Our podcast. Digital News Report 2024. Episode 1. What you need to know

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In this opening episode of our series, we explore the key findings from our Digital News Report 2024, the most comprehensive study of news consumption worldwide. We discuss some of the big headlines from the report including the evolution of platforms in how people interact with news, what people think of AI in news, the role of influencers and creators, and how much people are paying for news. We will also look at concerns around misinformation, and levels of trust and interest in news.

Speakers

Nic Newman is the lead author of the Digital News Report and is a Senior Research Associate at the Reuters Institute. He is also a consultant on digital media, working actively with news companies on product, audience, and business strategies for digital transition. He writes an annual report for the Institute on future media and technology trends.

Rasmus Nielsen is co-author of the Digital News Report, Director of the Reuters Institute and Professor of Political Communication at the University of Oxford. His work focuses on changes in the news media, political communication, and the role of digital technologies in both.

Our host Federica Cherubini is Director of Leadership Development at the Reuters Institute. She is an expert in newsroom operations and organisational change, with more than ten years of experience spanning major publishers, research institutes and editorial networks around the world.

Transcript

A 'platform reset' | How platforms are affecting publishers | Gateways to news | AI and news | News influencers and creators | Online misinformation and trustworthy news | News avoidance and interest in news | Paying for news | Areas for optimism

A 'platform reset' ↑

Federica: So Nic, in the report, you use this phrase ‘platform reset’ to describe much of the change that we're seeing in large areas of online news consumption, what is this platform reset and how is it impacting news consumption?

Nic: Well, I think in the time we've been doing the Digital News Report, we've seen platforms becoming evermore important parts of the ecosystem, in terms of what news, what brands, people get exposed to what we're really talking about here is some quite fundamental changes in strategy by a number of the big tech players. And that's partly driven by AI. We've talked about that already, partly by changing audience behaviours, and just greater competition for eyeballs and attention between, you know, many more platforms. So it used to be mainly Facebook, or Google primarily, but it's a much wider range now.

And how's that affecting news? Well, I think the biggest impact that we see in our data this year is very significant declines in the use of Facebook for news, but also, X or Twitter, as previously called, Facebook use overall down four percentage points on average across countries, but in some places, 10 or 11 points, and it was similar a year ago. And this, of course, is partly because Facebook themselves have deliberately changed their strategies. They're promoting publisher content less, and investing in content that they consider to be more engaging, and also in formats that are more engaging. You've talked about video already. So in a nutshell, referrals from social media, which have been such a huge driver of traffic, economically sustaining many news sites, that’s beginning to dry up and at the same time we have this preference for newer formats that are designed to keep attention within those platforms, rather than linking out to websites, as they might have done in the past and in combination that is putting a lot of strain on the bottom line for many publishers.

Federica: The report covers many platforms. Which are the big winners and losers when it comes to news consumption. And does this vary across different markets?

Nic: It does a bit but, you know, I've mentioned already the platform that's been most affected. So that's that's Facebook. But there are growth areas and that's primarily in these video-first platforms like YouTube and TikTok, as well as video heavy platforms like Instagram. But we're also seeing that fragmentation so close messaging apps, such as WhatsApp, Telegram, also growing in many parts of the world. Aggregators, too, I mean. Apple News, for example, has become steadily more important in in the market. I would pick out TikTok, partly because it's growing fastest in many markets, particularly in markets in the Global South. So in sum, around half of our samples say that they use TikTok for any purpose about third for news now. So that's that's quite a big change. And indeed, it's played a significant role in a number of the elections around the world this year, Argentina, Indonesia, for example, politicians really using that network to connect with young people. So some of this is really consequential.

How platforms are affecting publishers ↑

Federica: Rasmus, can I bring you in on these consequences for publishers? What does the situation mean for publishers?

Rasmus: I think it's really important that publishers are realistic about the way in which the media ecosystem is changing and recognise very clearly that, as Nic rightly stressed, throughout all the years that we've done the Digital News Report, we see this ongoing shift away from direct discovery towards distributed forms of discovery. The public is increasingly relying on competing platforms to access all sorts of content and information. And it's important to recognise that it's in a context where much of the public is very sceptical of the quality and integrity of some of that information. Much of the public is concerned about how some of these companies have been very blase about the level of misinformation and hate speech and other kinds of disgusting material that has spread across their products and services, and where many have reservations about their data collection practices and approaches to privacy and many other issues.

