• by Ray Schultz , Columnist, January 9, 2025

Newsrooms are overwhelmed with problems at the start of 2025, including attacks from hostile politicians, ongoing economic issues and “battles to protect intellectual property in the face of rapacious AI-driven platforms,” Reuters Institute reports in its new global study, Journalism and Technology Trends and Predictions. 

Overall, the confidence level has sunk to 41% among news organizations, down from 60% in 2022. And 17% are not confident, compared to 10% in 2022, with the remainder being neutral. 

However, 56% feel good about their own company’s business prospects.

At the same time, 74% are worried about the potential decline of referrals from search. This will be “a major grievance for the news industry which has already lost social traffic and fears a further decline in visibility as AI interfaces start to generate ‘story like’ answers to news queries,” the study says.  

They also are skeptical of some social media platforms. For instance, 68% have pretty much given up on X, formerly Twitter. And 42% have done the same with Facebook. 

In contrast, 56% will put more effort into OpenAI/Perplexity. And 52% will do so with YouTube.

Meanwhile, 36% of commercial publishers expect licensing income from tech and AI companies to be a significant revenue stream. While low, that is twice as many as last year. 

What kind of deals do they want? Of those polled, 72% prefer collective deals that benefit the whole industry. Another 19% would rather negotiate the best deal for their own company.

And the respondents have varying confidence levels about attracting and retaining talent: 

• Editorial (general)—85%
• Editorial (stars)—81% 
• Commercial—59% 
• Product & design—59% 
• Data science/AI—41%
• Software engineers—38% 

Another big problem is the “growing power of an alternative news ecosystem that includes partisan personalities and creators that often operate outside journalistic norms, and some say have now eclipsed the mainstream media in terms of both influence and trust,” the study says.   

Despite all that, news organizations are jumping into AI, saying the following uses are very important: 

• Back-end automation (e.g. tagging/transcription/copyediting etc.)—60% 
• Distribution and recommendations—41% 
• Content creation albeit with human oversight—30% 
• Commercial uses (e.g. better propensity to pay models etc.)—29% 
• Coding and product development—28%
• Newsgathering (e.g. help identifying stories/interrogate data)—24% 

Meanwhile, 45% say their digital subscriptions are up a bit, and 28% up a lot. And 19% report they are stable. Those seeing a decline are in the single digits.  

Opinion is mixed on personalities and influencers. Of those surveyed, 28% feel they are good, 27% say they are bad and 42% that they are neither. 

And 44% expect to develop new products and services this year, while 55% will strengthen their existing products. 

The most important revenue streams? They are:  

• Subscription/membership (ongoing payments)—77%
• Display advertising/sponsorship—69%
• Native advertising (sponsored content)—59%
• Events (physical & online)—48%
• Funding from platforms (including AI platforms)—36% 
• Ecommerce—29%
• Support from philanthropic funds/foundations—20% 
• Donations (one-off or recurring consumer donations)—29% 
• Related businesses (e.g. property, jobs, betting)—15% 
• Micropayment (including digital wallets)—6%

Reuters Institute surveyed 326 senior publishing personnel from 51 countries and territories between November 20 and December 20, 2024. 

The report was authored by Nic Newman and Federica Cherubini.