US news consumers turning to podcasters and AI chatbots and away from traditional media — report
Prominent podcasters like Joe Rogan are playing a bigger role in news dissemination in the United States, as are AI chatbots, contributing to the further erosion of traditional media, according to a report released on Tuesday.
In the week following the January 2025 US presidential inauguration, more Americans said they got their news from social and video networks than from TV and news websites and apps — the first time that shift has occurred, the report said.
Traditional US news media increasingly risks being eclipsed by online personalities and creators, the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism said in its annual Digital News Report, which is based on an online survey of almost 100,000 people in 48 markets, including the United States.
The trend is particularly acute among young Americans. More than half of under-35s in the US are relying on social media and video networks as their main source for news. Across the countries the report surveyed, 44% of people aged 18 to 24 said these networks were their main source of news.
In the week following the presidential inauguration, 14% of respondents said they had come across former Fox News anchor Tucker Carlson discussing or commenting on news during that period. Picture: AP/Richard Drew
A fifth of a sampled group of Americans came across news or commentary from podcaster Rogan in the week following the presidential inauguration, the report found, while 14% of respondents said they had come across former Fox News anchor Tucker Carlson discussing or commenting on news during that period. Carlson now generates content across multiple social media and video networks.
'These are not just big numbers in themselves,' wrote Nic Newman, senior research associate at the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism.
'These creators are also attracting audiences that traditional media struggle to reach. Some of the most popular personalities over-index with young men, with right-leaning audiences, and with those that have low levels of trust in mainstream media outlets, seeing them as biased or part of a liberal elite.'
Despite their popularity, online influencers and personalities are seen as the biggest sources of false or misleading information worldwide, along with politicians, the report found.
In the United States, politicians are considered the biggest sources of false or misleading information.
AI is another emerging theme in news consumption, particularly for young people. Of respondents under age 25, 15% rely on AI chatbots and interfaces for news each week, compared to 7% of respondents overall, the report found.
ChatGPT was the most mentioned AI service for news, followed by Google's Gemini and Meta AI.
Text remains the most preferred way for people worldwide to consume news, although about a third say they prefer to watch the news online and 15% say they prefer to listen.
Younger people are much more likely to prefer watching or listening to the news.
Social media platform X, formerly Twitter, is also becoming a more popular source of news in the United States, particularly among right-leaning users and young men, with 23% of sampled Americans consuming news there — up eight percentage points from last year.
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