Reuters: Social Media is Now the Leading News Source
The Reuters Institute Digital News Report 2026, covering 97,000 respondents across 48 markets, identifies a significant milestone in global news consumption: for the first time, social media and video networks have overtaken news organisations' own websites and apps as the most widely used way of accessing online news. Combined with AI chatbots, third-party sources now account for 56% of news access globally, against 51% for owned news properties and 52% for television.
Trust in news fell to 37% overall, the lowest figure recorded since measurement began in 2015, with significant drops in 29 of 48 markets. In the United States, only 25% of people now say they trust the news most of the time. The report notes that falling trust is partly structural: social media and AI are trusted substantially less than traditional sources, so as consumption shifts toward them, overall trust figures fall with it. Interest in news has also declined, dropping 13 percentage points on average since 2021, with 25% of respondents now classified as casual or passive news users.
Online video is now watched weekly by 77% of respondents globally, with a majority in every single market covered. Growth is happening entirely on third-party platforms: video consumption on news organisations' own websites and apps fell 5 percentage points last year. Around 27% of respondents now watch on-demand news through apps like YouTube on their smart TVs.
The shift is accelerating among younger audiences. More than half of respondents aged 18 to 24 now say social media, video networks, and AI chatbots are their main way of getting news, 32 percentage points ahead of the next most popular source. News websites and apps have lost 12 percentage points of reach since 2021 and no longer lead as the main source for any single age group globally. The proportion of people who have never regularly read a newspaper stands at 56% among 18 to 24-year-olds.
AI chatbot use for news grew from 7% to 10% globally. The report finds that AI chatbot news users are not casual consumers but power users: 38% fall into the report's "news lover" segment, compared to 22% of respondents overall. They are more likely to access multiple outlets, use a wider range of platforms and formats, and actively seek information rather than encounter it passively. The most popular feature among AI news users is the ability to ask follow-up questions, cited by 42% of respondents. Notably, the UK recorded the lowest AI chatbot news usage of any market at 4%, and several major markets including the US, France, and Germany showed no increase year on year.
Full report: Reuters