At the same time, people continue to engage with them and as for example, the Knight Foundation and others have documented in their research, they do so in part because they say that they find them useful in terms of getting access to more relevant and useful information, they find that they help them connect with people like them, they find that they make it easier for people like them to express themselves and share their own point of view. So the shift is very clear. And we have seen no substantial examples of any travel in the opposite direction.

Now, the thing that's happened in the last couple of years, in addition to the sort of increasing prominence of video and visuals that Nic mentioned, and the shift towards a greater emphasis on on-site, content that in turn leads to fewer referrals, and a greater prominence of more private and closed environments, whether private groups or messaging applications, is that many of these platforms are turning away from news and publishers and instead focusing more on other kinds of content and other creators, where perhaps the complementarity is more obvious. And there is less friction, in part, because the other creators are not organised or unionised often, so they are essentially sort of atomized and easier to deal with for platforms.

And I think we need to be very clear. This is a more complicated platform ecosystem for publishers to navigate. It's one in which the mass referrals that we saw for a period of time are drying up in most cases, it's one in which there is growing competition for attention. And it all means that journalists and politicians have to work much, much harder to earn the public's attention to merit being a regular part of their daily habits and daily lives, let alone a meaningful one. And of course, all of that is a premise really, for convincing anyone to pay for news. So it's a much harder battle for attention. It's a much harder battle for being part of people's daily routines. And it's also going to be very tough to make a compelling case for people to pay for news content in a world where many of them feel that much of what they need is provided in more compelling and convenient ways by others, often for free.

Gateways to news ↑

Federica: Nic, we mentioned the fragmentation of multiple platforms and shifts, but are we continuing to see the growth of platforms as the primary gateway to news.

Nic: That's been the story of the last 10 years. As Rasmus says, increasing use of social platforms, declining direct traffic, but I think you know, resets mean, there's more uncertainty, and in many cases, usage of traditional platforms is being challenged or replaced by some of these alternatives. So I think it's much more about this uncertainty, more fragmentation and consumption across platforms. And as Rasmus says more challenging, more complicated for news publishers to reach different audiences.

AI and news ↑

Federica: Rasmus, another major theme in journalism over the past year has been generative AI with newsrooms beginning to use it for different tasks internally or audience facing. Can you describe some of these ways in which we are seeing AI being used? And how do audiences feel about this?

Rasmus: Yeah, I mean, I think first, it's important to highlight. As you know, Nic began to document in his Trends and Predictions report in January. And Richard Fletcher has led on other work that we've done, and many other researchers have sort of brought to light, similar data that, first of all, I think we need to recognize, that while generative AI is much discussed, and sometimes being integrated into very popular productivity, software suites, or search engines or social platforms that people routinely make use of, it's still early days in terms of mass public adoption of standalone generative AI chatbots. You know, some people do use them, but most of those who use them are mostly playing around and not using them regularly. So it's still early days. That does not mean there won't be an impact, or even potentially a quite radical impact. I personally believe there probably will be. But it's also important to recognise these things don't happen overnight, as we know, right, the commercial Internet, later search, later social media and mobile all had radical impacts, but the impacts didn't materialise in a year or two.

In terms of what our research at this early stage says about how the public thinks about it, I think it's important that publishers and journalists draw some encouragement from the fact that our research suggests that generally the public wants humans in the loop when it comes to news. So even in a context where much of the public may have a pretty dim view of journalism, may not appreciate it that much, may not necessarily trust it, it's still the case that many see a distinct value add a distinct, important role.

And generally, we find many more people who say they're comfortable with getting news produced, mainly by humans with some help from AI, then say they prefer mainly AI with some human oversight. Now, it varies across different kinds of use cases, right? I mean, the industry is experimenting with these tools for all sorts of different purposes. We try to get a better understanding of what the public thinks of these different kinds of uses. There is generally greater acceptance of the sort of back end, behind the scenes uses that many newsrooms have been experimenting with for some time, from really basic stuff like copy editing, to things around how you, you know, do your marketing material or optimise your payroll strategy and whatnot. Not all of this relies on generative AI, there are other kinds of AI that publishers rely upon. We see some openness to use AI to deliver news in new ways. We've seen some publishers experiment with synthetic voices, synthetic presenters and anchors and the like, versioning of content, summary of content and the like, but much less acceptance of using AI to generate news content, in particular, without robust human oversight.

