Despite being a news aggregator for other news sites, Google News has been named as the most trusted news “source” for the second year in a row according to a survey conducted by the American public relations firm Edelman.
The firm asked 33,000 people across 28 countries where they get their most trusted news and 63 percent responded that they trust search engines like Google over the “online-only media” like actual news sites which Google links to.
According to reports, the results of the survey are not particularly inspiring to the journalism industry as it shows that people are more likely to trust a headline they read on Google News rather than the same headline published on the original website it was posted on.
A possible explanation for this disparity in trust may be due to Google's success as a marketing machine. It currently stands as the most popular search engine in the United States, accounting for 64 percent of all online searches followed by Yahoo! and MSN's Bing. It is also reported as one of the most trusted companies in the world.
Current trends in social media optimization may also play a role in the way people perceive which sources to trust. A headline which has been optimized with keywords are often short and factual, according to reports, and are more likely to be picked up by Google's search bots and trusted by Internet readers, rather than news shared on social media platforms which contain descriptions that are more open to interpretations and therefore less likely to be trusted.
The same report also revealed that 78 percent of people are more likely to trust news shared by friends and family, as also observed by other surveys showing that more millenials are turning to their Twitter and Facebook feeds for their news. This is followed by 65 percent of people trusting news shared by academic experts; and another grim indicator for journalists who are only trusted by 44 percent of people overall.
The 2016 Edelman Trust Barometer Global Report is available for viewing online.
Photo : Spencer E. Holtaway | Flickr
