Only one in four Maltese trusts the press, a new EU-wide study has found.

The Eurobarometer survey found that the Maltese did not think the local media told the truth when reporting events. They ranked as the fourth least likely Europeans to trust journalists.

However, the Maltese did trust the government. In fact, the study found they were twice as likely to trust the government to tell the truth, compared to the press.

The survey, the field work for which was done last March, found that 52 per cent of Maltese trusted the government. This is 12 per cent above the EU average.

Overall, just four in 10 European respondents said they tended to trust their national government, up nine per cent from 2016.

Interestingly, the study also established that the Maltese were just as likely to trust the government this year as they did in 2016.

However, the number of people who said they did not believe that the government spoke the truth increased slightly – by two per cent.

About 15 per cent said they did not know whether they trusted the government or not.

The survey found that respondents who had completed their education when they were 20 or over were the most likely to trust the media – about seven per cent more than those with a lower educational attainment.

The same was true of managers and others who occupy white-collar positions, who were also about seven per cent more likely to trust the press, compared to manual labourers.