More than half the public across the markets we cover say they are concerned about what is real and what is fake when it comes to online news. Even in countries like Denmark, Germany, or the Netherlands with relatively robust, widely used, and trusted news media, reasonably stable political institutions, and the rule of law, more than 40% are worried. In countries such as the United States, the figure is far higher. So what do people do if and when they want to check something important in the news online that they suspect may be false, misleading, or fake?
In this year’s survey, we asked respondents what they would usually do if and when they decide to check something. Survey data, with self-reported data subject to social desirability biases, does not always match actual behaviour. Many of us may overestimate how often, and how thoroughly, we check things. But survey data still provide useful evidence for how people think about navigating potentially problematic information online. And unlike some kinds of data (e.g. behavioural data) that often lack context, it can help us understand differences in how various parts of the public react when they come across something consequential they suspect may be misinformation and identify differences in verification practices both at both the individual and the country level.
Understanding who the public turns to is important to understand because research has documented, for example, that relying on news media tends to help people become more informed and, in some cases, more resilient to misinformation (Altay et al. 2024) and that citizens tend to heed fact-checking and other forms of factual information, even when it challenges their ideological commitments (Porter and Wood 2024). Other sources, on the other hand, may not help counter misinformation – or sometimes even reinforce mistaken beliefs and misleading narratives. It therefore matters who people turn to when in doubt.
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Trusted news outlets are the most widely named way to check
When asked how they would usually try to verify information they suspect may be false, misleading, or fake, a sizeable minority of our respondents (13%) say they don’t know. But a large majority of respondents identify at least one and in most cases two or more places they might go. The most widely identified are news sources that the respondent trusts, official sources (like government websites), and search engines.
Fact-checking websites, which generally do not have anywhere near the same brand recognition and reach as major news media, are still frequently named as a place people say they would go if and when they want to check potentially problematic information. This suggests that, in moments of doubt, they play an important role far beyond their generally very limited routine audience size, despite the known challenges of getting specific fact-checks in front of the specific people who have seen a specific identifiably false claim (Guess et al. 2020).
The good news from publishers’ point of view is that trusted news sources are the most widely named option. The more sobering news is that 62% of respondents do not think of publishers as the first place to turn. When it comes to search engines or social media/video sites, platforms that primarily serve content from other sources, we asked the respondents who turned to them which type of source they would mostly be looking for in the results or feeds presented.
Traditional news outlets and journalists do figure among the options many people say they would rely on when going via platforms – 26% of those who use search highlight news outlets, and 30% of those who use social media or video platforms do the same. (If we combine respondents who name news sources directly with those who would turn to traditional news sources on platforms, 43% say they would rely on publishers.)
But when it comes to platforms, official sources, including government websites, are more widely named, and a range of other types of sources are at least as widely named as news media. On search engines, fact-checkers, Wikipedia, and specialist websites or experts, and on social and video platforms, alternative news outlets, subject experts, Wikipedia, fact-checkers, and online personalities are all nearly as widely named as traditional news outlets and journalists.
Traditional news outlets thus still play an important role when people turn to search engines, social media, or video platforms to check information. But many other sources are as widely relied upon when people seek to check information that they suspect might be false, misleading, or fake via digital platforms.
Verification practices differ by age and income
One of the advantages of survey data is that they can help us understand differences across demographic and political groups. Some of the most notable ones are around age, income, and political orientation.
Younger people aged between 18 and 34, for example, often rely on the same sources as respondents 35 and over, but they are much more likely than older respondents to say they would rely on comments from other users, social media, and AI chatbots.
This age group mentions news media, official sources, search engines, and fact-checkers about as frequently as older people – but they are more likely to mention some of the others. This may suggest both complementary ways of thinking about trust (for example, horizontally and in terms of affinity as much as in terms of institutions) and a greater comfort with and routine reliance on digital platforms and new technologies.
Education is also correlated with systematic differences. Whereas younger people are more likely to rely on sources still regarded with scepticism by many older people, the difference when we look at education is of a different kind. Respondents with low levels of formal education (21% of our total respondents) are, compared to those with high levels of formal education (33% of respondents), much less likely to say they would turn to news media, official sources, search engines, or fact-checkers. Compared to those with high levels of education, they are more likely to say they don’t know where to go, and when they do name somewhere, they are more likely to name only one option. The patterns around income are very similar. Clearly, many of the sources that aim to be authoritative are not reaching less privileged people as well as they serve the more privileged.
