Fifty-four percent. That is the share of people across 48 markets who now get news through social and video networks each week, according to the Reuters Institute’s 2026 Digital News Report, and it is the first year that number beat news websites and apps. If you run PR, that single crossover tells you more about where your story needs to land than any media list.
Below are 30 news consumption statistics from 2026 research, grouped by what they mean for anyone trying to earn coverage. The two main sources are the Reuters Institute report, which surveyed 97,520 people across 48 markets, and Pew Research Center’s news platform fact sheet, based on a survey of U.S. adults conducted August 24 to 30, 2026. Where a figure is U.S.-only, we say so.
Where Americans get news in 2026
1. 88% of U.S. adults get news from digital devices at least sometimes, and 59% do so often (Pew, 2026).
2. 63% get news from television at least sometimes, but only 31% say they do so often (Pew, 2026).
3. 43% get news from radio at least sometimes, and 12% often (Pew, 2026).
4. 22% get news from printed newspapers or magazines at least sometimes. Only 6% do so often (Pew, 2026).
5. Among digital routes, search leads: 70% of U.S. adults get news through search at least sometimes, ahead of news websites or apps at 66% and social media at 59% (Pew, 2026).
6. 32% get news from podcasts at least sometimes, and 34% from email newsletters (Pew, 2026).
7. When asked which platform they prefer, television still tops the list at 34%, followed by news websites or apps at 21%, social media at 14% and search at 10% (Pew, 2025 preference data).
The pattern is a split between habit and preference. Most Americans reach news through digital routes, yet a third still say they prefer TV. For PR, that means broadcast coverage still carries prestige with a large slice of the audience, while the daily reach happens on phones.
Social video is now the front page
8. 54% of people across Reuters’ 48 markets access online news through social and video networks weekly, compared with 51% through news websites and apps, and 52% through TV news (Reuters, 2026).
9. Social and video networks lead news sites in 30 of the 48 markets (Reuters, 2026).
10. 30% now say social or video is their main source of news, up from 22% five years ago (Reuters, 2026).
11. 12% use only social or video platforms for news, double the 6% recorded in 2020 (Reuters, 2026).
12. Facebook is used for news by 43% of respondents, YouTube by 34%, Instagram by 26% and TikTok by 20% (Reuters, 2026).
13. 77% watch online news video at least weekly, and online video beats broadcast TV news in 45 markets (Reuters, 2026).
14. 46% follow at least one creator, and 27% follow news-focused creators. Only 13% say creators meet most or all of their news needs, and 3% rely on creators alone (Reuters, 2026).
15. Among 18 to 24 year olds, 52% use social, video or AI as their main news source (Reuters, 2026).
The practical point: a story that has no image, no clip and no quotable line struggles to travel. Publishers now cut every story for social, and the pitches that win give them material to cut.
AI chatbots are a news source now
16. 10% of people use AI chatbots for news weekly across Reuters’ markets, up from 7% a year earlier (Reuters, 2026).
17. That figure rises to 16% among under-35s, and reaches 14% in South Korea, against 4% in the UK (Reuters, 2026).
18. In the U.S., 15% get news from AI chatbots at least sometimes, and 3% do so often (Pew, 2026).
19. 42% of chatbot news users say they often or always click through to sources (Reuters, 2026).
20. Only 20% trust chatbot answers about news, and in the UK the figure is 6% (Reuters, 2026).
Chatbot news use is still small, but it compounds. AI answers about your brand pull from the coverage that already exists. A story in a trusted outlet today is part of what a chatbot says about you next year, which is why we treat earned media as an AI visibility input, not just a PR win.
Trust keeps falling
21. Overall trust in news is 37%, the lowest since Reuters started tracking in 2015, and down 3 points in a year (Reuters, 2026).
22. Trust fell significantly in 29 of 48 markets, and by 5 points or more in 19 (Reuters, 2026).
23. U.S. trust in news is 25%, down 5 points, and just 15% among right-leaning Americans (Reuters, 2026).
24. 62% worry about what is real and fake online, up 4 points (Reuters, 2026).
