How are people getting their news
Erin Jamieson
Think about the biggest story you heard this week. Did you go looking for it, or did it find you between a dog video and a message from the family group chat?
The Reuters Institute’s Digital News Report 2026 shows how quickly news habits are changing across the 48 markets it surveys. For the first time, social media and video platforms have overtaken television and news organisations’ own websites and apps as sources of news.
Just over half of respondents use social media and video networks for news, while more than three-quarters watch some form of online news video each week. Facebook remains the largest social platform for news, followed by YouTube, Instagram and TikTok.
AI is joining the mix. One in 10 respondents now uses an AI chatbot to find or understand news, rising to 16% among people under 35.
The interesting part is that many people are not actively looking for news. They encounter it while scrolling, watching or doing something else. A story might begin on a news website, then turn up as a LinkedIn post, video clip, podcast discussion, group-chat link or AI-generated summary. Sometimes the only thing people see is the headline or someone else’s hot take.
At the same time, trust is under pressure. Only 37% of respondents say they trust the news most of the time, the lowest result since the report began measuring trust in 2015.
It would be easy to conclude that established media matter less. We think the opposite is true. When people are being hit with information from every direction, independent coverage from a recognised news organisation carries weight that a sponsored post or self-published claim cannot easily replicate.
The practical lesson is that earning good media coverage still matters, but we also need to think about what happens after publication. Will the headline make sense on its own? Is there a strong image or short piece of video? Can someone explain the story clearly in 30 seconds? Is the public information accurate enough to survive being summarised by an algorithm?
A good story has always needed to be accurate, relevant and interesting. That has not changed. What has changed is the number of places it may go next.
