Young people avoiding the news, Reuters report
An alarming number of young people are turning away from the news, according to the Reuters Digital News Report presented at DW's Global Media Forum
An alarming number of young people are turning away from the news, according to the Reuters Digital News Report presented at DW's Global Media Forum. Despite this, the report's author says, "journalism still matters." How do people stay informed in our digital age? And who do they trust? The Reuters Digital News Report 2026 answers those questions. The study, presented at the DW Global Media Forum in Bonn, shows how journalism and its usage is evolving — especially among young people. Jim Egan, who led the study, didn't exactly strike an optimistic tone in his presentation, saying that the "data this year is quite unsettling in many aspects." Egan is the main author of the report — carried out by the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at the University of Oxford — the largest annual survey on news consumption of its kind globally. Egan pointed out that the report's aim is not to provide comfort but rather to present a snapshot of reality: "We do this as an exercise in trying to insert some facts and some comparative analysis across different markets into an industry and into an ecosystem that is full of opinion but does not always know what's actually going on." Reuters Digital News Report 2026 author Jim Egan says young people are 'not only leaving' news coverage, most are 'not even starting' to follow it Image: Björn Kietzmann/DW Social media currently leads the field One of the most important findings in the report: Social media networks and video platforms are more frequently used as news sources than television or the websites and apps of news outlets themselves.
The phenomenon has less to do with booming platforms than with a turn away from classic news formats: "So social media consumption and usage itself isn't actually growing very much," said Egan. "But what we're seeing is a decline in the use of other platforms, such as television broadcast news, as well as going direct to a news organization's website or its app." This transformation is especially prevalent among younger target audiences. In the US, more than one-third of all respondents under 25 said they had never watched TV newscasts or used news websites regularly. "They're not only leaving," said Egan, "they're not even starting." At the same time, the report warns against seeking to expand reach at any cost. Young people are avid users of social media and video platforms but trust in news is also at its lowest there, according to Egan. "There's an irony here that people are moving more and more to platforms that they trust less." How dangerous are TikTok & Co. for democracy? To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video Video: Long formats are popular, too Simultaneously, the report finds that video formats are becoming massively important. Some 75% of respondents claim to watch news videos weekly — especially on platforms such as YouTube, TikTok and Instagram. Globally, 20% use TikTok as a source for news and 34% turn to YouTube. This number varies significantly by country. In Kenya, for instance, 66% of consumers get their news via YouTube. Publishers with their own video content, however, are failing to profit from the boom because they are losing reach, says Egan.
The BriefWire