Low trust raises the bar for what a journalist will run. Claims need data, named sources and documents behind them. A pitch built on “we believe” or “we are the leading” gets deleted faster now than it did three years ago.
Avoidance and fatigue
25. 42% say they sometimes or often avoid the news, flat on last year but up from 29% in 2017 (Reuters, 2026).
26. Only about 46% say they are extremely or very interested in news, down from 59% in 2021 (Reuters, 2026).
27. “Casual users” now make up 25% of the audience, up from 16%, while “news lovers” have fallen from 29% to 22% (Reuters, 2026).
Fewer people seek out news, which means fewer people stumble onto your story by reading a homepage. Coverage gets found through feeds, search and AI answers, so the headline and first line have to work out of context.
Who pays, and who clicks through
28. Across a basket of 20 countries, 17% pay for online news, down from 18% (Reuters, 2026).
29. Norway leads at 40% and Sweden follows at 32%, while the UK sits at 10% (Reuters, 2026).
The paywall matters for PR in a way most teams miss. A placement behind a hard paywall reaches fewer readers, but it often carries more weight with AI systems and decision makers who subscribe. Weigh both before you chase a free-to-read outlet over a paywalled one.
30. Google organic search traffic to more than 2,500 news sites tracked by Reuters fell 38% between November 2024 and November 2025 (Reuters, 2026).
This is the statistic that should change how you measure PR. When fewer readers click through from search, the referral traffic from a placement shrinks. The value of coverage shifts toward what it does elsewhere: in AI answers, in social clips, in the trust signal of a logo on your site.
How to read these numbers without fooling yourself
Two cautions before you put any of these figures in a deck. First, Reuters and Pew measure different things. Reuters asks about weekly use across 48 markets, with roughly 2,000 respondents per market, so a global average blends Norway, Kenya and the U.S. into one number. Pew asks U.S. adults how often they get news from each platform, using “often” and “sometimes” as the scale. When the two disagree, as they do on AI chatbots (10% weekly globally versus 15% “at least sometimes” in the U.S.), both can be right.
Second, “getting news from” a platform is not the same as trusting or remembering it. Someone who scrolls past a headline on Facebook counts as a social news user. Someone who reads a 2,000-word investigation counts the same. Reach numbers tell you where attention passes through, not where opinions form.
The cleanest way to use these statistics is directionally. Social video up, search referrals down, trust down, AI rising from a small base. Those four trends hold across both surveys and across most markets, and they are the ones worth planning around.
What this means for your next pitch
Translate the trends into three changes to how you pitch.
Lead with a visual. Because social and video are now the most common route to news, a pitch with a strong photo, a short clip or a chart gives the outlet something to post, not just something to publish. Journalists notice which publicists make their social team’s job easier.
Prove every claim. With trust at 37% globally and 25% in the U.S., editors are more careful about what they run. Send the data, the methodology and a named source who can stand behind it. A claim that can’t survive a fact check costs you the next pitch too.
Write for the second life of the story. With search referrals down 38% at the sites Reuters tracked, a placement’s value increasingly comes after publication: when it is cited in an AI answer, clipped for LinkedIn, or linked from your own site as proof. Ask for the clean, specific facts in the story that you want AI systems to repeat about you, such as your category, your founding year and what you do, stated plainly.
These are small shifts, but they compound. Teams that adapt their pitches to how people consume news now get more from every placement they earn. If you want journalists who cover your beat, our free journalist list is a good place to start.
The Reach-Trust Gap, and what to do about it
Put these numbers together and a pattern appears that we call the Reach-Trust Gap. The channels with the most reach, social video and AI answers, are the ones people trust least. The channels people trust most, established news brands, are losing direct reach. A PR plan that works in 2026 uses each side for what it does well.
Earn coverage in trusted outlets because that coverage becomes the source material for everything else. Then make sure that coverage travels: give journalists images and clips they can cut for social, give AI systems clear, consistent facts to cite, and repurpose every placement on your own channels. A story that only lives on a publisher’s site in 2026 reaches a fraction of the people it could.
So here is the question to take into your next campaign: if your best placement this year never got a single click from search, would it still be worth it?