RISJ 2026 Digital News Report: Audiences flee news sites for social media and video platforms
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By Nieman Lab Staff June 15, 2026, 7:02 p.m. June 15, 2026, 7:02 p.m.
Summary
The 2026 Digital News Report from Oxford's Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism (RISJ) reveals that people across all age groups are abandoning traditional news websites and publisher apps in favor of social media and video platforms. This shift is most pronounced among 18- to 34-year-olds, who are dropping publisher content even faster than they're abandoning TV news. The report also finds that Facebook's role in news distribution is rebounding, and contrary to some beliefs, impartial news consumption is not dead.
Source
bskyRISJ 2026 Digital News Report: Audiences flee news sites for social media and video platformsniemanlab.orgKey quotes
· 3 pulledNews sites are rapidly becoming the newspapers of the digital age. And you know what happened to newspapers.
Worldwide, people in all age groups are ditching news sites and publishers' apps in favor of social media and video networks.
18- to 34-year-olds are abandoning content on publishers' platforms even more quickly than they're dropping TV news.
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