‘Traditional news media struggling to connect with much of the public’

An accelerating shift towards consumption via social media and video platforms is further diminishing the influence of ‘institutional journalism’ and supercharging a fragmented alternative media environment containing an array of podcasters, YouTubers, and TikTokers.

Populist politicians around the world are increasingly able to bypass traditional journalism in favour of friendly partisan media, ‘personalities’ and ‘influencers’ who often get special access but rarely ask difficult questions, with many implicated in spreading false narratives or worse.

These trends are increasingly pronounced in the United States under Donald Trump, as well as parts of Asia, Latin America and Eastern Europe, but are moving more slowly elsewhere, especially where news brands maintain a strong connection with audiences.

In countries where press freedom is under threat, alternative ecosystems also offer opportunities, at their best, to bring fresh perspectives and challenge repressive governments. But at the same time these changes may be contributing to rising political polarisation and a coarsening debate online.

In this context, our report uncovers a deep divide between the U.S. and Europe, as well as between conservatives and progressives everywhere, over where the limits of free speech should lie ­– with battle lines drawn over the role of content moderation and fact-checking in social media spaces

This year’s survey also highlights emerging challenges in the form of AI platforms and chatbots, which we have asked about for the first time.

As the largest tech platforms integrate AI summaries and other news-related features, publishers worry that these could further reduce traffic flows to websites and apps. But we also show that in a world increasingly populated by synthetic content and misinformation, all generations still prize trusted brands with a track record for accuracy, even if they don’t use them as often as they once did.

With growing numbers of people selectively (and in some cases consistently) avoiding the news, we look into the potential benefits of using new generative AI technologies to personalise content and make it feel more engaging for younger people.

Our report, which is supported by qualitative research in three markets (the UK, U.S., and Norway), also includes a chapter on the changing state of podcasting as the lines blur with video talk shows and explores the prospects for charging for audio content.

We also investigate where the value lies in local news and what appetite there might be towards more flexible ways of paying for online content, including ‘news bundles’.

This fourteenth edition of our Digital News Report, which is based on data from six continents and 48 markets, including Serbia for the first time, reminds us that these changes are not always evenly distributed.

While there are common challenges around the pace of change and the disruptive role of platforms, other details are playing out differently depending on the size of the market, long-standing habits and culture, and the relationship between media and politics.

Key findings

• Engagement with traditional media sources such as TV, print and news websites continues to fall, while dependence on social media, video platforms and online aggregators grows. This is particularly the case in the U.S. where the Reuters Institute’s polling overlapped with the first few weeks of the new Trump administration. Social media news use was sharply up (+6 percentage points) but there was no ‘Trump bump’ for traditional sources
• Personalities and influencers are, in some countries, playing a significant role in shaping public debates. One-fifth (22%) of the U.S. sample says they came across news or commentary from popular podcaster Joe Rogan in the week after the inauguration, including a disproportionate number of young men. In France, young news creator Hugo Travers (HugoDécrypte) reaches 22% of under-35s with content distributed mainly via YouTube and TikTok. Young influencers also play a significant role in many Asian countries, including Thailand
• News use across online platforms continues to fragment, with six online networks now reaching more than 10% weekly with news content, compared with just two a decade ago. Around a third of the global sample use Facebook (36%) and YouTube (30%) for news each week. Instagram (19%) and WhatsApp (19%) are used by around a fifth, while TikTok (16%) remains ahead of X at 12%
• Data show that usage of X for news is stable or increasing across many markets, with the biggest uplift in the U.S. (+8 points), Australia (+6) and Poland (+6). Since Elon Musk took over the network in 2023, many more right-leaning people, notably young men, have flocked to the network, while some progressive audiences have left or are using it less frequently. Rival networks like Threads, Bluesky and Mastodon are making little impact globally, with reach of 2% or less for news
• Changing platform strategies mean that video continues to grow in importance as a source of news. Across all markets, the proportion consuming social video has grown from 52% in 2020 to 65% in 2025, and any video from 67% to 75%. In the Philippines, Thailand, Kenya and India more people now say they prefer to watch the news rather than read it, further encouraging the shift to personality-led news creators
• Our survey also shows the importance of news podcasting in reaching younger, better-educated audiences. The U.S. has among the highest proportion (15%) accessing one or more podcasts in the last week, with many of these now filmed and distributed via video platforms such as YouTube and TikTok. By contrast, many northern European podcast markets remain dominated by public broadcasters or big legacy media companies and have been slower to adopt video versions
• TikTok is the fastest growing social and video network, adding a further 4 points across markets for news, and reaching 49% of the online sample in Thailand (+10 percentage points) and 40% in Malaysia (+9). At the same time, people in those markets see the network as one of the biggest threats when it comes to false or misleading information, along with Facebook, long a source of widespread public concern
• Overall, over half the sample (58%) say they remain concerned about their ability to tell what is true from what is false when it comes to news online, a similar proportion to last year. Concern is highest in Africa (73%) and the U.S. (73%), with lowest levels in Western Europe (46%)
• When it comes to underlying sources of false or misleading information, online influencers and personalities are seen as the biggest threat worldwide (47%), along with national politicians (47%). Concern about influencers is highest in African countries such as Nigeria (58%) and Kenya (59%), while politicians are considered the biggest threat in the U.S. (57%), Spain (57%) and much of Eastern Europe including Serbia (59%), Slovakia (56%) and Hungary (54%)
• Despite this, the public is divided over whether social media companies should be removing more or less content that may be false or harmful, but not illegal. Respondents in the UK and Germany are most likely to say too little is being removed, while those in the U.S. are split, with those on the right believing far too much is already taken down and those on the left saying the opposite
• The researchers found AI chatbots and interfaces emerging as a source of news as search engines and other platforms integrate real-time news. The numbers are still relatively small overall (7% use for news each week) but much higher with under-25s (15%)
• With many publishers looking to use AI to better personalise news content, researchers found mixed views from audiences, some of whom worry about missing out on important stories. At the same time, there is some enthusiasm for making the news more accessible or relevant, including summarisation (27%), translating stories into different languages (24%), better story recommendations (21%) and using chatbots to ask questions about news (18%)
• More generally, however, audiences in most countries remain sceptical about the use of AI in the news and are more comfortable with use cases where humans remain in the loop. Across countries, they expect that AI will make the news cheaper to make (+29 net difference) and more up-to-date (+16), but less transparent (-8), less accurate (-8) and less trustworthy (-18)
• These data may be of some comfort to news organisations hoping that AI might increase the value of human-generated news. To that end, it was found that trusted news brands, including public service news brands in many countries, are still the most frequently named place people say they go when they want to check whether something is true or false online, along with official (government) sources. This is true across age groups, though younger people are proportionately more likely than older groups to use social media to check information as well as AI chatbots
• One more relatively positive sign is that overall trust in the news (40%) has remained stable for the third year in a row, even if it is still four points lower overall than it was at the height of the COVID pandemic
• As publishers look to diversify revenue streams, they are continuing to struggle to grow their digital subscription businesses. The proportion paying for any online news remains stable at 18% across a basket of 20 richer countries – with the majority still happy with free offerings. Norway (42%) and Sweden (31%) have the highest proportion paying, while a fifth (20%) pay in the U.S. By contrast, 7% pay for online news in Greece and Serbia, and just 6% in Croatia