Federica: You mentioned different ways of using AI. What about the topics? Are there some topics that people feel more comfortable with AI being involved in their production?

Rasmus: Yeah, definitely. And I think, again, it’s an area where journalists and editors can perhaps draw some encouragement in the sense that generally, the public is much more insistent on the importance of having a human in the loop and a sort of human lead editorial processes on what many journalists and editors were to think of a sort of, quote unquote, hot news topics, politics, crime, where there are very real stakes where it's really important that one gets the facts, right, and thinks through all the sort of qualitative judgements that have to be made about what one publishes and why.

And then there is a much greater acceptance of integrating AI into news production on quote unquote, softer news topics such as celebrity, entertainment coverage, or sports coverage. Now, of course, the challenge for publishers is that the latter things where people are much more accepting of the role of AI are not the most prestigious parts of journalism, not the way in which publishers present themselves to the public. As you know, ‘we do lots of this on celebrities’, you know, ‘come to us for celebrities and sports,’ but it's very important to the business. It's often a large part of traffic, it's often a large part of engagement. It’s often a large part of what sort of builds up routine usage. And in those areas, I think we'll see a lot of challenges to established publishers, even as our data, at this early stage, suggests that the public still feels quite strongly that they would rather have journalists and editors make the decisions about how politics and crime is covered, than have generative AI do so.

News influencers and creators ↑

Federica: Nic, we mentioned in the opening, how some platforms are focusing more on influencers and creators and Rasmus mentioned it, and indeed, in many years, we have seen journalists and commentators go directly to some of these platforms, leaving behind some of the most traditional, for example, TV, channels to speak directly to this online and platform-first audience. Is this format having any success with audiences around the world? And which platforms are most popular?

Nic: I think this trend is linked to what we talked about earlier, the change of strategies from platforms. So developing long-form video opportunities, as well as short form. So it's not just about short form video. So most famously, Tucker Carlson in the US, for example, you know, forced out of Fox News, of course, set up his own network, is generating very large audiences on X and other platforms. He had 200 million views for that interview with Vladimir Putin. But there are others as well. I mean, Megyn Kelly has been operating on YouTube for a long time. Don Lemon, moving from CNN. And in the UK, we have seen it, you know, very significant figures like Piers Morgan, and other well-known and often controversial hosts, taking his Uncensored programme online only. So, this is a bit of a trend. The other related trend is the visualisation of podcasts. So many of these are now being filmed and distributed across multiple platforms. So this is another sort of factor pushing longer form video. But of course, you know, as with all trends, a lot of people are piling in, there's a lot of content. It’s one thing to get attention in the first place, much harder to keep it and to monetise it. And I think the jury's still out on that.

Federica: So there is a chapter in the report, and later in this podcast series, we'll dedicate a full episode to the  whole range of influencers in a number of countries around the world. But for now, how are some of these news influencers trying to reach specifically younger audiences? And are they trying to fill any specific Niche?

Nic: Absolutely, I mean, this year, for the first time, we asked survey respondents to identify some of the creators, some of the influencers they were paying attention to in social and video platforms. And it was really striking to find in many countries, individuals, successful news creators, such as Hugo Décrypte, for example, in France, Jack Kelly, who runs a brand in the UK called TLDR. So sort of shorter news for by young people for young people. Vitus Spehar who does a TikTok round up in the US, again, very, very widely cited in the United States. And, and these creators are really doing things a little bit differently, they're connecting with younger audiences, across a whole range of genres, you know, particular subjects or general news as well. And in some cases, like Décrypte, they're actually more successful than traditional brands on social media in total, according to our data in terms of the number of citations.

Online misinformation and trustworthy news ↑

Federica: Rasmus, a recurring theme in the Digital News Report concerns audience's perception about misinformation in online news. We’re recording this podcast the day after the EU elections. We've seen some big elections happening in big countries, more will come, wars raging around the world. Concerns about misinformation could be more significant in such a backdrop.Which news topics are the biggest source of misinformation according to our survey’s respondents?

