?,” people were most likely to respond with “hometown,” familiar terms such as where they live or the name of their local newspaper or television station.

When they hear “news,” most people think “fake”—except for local news

The close association between the words “news” and “fake” is of little surprise, given the rise in popularity of the term “fake news” following the 2016 U.S. presidential election. The term, which originally referred to news hoaxes but was redefined by politicians to mean any news they did not like, helped fuel public mistrust of the news industry.

When they hear “news,” most people think “fake”—except for local news

But attitudes about news are more neutral than the fervor over fake news would suggest

And when it comes to local news, a full 68 percent of those surveyed used neutral terms.

“Americans still see local news through a different lens than they use for news in general,” said Eric Newton, News Co/Lab co-founder and ASU professor, in a news release. “Local news does not mean political bluster. It means home.”

But when people were asked to first think about “news” and then “local news,” the negative perceptions of news in general appeared to rub off on local news. Twenty-five percent of the reactions to local news were negative when first asked about news overall, compared with 17 percent for those who were just asked about local news.

When they hear “news,” most people think “fake”—except for local news

Most people think it’s easy to tell the difference between fact and opinion in three areas

Those areas are the news in general (61 percent), cable television (57 percent) news and local news (63 percent). But there is still a significant percentage of people—16 percent—who have difficulty telling fact from opinion in the news overall. And among those who associated news or local news with “fake,” the difficulty is more pronounced, with one in four reporting difficulty telling fact from opinion in overall news.

Read the full report here.

Richard Carufel
Richard Carufel is editor of Bulldog Reporter and the Daily ’Dog, one of the web’s leading sources of PR and marketing communications news and opinions. He has been reporting on the PR and communications industry for over 17 years, and has interviewed hundreds of journalists and PR industry leaders. Reach him at richard.carufel@bulldogreporter.com; @BulldogReporter

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