Reuters report, Il Sole 24 Ore on the podium of trust

The collapse of interest in news in the context of the war in Ukraine and the Middle East, deepfakes, the advance of artificial intelligence, the rise of video, the unwillingness to pay for online news, the decline of traditional social media such as Facebook and X for content consumption. In the year that sees a record number of voters called to the polls worldwide, these are the elements generating pressure and uncertainty in the publishing world. This is the picture that emerges from the Digital News Report 2024 of the Reuters Institute, which for the seventh consecutive year certifies ansa first in Italy for reliability among news publications.

According to the annual analysis, conducted in 47 countries and now in its thirteenth edition, Ansa leads the ranking with Italians' trust standing at 75%, followed by Sky Tg 24, Il Sole 24 Ore and Tg La7. Ansa.it is third among information sites: 18% surf it every week. First site is Fanpage, second TgCom24 online, fourth SkyTg24, fifth Repubblica.it. Among TV and radio, Rai news is first followed by Mediaset, third TgCom24, fourth SkyTg24. According to the Report, overall trust in the news in Italy remains stable at 34%, while the number of Italians paying for subscriptions falls to 10%. The use of print news continues to decline: 13% say they use print sources (-3% year-on-year). TV is down by four percentage points (65%), while 69% use it online (-1% year-on-year). 82% read the news from their smartphones.

There is an acceleration of the crisis in newspapers due to a 'significant drop in the number of copies sold (-37% from 2019 to 2023) and advertisers preferring other platforms'. Online advertising (58%) has taken over from TV (29%) and print advertising (5%). But the lion's share (85%) is taken by Google and Facebook, with publishers generating only a small portion (15%) of digital advertising revenues. Globally, the Reuters Report records a record slump in news interest and 'conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East may have had an impact'.

Up to 39% of respondents say they avoid news (+3% year-on-year) with most significant increases in Brazil, Spain, Germany and Finland. Subscriptions stalled: only 17% say they paid for news. "Prospects for attracting new subscribers remain limited due to low interest and the abundance of free sources. 55% of those who are not currently subscribers would pay nothing for online news," the research notes. In the year when billions of citizens are called to the world, six out of 10 (59%) are alarmed because they cannot distinguish reliable from unreliable content online, especially on platforms such as TikTok and X, the former Twitter. And caution is expressed by the 100,000 respondents about the use of generative artificial intelligence for news, especially 'hard news' such as politics and war.

Only 23% in the US and 15% in Europe favour writing predominantly with AI and human supervision. There is more openness to news written by journalists with the help of generative artificial intelligence: 42% in favour in the USA and 33% in Europe. Finally, the video format for news consumption is growing - 66% access it every week, especially young people - while podcasts remain "a minority activity". Finally, news consumption from traditional social networks such as Facebook and X is falling. "This more complicated ecosystem and increasing competition to capture readers' attention are forcing journalists and publishers to work much harder to capture audiences and convince them to pay for news," concludes Rasmus Nielsen, director of the Reuters Institute.