News Media Reputation&Trust : STT Is Finland's Most Trusted Media Outlet
The Reputation&Trust " survey of news media shows that public trust in news agencies is strong in both Finland and Sweden. The most trusted news outlet in Finland is STT, and in Sweden it is TT Nyhetsbyrån.
Reputation and Trust Analytics conducted a survey on the public’s trust in news media in early summer 2026. The survey measured trust in the largest Finnish and Swedish media outlets, as well as the BBC in the United Kingdom. In Finland, the public rated the STT news agency as the most trustworthy media outlet.
“The research findings are very similar in Finland and Sweden. In both countries, traditional news agencies top the list of the most trusted media outlets. Both news agencies have a history spanning over a century and a strong reputation for quality that has withstood crises, and neither faces the same pressure to use clickbait headlines as commercial media does. Nor are they subject to the same kind of politicized debate as public broadcasting companies,” says Harri Leinikka, CEO of Reputation and Trust Analytics.
“It’s interesting to note that Finns have exceptionally strong trust in STT at a time when the news agency’s future hangs in the balance,” continues Stefan Wallin, senior advisor at Reputation and Trust Analytics.
Finns' Trust in the News Media
In the survey, STT received a trust rating of 3.83 and TT a rating of 3.60. Finns rated Uusi Juttu, a newcomer to the news media landscape, as the second most trustworthy, with a rating of 3.50.
“The fact that Uusi Juttu has immediately risen to the top ranks is a significant achievement. It shows that citizens are willing to place their trust in a new, subscriber-funded, ad-free media outlet that focuses on in-depth journalism—even though, of course, these newcomers are less well-known than long-established media outlets. This is another thing Finland has in common with Sweden, where the media newcomer Kvartal performed well Reputation&Trust right from the start,” Leinikka notes.
The third most trusted news outlet in Finland was Helsingin Sanomat, followed closely by Yleisradio. In addition to these, MTV3 also achieved a moderate level of trust.
Reputation&Trust, trust is considered to be at a good level if the organization’s score is at least 3.50. A moderate level of trust ranges from 3.00 to 3.49, and a score lower than this indicates low trust. Both Finnish evening newspapers, Ilta-Sanomat and Iltalehti, scored at a low level in the survey.
The study also shows that, in addition to value for money, the level of trust the media receives and the support it gets from various stakeholder groups is significantly influenced by how open, transparent, and accountable the public perceives its operations and journalistic processes to be.
Yle is more trustworthy than SVT—and clearly more trustworthy than the BBC
In a comparison of national public broadcasting companies, Yleisradio emerged as the most trusted among its own country’s citizens, with a rating of 3.47. SVT achieved a rating of 3.43, while the BBC scored 3.00.
“There is a significant difference between the BBC and the Nordic public broadcasters. In Finland and Sweden, citizens still feel that public broadcasting belongs to them. In Britain, the BBC has been under intense political and social fire for years, and repeated scandals have undermined this fundamental relationship. Trust is not restored through campaigns, but through actions and time,” Wallin says.
“Although the situation for public broadcasters in the Nordic trust-based society is still close to a good level, they face a real challenge in future generations,” Leinikka adds.
This is how we conducted the study
The goal of the Reputation&Trust survey of news media was to assess the reputation of selected media organizations among the general public. Data for the study was collected via an online survey in Finland and Sweden from May 19 to June 5, 2026, and in the United Kingdom as part of Reputation&Trust national Reputation&Trust from May 13 to June 10, 2026.
The organizations were evaluated using Reputation and Trust Analytics’ Reputation&Trust research model, in which trust in an organization is measured on a five-point scale (1–5).
The survey included 1,885 respondents from Finland, 1,448 from Sweden, and 2,074 from the United Kingdom. The target group for the survey consisted of citizens aged 18–74 in Finland and Sweden, and those aged 15–65 in the United Kingdom, on a national basis (excluding the Åland Islands in Finland). The sample was weighted to be representative of the population by gender, age, and region of residence.
The margin of error for the entire data set is at most about 2.26percentage pointsin Finland, 2.58 in Sweden, and 2.15 in the United Kingdom , in either direction.
More information
Harri Leinikka, Reputation and Trust Analytics, CEO, +358 40 505 5001, harri.leinikka@reptrust.com
