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In today’s email:
- Featured story: The Joe Rogan Experience tops podcast charts
- New from Pew Research Center: Young adults and the future of news
- In other news: White House launches new media bias tracker on its website
- Looking ahead: New York Times sues Pentagon over new press policy
- Chart of the week: Attention to news has declined across all age groups
🔥 Featured story
The Joe Rogan Experience is 2025’s top podcast across Spotify, YouTube and Apple Podcasts – the sixth straight year Joe Rogan claimed the top spot on Spotify, but the first time he topped the charts for all three major podcasting platforms.
Over half of Americans say they have heard of The Joe Rogan Experience (57%), and 12% say they regularly get news there, according to a March Pew Research Center survey. Republicans are much more likely than Democrats to say they regularly get news from the show (22% vs. 2%) and trust it as a source of news (31% vs. 3%).
🚨 New from Pew Research Center
A new analysis examines how the youngest group of U.S. adults – those ages 18 to 29 – consume news, interact with it and perceive its role in their daily lives. This may offer some insights into Americans’ future news habits.
For example, young adults follow the news less closely than any other age group and are more likely to say they happen to come across the political news they get (rather than intentionally seeking it out). They also are much more likely than older Americans to get news on social media, and more inclined to trust the information they see there.
This is a Pew Research Center analysis from the Pew-Knight Initiative, a research program funded jointly by The Pew Charitable Trusts and the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.
📌 In other news
- White House launches new media bias tracker on its website
- Google experiments with AI-generated news headlines
- Newsweek announces AI-mode homepage for website visitors
- CNN strikes deal to partner with prediction market company Kalshi
- New York judge will decide if voting technology firm Smartmatic’s defamation lawsuit against Fox News will go to a full jury trial
- Bari Weiss to moderate town hall on CBS News with Charlie Kirk’s widow Erika Kirk
- NBC News launches digital subscription product
- New study explores teens’ negative feelings toward the news media
📅 Looking ahead
The New York Times is suing Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth over a new Pentagon policy that prevents media outlets from gathering information unless approved by the Department of Defense. The Times says the policy limits press freedom. A Pentagon spokesperson said the government “look[s] forward to addressing these arguments in court.” The Times and many other news outlets turned in their press passes in October rather than agree to the new policy. And this week, the Pentagon press secretary criticized “legacy media” in a news conference.
In a Pew Research Center survey conducted from February to March, 77% of Americans said the freedom of the press is extremely or very important to the well-being of society. And an April survey found that about seven-in-ten U.S. adults said they people they get news from definitely (41%) or probably (31%) should keep an eye on powerful people in their daily work.
📊 Chart of the week
This week’s chart is from a newly updated Center analysis looking at Americans’ declining attention to news. The share of Americans who say they follow the news all or most of the time has decreased since 2016; this decline has occurred across all age groups.
The youngest Americans remain consistently less likely than older adults to follow the news, while the oldest adults remain the most likely: 15% of adults under 30 now say they follow the news all or most of the time, compared with 62% of adults 65 and older.
👋 That’s all for this week.
The Briefing is compiled by Pew Research Center staff, including Naomi Forman-Katz, Jacob Liedke, Christopher St. Aubin, Emily Tomasik, Joanne Haner and Sawyer Reed. It is edited by Michael Lipka and copy edited by Mia Hennen.
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