Social media becomes main source of news for first time – UK Times

More people in the U.S. now get their news from podcasts than newspapers, according to a new survey.

The research, shared by the Reuters Institute on Tuesday, also found that social media and video networks have become the main source of news in the U.S. for the first time.

Only half of those surveyed now get their news from TV, down from nearly three-quarters of people in 2013. By contrast, 54 percent of people now get news from platforms such as Facebook, X and YouTube.

Print newspapers have seen their share fall from 47 percent to just 14 percent over the same time period – less than the 15 percent of people who use podcasts as a source of news in 2025.

Taking data from almost 100,000 people in 48 countries, the Digital News Report revealed that traditional news sources such as TV and print have lost significant market share over the last decade.

This trend looks likely to continue with the rise of AI chatbots and podcasts as emerging news sources.

The report warned that this shift away from established news sources has given rise to populism in politics, which in turn could undermine democracy.

“An accelerating shift towards consumption via social media and video platforms is further diminishing the influence of ‘institutional journalism’ and supercharging a fragmented alternative media environment containing an array of podcasters, YouTubers, and TikTokers,” wrote Nic Newman, the report’s author.

“Populist politicians around the world are increasingly able to bypass traditional journalism in favor of friendly partisan media, ‘personalities’, and ‘influencers’ who often get special access but rarely ask difficult questions, with many implicated in spreading false narratives or worse.”

TikTok was noted as the fastest-growing network globally, with 17 per cent of people using it as a news source, while X has also seen significant growth in the U.S. and U.K.

The report stated that “many more right-leaning people, notably young men, have flocked to the network” since Elon Musk took over the platform in 2022.

The right wing audience in the U.S. tripled on X since Musk’s takeover, while in the U.K. it almost doubled.

Rival platforms that are more popular with left-leaning users, such as Bluesky and Mastodon, are “making little impact globally”, according to the report, with less than 2 per cent of people surveyed using them as a news source.