Editorial: Believe in us
Do you still trust the news? Depends who tells you it I suppose!
The good news is that a lot of you still believe the news that we bring you every week! And so you should.
We try to verify stories, provide context and cover them in as balanced a manner as we can.
And I must say, even as a trained journalist and a natural sceptic, it’s sometimes difficult to figure out what’s real on social media and what's not. Some things are obvious of course, but other posts are not clearly inaccurate at all and advances in AI mean it’s going to get a whole lot more difficult.
Misinformation is already rife and it’s going to get exponentially more difficult to figure out what’s incorrect. Donald Trump’s administration has created a ‘free speech’ culture among US tech companies where fact checking is no longer prioritised so things will get much worse in the short-term.
This is the context for the annual Reuters Digital News Report for Ireland 2025 which “highlights the key challenges facing the industry, including misinformation, disinformation and concerns around the use of AI”, according to Rónán Ó Domhnaill from Coimisiún na Meán.
There are positives too though. Overall, Irish audiences trust news more compared to other countries. When asked if they trust the news most of the time, 50% of respondents in Ireland ‘agreed’ or ‘strongly agreed’, compared to 35% in the UK, 30% in the US and 39% for merged data from Europe.
Local newspapers continue to be among the most trusted sources for Irish audiences which is great. Local or regional newspapers at 71% are very narrowly behind the most trusted brands which are RTÉ News (72%), local or regional radio (72%). I guess people know that local papers know they need to get things right or they will hear about it very quickly from readers and advertisers!
70% of Irish respondents described the Irish Times as trustworthy, with the same percentage for BBC News, 68% for the Irish Independent and 66% for each of Newstalk, Today FM and Sky News. Thankfully people are increasingly aware of the perils of news online. 68% of respondents said they are concerned about what is real and what is fake on online. All age cohorts show concern about fake information online, with the highest rate (72%) among those aged 65+ and the lowest rate (62%) among those aged 18-24.
Dr Eileen Culloty, Deputy Director of the DCU Institute for Future Media, Democracy and Society said: “Local media enjoy strong public trust, an indication of their deep roots in Irish life. But trust alone doesn’t pay salaries or sustain newsrooms. The big challenge is to convert trust into viable careers in local journalism so that local media can continue informing communities.”
Of course we make mistakes too, but we try to do so as little as possible. We certainly don’t try to actively deceive people. We don’t deal in clickbait-style news that tries to attract eyeballs by omitting parts of the truth and presenting news in the most controversial way possible. We care about Cork and its people and we want to make things better. Trust us on that.