A closer look at the Reuters Institute Digital News Report 2022

According to the 2022 Reuters Institute Digital News Report, trust in news is falling in nearly half the countries surveyed, with significant proportions of the public, especially younger age groups, beginning to turn away from news. 

About the report:

• It is an annual report commissioned by the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, which tracks how news is consumed in different countries.
• The 2022 report (11th edition) is based on a survey (online questionnaires), covering 46 markets in six continents.
• Because it is based on online questionnaires, the results may not be nationally representative, particularly in countries with low internet penetration.
• The 2022 report flags six major trends which could have wider socio-political implications.

Key findings of the Digital News Report

• People are trusting news content less and less.
• Consumption of traditional news media declined in nearly all the countries surveyed.
• The proportion of news consumers who say that they “avoid news” has risen sharply across countries with the report describing the phenomenon as “selective avoidance”.
• Despite small increases in the proportion of people willing to pay for online news (mostly in richer countries), the growth in digital subscriptions for news content seems to be levelling off.
• Smartphones have become the dominant way in which most people first access news in the morning.
• Facebook remained the most-used social network for news. But it is TikTok that has become the fastest-growing network. However, TikTok is currently banned in India.

Key findings about India:

• In India, the data is more representative of younger English speakers rather than the general population.
• India saw a slight increase in trust, with 41% trusting news in general.
• The top social media platforms for sourcing news were YouTube (53%) and WhatsApp (51%).
• India is a heavily mobile-focused market, with 72% of survey respondents accessing news via smartphones and 35% via computers.
• In addition, 84% of Indian respondents got their news from the internet, 63% from social media, 59% from television and 49% from print.