Social media has overtaken TV as the world’s most popular news source, according to last week’s Reuters digital news report 2026. The socials also pipped news websites and apps for the first time, used by 54% of those surveyed globally, with TV running second at 52%.
“This is about the decline of TV news, as social media is broadly flat,” said Tom Harrington at Enders Analysis. “There’s worse ahead. Broadcasters are driving people to streaming services, where the consumption of news as a share of viewing on, say, iPlayer is 7% compared with linear, which is 31%. Within 10 years, when the transmitters are switched off, news consumption falls off a cliff.”
Marking a critical point in the transition from legacy media, the survey also found AI chatbots on the rise, with around 10% of people using them as news sources – just below podcasts at 11% – although this varies regionally, with the UK coming in low at 4%.
Earlier last week, however, a court in Munich ruled that Google is liable for false statements – dubbed “hallucinations” in Silicon Valley speak – generated by its AI overview feature. Social media and search companies have had a free pass if people told lies on their platform thanks to legislation drawn up in 1996 liberating them from responsibility as publishers.
This ruling cancels out that free pass. After two publishers discovered they had been linked to scams, and subscription-related frauds the court ruled that Google’s tool produced “independent, new, and substantial statements” based on a misinterpretation of information.
While trust in media has fallen to 37%, legacy brands are still trusted, according to report co-author Amy Ross Arguedas. “People are still differentiating traditional news brands from other types of sources, so 27% of the population gets news from creators, seeing them as easier to understand and more entertaining, but also seeing them as less impartial and trustworthy.”
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