Digital News Landscape

Four-in-ten Americans who get news from social media say inaccuracy is the thing they dislike most about it – an increase of 9 percentage points since 2018.

Around seven-in-ten U.S. adults (68%) say they ever use Facebook, a share that has remained relatively flat since 2016.

A declining share of U.S. adults are following the news closely, and audiences are shrinking for several older types of news media.

The transition of the news industry away from print, television and radio into digital spaces has caused huge disruptions in the traditional news industry, especially the print news industry. Today, an overwhelming majority of Americans get news at least sometimes from digital devices.

Social media is playing a crucial role in Americans' news consumption. Today, three-in-ten U.S. adults say they regularly get news on Facebook. Slightly fewer (26%) regularly get news on YouTube.

In just three years, the share of U.S. adults who say they regularly get news from TikTok has more than quadrupled, from 3% in 2020 to 14% in 2023.

In the U.S., roughly nine-in-ten adults (93%) get at least some news online (either via mobile or desktop), and the online space has become a host for the digital homes of both legacy news outlets and new, “born on the web” news outlets.

True crime is the most common topic, making up 24% of top-ranked podcasts; 15% of the top podcasts focus on news. The next most common topics are politics and government (10%); entertainment, pop culture and the arts (9%); and self-help and relationships (8%).

57% of U.S. journalists surveyed say they are extremely or very concerned about potential restrictions on press freedoms in the country.

Roughly half of U.S. adults say they have listened to a podcast in the past year, including one-in-five who report listening at least a few times a week. Most podcast listeners say this experience includes hearing news, which they largely expect to be mostly accurate. Large shares of listeners say they turn to podcasts for entertainment, learning or having something to listen to while doing something else.