Many people have little or not trust in bloggers, MPs and media.

NewsHub reports Kiwis don’t trust MPs, bloggers – survey

What the headline doesn’t say is that not far behind bloggers and MPs in levels of distrust is the media.

Victoria University’s Institute of Governance and Policy Studies surveyed 1000 adults at the end of February (via Colmar Brunton).

Least trusted professions (little or no trust):

• Bloggers 60%
• MPs 55%
• Ministers 53%
• Media 46%

A healthy democracy needs a strong media to hold politicians to account. That about a half of those surveyed don’t trust the media is a major concern.

Bloggers are relatively small, relatively unknown and non-influential. Even the most notorious bloggers, Cameron Slater, David Farrar and Martyn Bradbury are not well known or unknown amongst much of the public.

The major political blogs – Whale Oil, Kiwiblog, Public Address, The Standard and The Daily Blog are fringe media ignored or unknown by most.

Most blogger publicity associates blogs with Dirty Politics. The biggest blogger, Slater, has openly promoted dirt in politics.

It’s generally healthy to be sceptical of MPs.

Most of the major blogs have affiliations or close connections with politics and political parties so it’s no surprise to see that the lack of trust of both groups is similar.

But distrust of the media is a real worry. If they can’t be trusted to keep politicians honest or expose their dishonesty our democracy is in a shaky state.

Institute director Michael Macaulay claims it’s the most in-depth study of its kind undertaken in New Zealand.

“It shows the people, the public, the 1000 people we spoke to don’t trust the media, don’t trust MPs and don’t trust local Government.

“It may well be that this is the result many politicians fear but also expect. It might be something to worry about, it’s certainly something that needs to be discussed.

“But before anyone jumps to conclusions, before anyone goes crazy or takes offence or decries this as the last part of human civilisation, we need to take stock, have a chat and see how bad it actually is.”

To have a proper chat to try to evaluate how bad it actually is we need to see details of the survey. I can’t find them online.