The issue of public trust in journalism
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Key points
The report states that uncertainty over EU students and staff must be resolved immediately, ideally with a guarantee of the same fees and loan tuition access for 2018 / 19 student cohort and the government must guarantee rights for EU staff by the end of 2017. The immigration system should facilitate not obstruct student movement after Brexit and an easier route than Tier 2 for academics, one with less bureaucracy.
The issue of public trust in journalism
By Matthew Clifton
The country goes to the polls on June 8 th to decide the new government of the UK. This election though has significantly more importance than previously, after the decision to leave the EU. What the UK gets from the Brexit deal and how the country moves forward, but the decision to leave the EU highlighted underlying issues with the health service, housing, jobs market, immigration, wages plus much more. How the public get their information and who do they trust to report it correctly?
On major issues such as health, can the public trust journalists who report the stories about junior doctors and underfunding or do they trust the government to tell the truth? There are several question marks over how information is presented to the public and who they trust.
The focus will be on trust on medical research and the Wellcome Trust have been running monitor surveys since 2009, the most recent coming in 2015. The reason we cite back this is because of the upcoming general election, where trust in the media and journalism is decreasing. The most recent survey found that 59 % of the public have little to no trust in journalism to report medical research
The report states that the best approach for international students, including EU, is an open approach. Removing international students from net migration targets will make it clear the UK wants talent and continue to benefit UK universities. Research collaboration is key and the report states in no uncertain terms that it should commit to Horizon 2020 and future research frameworks, however, should develop a plan to match its funding should access fail. correctly, with just 3 % who have complete or a great deal of trust in Journalism. But on the other end of the scale, doctors and nurses have 64 % of public trust whereas just 6 % don’ t.
This highlights the scale that the public don’ t trust journalism in this country but the media have no will to change this. This is the reason why opinionbased news sites such as Breibart and Westmonster have a significant following. They market themselves as antiestablishment when they are anything but what they claim. This mistrust in journalism over medical research highlights that overall public trust to not sensationalise is very low, the media and journalistic standards need to change drastically for them to regain that public trust.
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Issue # 2, 22 nd April
Erasmus + is important to student and staff mobility, the government should commit to continued membership of the programme but recommends an ambitious mobility policy with universities irrespective the result. The sector will require support beyond Brexit and the government should establish a regional growth fund to replace and exceed current EU funding. The committee states that education should play a key role in trade deals, pursuing further funding into current collaborations and pursue collaborations with major research nations.
An open policy
Higher education within the UK is important economically, innovatively and socially. It contributes in economic and innovative ways that can be measured, but it also contributes to society in immeasurable ways such as social cohesion. The UK is a global leader and the committee report underlines the importance of the role the EU played within that. The government must pursue an agenda that isn’ t discriminatory towards students and staff from the EU and beyond. The UK’ s ability collaborates globally and continue to produce world-class research is at stake, we must pursue an open agenda with negotiations.