• by Sara Guaglione , March 19, 2020

The news business is battling public distrust.

Nearly half of respondents to a new Axios/Ipsos poll said they do not trust traditional media “very much or at all” to accurately deliver information about the COVID-19 virus.

Some 51% of 1,092 U.S. adults said they trust newspapers to provide them with accurate information on COVID-19, according to Axios.

Online news fared worse: Only 47% trust digital publishers to provide accurate information on the coronavirus; 50% trust cable. 

Most people feel health officials, followed by government institutions, are most likely to provide accurate information about COVID-19.

Also, 85% and 77% of respondents trust The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the World Health Organization (WHO), respectively, to provide accurate information about the virus.

State and local government officials (70% and 67%, respectively) were found to be more trustworthy by respondents than federal officials (53%).

Nearly three-quarters (74%) of respondents said they don't trust social media very much or at all.

The poll is the first installment in a new weekly project called the Axios-Ipsos Coronavirus Index, which will examine how the pandemic is affecting Americans.

Conversely, a Pew Research Center survey conducted March 10-16 found the majority of Americans say the news media has done a good job of covering the growing health crisis, Publishing Insider reported yesterday.

Some 70% of respondents to the Pew survey said they think the media has covered the outbreak either "very" or "somewhat" well.

About half of U.S. adults (51%) said they're tracking news about COVID-19 "very closely," while another 38% said they're following it "fairly closely," the survey found. 

Pew also found 62% of U.S. adults think the news media have either "greatly" or "slightly" exaggerated the risks of the coronavirus, while 30% said journalism outlets have "gotten the risks about right."

Finally, 48% of respondents said they've seen some made-up news about COVID-19.