Reuters annual survey shows greater willingness among younger readers to pay for news

Less than a quarter of social media users think it does a good job in separating fact from fiction, according to a report by the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism.

In a boost for under pressure traditional news publishers, who are battling a decline in print revenues at the same time as Google and Facebook are taking a greater share of digital ad spending, the annual survey found that 40 per cent of people trusted what they read in the news media.

The study also found encouraging signs that more people are prepared to pay for online news, driven by a tumultuous series of events, including Donald Trump’s presidential triumph, the UK’s vote for Brexit and a series of terror attacks in European cities.

 
The findings come as social media platforms such as Facebook and YouTube come under growing pressure from politicians to tackle “fake news” and crack down on extremist content online.

But Rasmus Kleis Nielsen, Reuters Institute director of research, warned that while people might be increasingly suspicious of social media, traditional news platforms still had a lot of work to do to restore trust with the public.

“We find profound scepticism of news media and especially news on social media in almost every country we cover,” said the co-editor of the report, which conducted interviews with 70,000 people in 36 countries.

“We still see about half the population say they trust the news in some countries, especially in northern Europe, but it is clear that professional journalists, news media and technology companies are all viewed with considerable scepticism by most people in most countries.”

Despite that, the report found a significant jump in the numbers of people prepared to pay for online news, particularly among those aged 35 and under. The report said the “significant growth” among that age group provided a “powerful corrective to the idea that younger groups are not prepared to pay for online media let alone news”. 

“The under 35s are used to paying for digital content whether it’s through sites like Netflix or Spotify,” said Nic Newman, the report’s lead author. 

The biggest increase came in the US, where the number of people prepared to pay for online news jumped from 9 per cent to 16 per cent year on year, driven mainly by the so-called “Trump bump”, which has seen a spike in online news subscriptions.

Last month the New York Times reported that digital news subscriptions had hit 2m and that it signed up a net 308,000 digital-only news subscribers in the first three months of the year — the strongest growth in any quarter since the newspaper implemented its online paywall in 2011.

But Mr Newman said growth in the UK had been slow, with only 6 per cent of people paying for news, despite the continuing political fallout from last year’s vote for Brexit. He warned that with many people reluctant to pay multiple subscriptions, news publishers might need to work together to offer bundles.

“What younger people in particular want is a Spotify for news,” he said.