Rasmus: I mean, the answer in one word is politics. The bulk of public concern around online misinformation is about politics. By the way, this is sort of largely aligned with years of social science research that suggests that often misinformation is intertwined with politics and driven by some political actors who spread false or misleading information for political purposes. Of course, there are other forms of misinformation as well. But this is a central one. And the public seems to recognise that. We have concern also on other sort of classic areas that often frankly, intersect with party politics as well. So perceptions of the economy, perceptions of public health issues, where of course, the coronavirus pandemic has been a big one. And then as you say, international political issues where the war in Gaza and the war in Ukraine are both two areas that many respondents identify as topics where they are concerned that they come across examples of online misinformation.

More broadly, the level of public worry about these issues keeps creeping up. It's 59% of this year across the markets that we cover who say they're worried about what is real and what is fake on the internet when it comes to online news, up another three percentage points since last year. There is considerable variation from country to country, it's higher than the market average in India and South Africa, both of whom have recently had elections. It's also higher in the United States, which of course, will have elections a few months from now. Now, I think publishers need to sort of think about these concerns, both in terms of making sure that they help citizens really understand the scale and scope of the misinformation problems that exist in different societies, which are very pronounced in some, but much less so in others. This is an important journalistic role. And I'm glad to see it that this become sort of a beat in some organisations. And there are examples of really good coverage of this, though, of course, as with every area, there is considerable variation.

I also think that publishers have to think about the fact that when people say they are concerned about misinformation, they often have in mind, in part, news coverage of politics. So that when the public is very concerned about this, it's not that they are very concerned about online misinformation and therefore flocking to journalism. Often when people say they're concerned about online misinformation, they mean, in part, journalism, in particular political journalism. And I do think that publishers need to sort of think about what impact this widespread public concern has also, for them, their own profession and their own industry.

Federica: Bringing this back to the point we made before about the fractured platform landscape. Are there some social media platforms that can cause more concern among users when it comes to discerning what news is trustworthy or not?

Rasmus: I mean, absolutely, yes. I mean, we've known for years from our own research that just as, the concern on topics and sources is centred on politics. The concern about platforms is centred on Facebook, and secondarily on messaging applications, of which, in most markets, the most important example is the Meta-owned WhatsApp. So in a sense of the answer, in one sense, is politics. The answer in another sense is Meta is at the centre of public concern. Now this year, we asked some new questions that I think gives another way of thinking about public perspectives on this, where we asked people about how easy they find it to tele apart, trustworthy versus untrustworthy news and information on various platforms.

The good news here is that on the most widely-used platforms, a majority say they find it easy to tell the difference between trustworthy and untrustworthy news. And on all platforms, included in our survey, a large plurality say so, many more people say they find it easy than find it hard. So it ranges, there are some meaningful variations here. At the low end, you have, you know, X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, and LinkedIn, where 41% say they find it easier to tell the difference between trustworthy and untrustworthy news, and then a higher 60% when it comes to Google search.

If we sort of flip it around and look not just at a sort of broad based sense in the public that people are concerned about online misinformation, and they may be concerned about the impact this might have on other people, but they generally feel reasonably capable of navigating this on their own for their own purposes, that there are still some platforms where a much higher number of people say they find it difficult. Facebook, which I've already mentioned, is one of them. 21% say they find it difficult to tell the difference between trustworthy and untrustworthy news on Facebook. 24% on X and 27% on TikTok, and I think the latter is a particular concern, as TikTok is probably the most important and example of a newer platform that's really growing in popularity. And in that sense, it is concerning to see that there is less confidence from its user base about how to navigate information on this platform that more and more people use for many different purposes, but also sometimes for information about current affairs.

News avoidance and interest in news ↑

Federica: Nic, Rasmus mentioned that, you know, mostly positively, maybe when we look at it, trust levels have remained stable in many countries and it’s not gotten worse. Are audiences showing the same level of interest in news and how does this vary across countries?

