• by Ray Schultz , Columnist, Yesterday

As traditional publishers have feared, social media is now the leading source of news in the United States, surpassing TV, print and news websites for the first time, according to Digital News Report 2025, a study by the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism. 

It’s bad news for people who like serious content delivered by reliable reporters. Declining audience numbers are bound to hurt revenue and lead to news deserts.

Engagement with legacy media continues to fall, while reliance on “social media, video platforms, and online aggregators grows,” the study notes. 

This, in turn, is “supercharging a fragmented alternative media environment, containing an array of podcasters, YouTubers and TikTokers,” it adds.

Case in point: social media news usage jumped by 6% during the first few weeks of the Trump administration. But traditional news sources saw no such “Trump bump.”

Moreover, 22% of the respondents came across news or commentary from podcaster Joe Rogan in the week after the inauguration, including a disproportionate number of young men, the study says.  

In another grim finding for legacy channels, six social media platforms now reach more than 10% with weekly news content, versus two platforms a decade ago. 

Who uses what? They turn to Facebook (36%), YouTube (30%), Instagram (19%), WhatsApp (19%), TikTok (16%) and X (12%). 

X usage has grown by 8% in the U.S. since Elon Musk took it over in 2023, with many right-leaning people, particularly young men, flocking to it. 

Perhaps predictably, 73% in the U.S. and 58% worldwide worry about their ability to determine what is true and false.  

Podcasting is growing in popularity, especially with younger audiences—overall, 15% in the U.S. had accessed one or more podcasts in the prior week, many being served via YouTube and TikTok.