Four-in-ten Americans who get news from social media say inaccuracy is the thing they dislike most about it – an increase of 9 percentage points since 2018.
The Pew-Knight Initiative will deliver a comprehensive, real-time look at the information landscape from the standpoints of both consumers and producers of news.
Four-in-ten Americans who get news from social media say inaccuracy is the thing they dislike most about it – an increase of 9 percentage points since 2018.
The transition of the news industry away from print, television and radio into digital spaces has caused huge disruptions in the traditional news industry, especially the print news industry. Today, an overwhelming majority of Americans get news at least sometimes from digital devices.
True crime is the most common topic, making up 24% of top-ranked podcasts; 15% of the top podcasts focus on news. The next most common topics are politics and government (10%); entertainment, pop culture and the arts (9%); and self-help and relationships (8%).
Roughly half of U.S. adults say they have listened to a podcast in the past year, including one-in-five who report listening at least a few times a week. Most podcast listeners say this experience includes hearing news, which they largely expect to be mostly accurate. Large shares of listeners say they turn to podcasts for entertainment, learning or having something to listen to while doing something else.
In recent years, several new options have emerged in the social media universe, many of which explicitly present themselves as alternatives to more established social media platforms. Free speech ideals and heated political themes prevail on these sites, which draw praise from their users and skepticism from other Americans.
Local newspapers have been hit particularly hard by the transition to digital news consumption in recent years, with many forced to shutter their doors permanently.