Nic: Yeah, I think the issues of engagement and engagement with particular groups is very much top of mind for publishers, and they see declining engagement in their data. And we see the same. So in countries like the UK, for example, we find that only around a third now say that they are interested or very interested in in the news. And that was more like 70% in 2015. So it's almost it's almost halved. This is what people say in surveys. We've also seen big falls in in other large countries like France and Germany, US and elsewhere. And of course, this is having a real effect on the extent to which people are seeking out the news directly or even via social media. Now, we were hoping that this year, you know, the elections would make a difference, it might reverse those trends, we have seen actually a bit of an uptick in some of the markets holding elections like the US but nothing like, you know, the ‘Trump bump’ that we saw in 2016. And, you know, I think that partly reflects the fact that, for many people, people see politics as toxic, rather than engaging in a way that they might have done in the past. And so, you know, I think this sort of challenge of engagement is incredibly real right now.

Federica: So if interest in news is declining in some areas, and in some countries, are we also seeing news avoidance levels rising? And what are the biggest factors that seem to turn people away from the news?

Nic: So apart from interest in news, we also measured this concept of selective news avoidance. So these are people quite often who were interested in news, but who say that they often or sometimes avoid it, and that number is the highest on record in our survey, so 39% this year, on average, across all the markets, higher in some markets. And, you know, some of this is kind of a natural reaction to the news agenda, which is pretty depressing. Let's face it, you know, ongoing wars in the Middle East in Ukraine. And respondents in our survey talk about needing to protect their mental health, the stress of being burned out, constantly bombarded with more and more news, with very little light. And about intractable conflicts or difficult issues like climate change that have no obvious way of… no agency, people talking about not having any agency, [not] being able to do anything about these really difficult, complex global issues. And I think, you know, the news industry in responding is very much aware of this. It's experimenting with a whole load of new approaches such as constructive journalism, solutions, journalism, providing more explainers to help explain these complicated issues. We talked about a lot of this last year. And this year, we're looking at trying to understand and underlying user needs, that audience have and how they may or may not be met by media companies. And I think there's a whole separate episode on that, but I think there's some interesting gaps which potentially the media can close here.

Paying for news ↑

Federica: So if publishers might be worried about struggling to attract the attention or engagement of audiences, even more, those publishers who rely on some of their audiences to fund their journalism and might be worried. In recent Digital News Reports, we saw a levelling off in the percentage of people who pay for online news. After a modest rise throughout the COVID-19 pandemics, what changes are we seeing this year?

Nic: I mean, a few changes here and there. But for most publishers, it's a pretty static picture. It's a struggle actually, to keep many of the existing subscribers or members, let alone find new ones. So our data suggests that the average across 20 countries where subscription models and membership models are widespread, 17% say they've paid for any kind of online news in the last year, so the majority not paying. Quite a lot of variation, so in some of those Nordic countries with stronger direct connections,Norway, for example, 40%, Sweden 33%. So payment is much higher. And it tends to be lower in countries where there's a lot more competition, a lot more free news, such as, the United Kingdom, just 8%, for example. And the discussion amongst publishers right now is you know, how to get growth going again, and also how to reduce churn. So that is the proportion of people who are not renewing their subscription each year. And some of that has been exacerbated by the cost of living crisis, which means that people are just sort of shopping around a lot more around a whole range of subscriptions, not just media subscriptions, and comparing the value that they get out of each and sometimes news doesn't come out very well in that equation.

Federica: So this year, you also looked at how much people are paying for the new subscriptions? And especially comparing full price versus different offers or discounts? Or did you find out

Nic: We asked people, this is the first time we've done it, you know, people who were paying for news, to tell us how much they were paying for their main news subscription. And then we compare that with the advertised price on the website, the full price. What we found is on average, about four in 10. So getting on for half, said they were paying less than the full price. So essentially, there's a lot of discounting going on, we kind of know that anyway. But especially in countries like the US and the UK. And these are countries where publishers are trying to entice more people to sample and pay for news. And then, you know, hopefully at the end of those trial periods, lock people in at a more sustainable price or raise prices later. So these are some of the tactics, a lot of trials, a lot of those trials are going on for long periods of time to give people more of a chance. And we're certainly seeing that in our data. But again, it makes it harder, at the end of that trial period, we find a lot of people dropping off because that jump is just too high.

Areas for optimism ↑

Federica: So there is no shortage of challenges for publishers around the world. And we have highlighted many of those in our chat today. Nic, I'd like to end by asking you if you think that there are some examples of approaches taken by some news organisations or any specific initiatives, that show there is a way to thrive and successfully meet these challenges and improve the relationship with audiences.

