Are the media or politicians responsible for a lack of answers on coronavirus?

News organisations have gone down in the public’s estimation during the pandemic, but is it justified, asks Sean O'Grady

The daily briefing format doesn’t allow for persistent lines of attack (Reuters)

One of the many odd side effects of the coronavirus crisis has been the surge in support for governments across the world. Britain has been no exception to this rule, and has shown some remarkable approval ratings for the way the government has dealt with the pandemic (66 per cent), for the Conservative Party (54 per cent to 28 per cent for Labour) and for Boris Johnson personally (72 per cent).

The media, by contrast, has been faring rather worse. Successive apparently well-sourced revelations about (alleged) government complacency and incompetence from Reuters, The Financial Times and The Sunday Times have been answered in a series of ill-tempered “rebuttals” from No 10. Yet the polls as yet show only modest slippage in the Conservatives’ standing.

Apart from vocal keyboard warriors on the right and left seizing another opportunity to pour abuse on “the mainstream media”, more representative opinion polls show similar dissatisfaction, despite some excellent reportage. According to a survey by the Reuters Institute, some 60 per cent of the British public “trusts” the main news organisations for coronavirus news – better than the dispiriting 52 per cent who do in the US, but in line with other countries. However, the British public are actually more inclined to trust scientists, the NHS, and government than the media. A poll by Kekst CNC had the media as the one institution that has seen a drop in public confidence, down by 21 per cent.