Digital News Report 2026
Selected by Dylan Ratigan.
The Reuters Institute's Digital News Report 2026 finds that news attention is shifting from publisher-controlled destinations toward social, video, creator, search and AI intermediaries. The change alters who governs discovery, trust and monetization—and how much control people exercise over their information diet.
Across the report's surveyed markets, social and video networks were used for news by 54 percent of respondents, compared with 51 percent for publisher sites and apps. AI-chatbot news use reached 10 percent overall and 16 percent among people under thirty-five, while trust fell to 37 percent and concern about false information rose to 62 percent. The findings rely on online samples and self-report, cross-market averages conceal substantial variation, and the data do not prove that platforms caused declining trust.