Nic: I think there are and that's partly because there's a lot of uncertainty right now, a lot of changing audience behaviours. And I think moments of change, offer market opportunities. And so we've already highlighted that sort of shift to more audience-focused reader revenue strategies. And that is clearly working for a number of the really big upmarket titles that are catering to sort of richer, more educated groups of people who are prepared to pay. So that's one sector, where we can point to a number of publishers, that are actually doing quite well, quite profitable, investing in journalism again.

But also niches actually, again, this as an opportunity to reach particular groups of people and provide distinctive value. So I think at both ends of the scale, we're seeing opportunities, and many examples of successful media companies. I think other areas to look are where you see change. So that move to video, I think is offering opportunities to create content that resonates with different kinds of audiences that maybe haven't been very well served by traditional media. So I talked about younger creators, but we're also seeing traditional media companies, public service broadcasters, really connecting in new ways using different kinds of digital formats. So I think that's a real opportunity and a real bright spot as well.

And then, we haven't talked about it so much, but actually some of those uses of AI, to create more relevance and connect and to do it more cheaply than we've been able to do before. So I think often we don't think about the positives. But I think they are definitely there.

Federica: Thanks, Nic. Rasmus, to close. You talk in the past about evidence-based reason for optimism, and indeed, even in our chat, today, yo drew attention to the positive aspects alongside the challenges. Can you give us in closing what are your evidence-based reasons for optimism this year? If you see them?

Rasmus: Sure, of course, we need to think about optimism for whom. And I think  it's important here probably to distinguish between the public's perspective and then journalism as a profession and then publishers as an industry. It's a very fraught media environment these days, a very challenging information ecosystem in many different ways. But I do think we need to recognise that people generally aren't that unhappy with it. It's not that people can’t go direct to websites, or pick up a print newspaper or revert to linear schedule broadcasting on TV or radio, instead of the digital media that they use and the platforms they rely on. It's not that they can’t, it’s that they don't.

And even when it comes to news, this year, we asked a set of user needs questions that Nic mentioned. And when we look at the sort of negative responses around that the percentage of people who say they feel the news does a bad job of some of these key things, keeping people up to date, helping them learn more about topics and events, providing a range of different perspectives and topical issues. It's actually a very small minority of the public in most countries that are actively unhappy with the news that they get in this environment, often only about one in 10, or, or in some cases, even fewer that are unhappy with the news that they get. I think that Lea Korsgaard, the publisher of the digital newspaper Zetland in Denmark has put it quite well when she said that ‘people don't miss journalism. But journalism misses people,’, right?

And this, of course, is the second part of the equation, is that from the point of view of publishers, there is no value in sugarcoating the message here, this is a supremely challenging environment, very, very hard competition for attention. Even harder competition for advertising and for earning the right to hope for payment from people or donations from people for one's work. That said, As Nic highlighted, there are a few publishers who are doing well in this ‘few winners, many losers’ market, some of them are legacy institutions, often doing the kinds of journalism that many reporters really value. Others are new entrants, again, they are often like really respected and inspirational titles, we see some really creative and encouraging uses of the affordances of platforms by individual creators, that yes, are threats in a competitive sense, but perhaps also could serve as a source of inspiration for publishers and journalists who really want to reconnect with people where they actually are, rather than insist that they must come to the legacy platforms that happen to be most lucrative for publishers.

At the most basic level, from the point of view of journalism as a profession rather than publishing as an industry, I would say there are reasons for optimism in recognising again this year, that what much of the public say that they want from news is what many journalists would like to be able to offer. It is factually accurate reporting, it is fair reporting, it is reporting that is independent from undue commercial political influence, free from bias. It is reporting that keeps people up to date, helps them understand issues beyond personal experience, and helps them recognise a range of different perspectives unlike their own. These are things that I think many journalists would like to offer the public and in that sense, there is an appetite for some of the core principle values, basic things that journalists would like to offer.

And the challenge, of course, then is how to deliver on that desire. But this is much better than a world in which people just didn't care. People would like to have this kind of journalism. And the challenge, of course, is how to deliver it by meeting them where they are culturally, and concretely.