Political orientation and verification practices
There are also political differences in who people turn to when they want to check something. As with income, the differences here are less about a greater preference for specific sources, and more about a lower propensity to rely on some of the options named. Specifically, people who identify as being politically on the right are less likely to say they would go to a fact-checking site, official sources like government websites, or Wikipedia.
As is often the case, differences across the left-right spectrum are not the only, or even the most pronounced, political differences. The large number of respondents who answer ‘don’t know’ when we ask them where they stand politically – which often indicates a feeling of distance, disengagement, or even alienation from conventional forms of politics, sometimes referred to as the ‘other divide’ (Krupnikov and Ryan 2022) – also tend to report a different set of verification practices. This group, which at 20% of respondents is larger than the share of respondents who identify as being politically on the left (15%) or right (15%), is more than twice as likely to say they don’t know what they would do (29%), and they are much, much less likely to say they would turn to any of the sources that loom large with respondents overall – with the partial exception of means that tend to rely on less institutional, more horizontal forms of possible validation: somebody I know and trust personally, social media or video network, and comments from other users.
Trust in news and how we verify
Trust in news, necessarily subjective as it is, has already been shown to influence what news sources people rely on and how they process information (Ejaz et al. 2024). Our data suggest it is also linked to verification practices. We can document this both at the level of individual respondents, across countries, and in terms of which news sources people highlight.
At the individual level, respondents who say they trust most news most of the time are more likely to go directly to news sources to verify potentially problematic information. They are also more likely to name traditional news as among the sources they would seek out via search engines or on social and video platforms.
Trust features not only at the individual level. It is also clear when looking across countries. If we plot the percentage of respondents in each country against the percentage who say they would turn to news sources to check something potentially problematic, at one end, a cluster of countries, including e.g. Denmark, Finland, and Sweden, has relatively high trust in news and about half of respondents saying they would turn to news sources. At the other end, a number of countries, including e.g. France, Italy, and Spain, have lower levels of trust and fewer people saying they would turn to news sources.
In terms of which news sources people turn to, some of our respondents provided specific examples when asked. The list of top ten most frequently named brands in a sample of four different countries provides a sense of how people orient themselves. Denmark and the United Kingdom have media systems centred around a limited number of national brands, with generally high trust in the former and somewhat lower trust in the latter, and Germany and the United States have media systems characterised by a larger number of competing brands and a long history of a more federated structure, one with relatively high trust and one with low trust.
For Denmark and the United Kingdom, three things stand out in particular – first, the absolutely central role played by public service media (DR, TV2 in Denmark and BBC in the UK) and media required to operate with due impartiality (ITV and Sky in the UK).
Second, there is the prominent role of upmarket newspaper brands, which are generally trusted even by those who may not sympathise with their editorial line. Third, the absence of popular brands such as Ekstra Bladet in Denmark and the MailOnline in the UK, which are widely used, but also regarded with some skepticism by much of the public.
The picture in Germany is similar in some respects – public service media ARD and ZDF are the most frequently named news sources, upmarket newspapers play a prominent role, and Bild is notably absent (despite its significant reach). However, like the media system more broadly, attention is less concentrated, with a long tail including many local and regional titles.
Finally, the situation in the United States is characterised by the asymmetric political polarisation that is such a defining feature of American politics and media use, with a number of long-established television news providers, upmarket newspapers, and public media NPR playing a prominent role – but accompanied by Fox News, which is simultaneously widely used (especially on the political right) and distrusted by many (in the political centre and on the left).
Conclusion
Overall, our data help advance our understanding of what people do when they come across something important in the news online that they suspect may be false, misleading, or fake. While there are limitations to self-reported data, this year’s survey provides important insight into where respondents say they usually go if and when they decide to check something. Most people identify two or more sources they might turn to, with trusted news sources generally one of, or the, most widely named.
Still, many of our respondents do not go to news, and especially those with lower levels of formal education and those who are more disengaged from conventional forms of politics, are less likely to say they would turn to news media.
And official sources – like government sites – are generally about as widely relied upon as news sources are. Journalists of course also check these to verify information, and in many cases and contexts it is quite sensible for citizens to do the same. In other cases, official sources may not be honest brokers (or even sources of misinformation themselves), and in any case, it is a reminder of how the role of news media has changed that official sources are far less reliant on them to connect with citizens.
Finally, our data show that trust in news is one of the factors influencing how people navigate potentially problematic information. Both at the individual level and looking across countries, those who tend to trust news in general are more likely to say they turn to news sources. And, with the exception of the most polarised environments, like the United States, highly and broadly trusted news sources, especially public service media, are important touchstones for where exactly people say they check things they are concerned about.