Young people avoiding the news, Reuters report
Key takeaways
- 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.
- The Reuters Digital News Report 2026 answers those questions.
- 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.
Why this matters: an international story with cross-border implications worth tracking.
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."
https://p.dw.com/p/5G4po A large majority of young people around the world get their news via social media these days Image: Ashish Vaishnav/SOPA Images/ZUMA/picture alliance Advertisement 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.