The news media do its best to maintain all of the world order up up to now with the pace of Donald Trump's radical changes.
But in Aotearoa New Zealand, where avoiding news is more common than in other countries, lots of us block our ears on all the pieces.
In 2025, “Trump fatigue” is now one in all the predominant the explanation why 73% of New Zealanders actively avoid the news to a certain extent. For the context in Finland (where Trust in news is the very best), Avoiding is just 21%.
For our 2025 trust within the news reportWe asked New Zealanders why they avoid the news and analyzed 749 answers. A couple of quotes give a sense for what we found:
“Trump, Trump, Trump and no real investigative messages.” -Frau, European/Pākehā, 55-64 years old, party work in 2023.
“I actively avoid news from Donald Trump. When I hear extreme right views within the messages (…), I’ll turn it off. There is not any space for it.” -Frau, European/Pākehā, 35-44 on the age of 35 to 44.
This fatigue seems to exceed age, gender and even the political limits. Consistent news concerning the unpredictable president of the United States had similar effects on a middle-aged Pākehā woman who was elected nationally, an older Māori woman who was elected to work for employees, and a Pākehā middle age who identified as “one other gender” and elected Te Pāori.
Many said that reporting on Trump encouraged her to completely detach yourself from news or no less than selectively avoid US policy.
We were aware of other reasons for avoiding the news from previous research: the overwhelming negativity, the perceived political bias from journalists, sensationalism and the repeating nature of the news cycle.
The trust case
In order to measure general trust in news, we asked the respondents to what extent they imagine that they “trust a lot of the news more often than not”. The figures that match this statement faster in New Zealand than in comparable countries from 53% in 2020 to 33% in 2024.
However, the film slowed down, with the overall level of trust in 2025 only a percentage of 32%.
We also asked the respondents how much they agreed to this statement: “I believe I can trust a lot of the news that I take more often than not.” Those who agreed remained stable at 45%.
And trust in all New Zealand news brands we asked about have improved. Overall, trust in news seems to stabilize, albeit at a low level.
This could also be higher news for a functioning democracy, but our latest report also shows that the variety of “interested” or “very interested” New Zealanders fell from 72% in 2024 to 69% in 2025.
At the identical time, New Zealand has the very best overall interest within the news (92% no less than “something interested”) when internationally compared.
This is a paradox in view of the high number of reports avoidance, with a 3rd (34%) of the respondents said that they’re “worn out of the number of reports today”.
Similarly, considerable majorities say that they’re “very interested” for international news (70%) and political news (60%). Nevertheless, many feel overwhelmed by the variety of stories coping with Trump, Gaza and Ukraine.
A male surveyed, 55-64 years old, said: “I attempt to trumpox as much as possible.
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Politics and the news
We also wanted to higher understand the connections between trust in news and politics. This 12 months we asked the political inclinations of the respondents this 12 months.
In the party of the 2023 party, about 64% of the law and 54% in center-right law imagine that they can not trust the news. Those who trust the news are frequently middle-left (46%) and links (40%).
Those who first voted in 2023 in 2023 are slightly ceaselessly avoiding the news. Those who publicly distrust channels of RNZ and TVNZ were tended to be on the fitting of the political spectrum, while those that, for instance, were distrust of Newstalk, were are likely to be left.
Social media as a source of reports
The latest Survey of the Reuters Institute Out of 47 countries, using Facebook for messages for messages by 4 percentage points per 12 months, with 26% of the respondents now used them as a source.
In New Zealand the trend is the alternative. Facebook remains to be the predominant source for social media and increases to 58%in 2025 in 2025 in 2025.
But YouTube grows as quickly as a news platform in New Zealand: 43% of individuals in 2025 use the video sharing platform as a news source and increase of 33% in 2024.
Facebook, YouTube and Instagram at the moment are among the many seven most ceaselessly used news sources in Aotearoa New Zealand. So that our survey, based on our survey, is things, TVNZ, the New Zealand Herald, Facebook, YouTube, RNZ and Instagram.
AI within the news editor
New Zealand newsrooms quickly adopted artificial intelligence tools (AI tools) in news meetings and production. One The latest report was proposed The most selection and placement of the stories on a big local news page is managed by AI.
It stays to be seen how far this trend will proceed in news production. However, after we asked our survey participants whether or not they were aware of news that were mainly produced by AI with some human remark, about 60% said no. Only 8% were comfortable with news that were mainly produced by AI.
Conversely, after we asked for news, which were mainly produced by human journalists with the support of the AI, 26% were comfortable and 35% felt uncomfortable. At the moment, the New Zealanders generally appear to be in relation to the news produced or supported by AI.
Change is the one constant within the turbulent news media sector in New Zealand. Since latest complexity arises like AI, the trust dispuplates also becomes more complex. The survey next 12 months gives us a greater feeling for where these trends and settings lead.
