2023 Digital News Report — Daniel's Highlights
Plus more than 500 new journalism jobs at the likes of
Hello folks, happy Tuesday! Hope everyone had a lovely weekend and a nice Father’s Day to those who celebrated. Today is my mum’s birthday, so let’s all send her some good energy so she enjoys her day!
Today’s newsletter will feature the 2023 Digital News Report, put together by the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism. The annual report is among the most diverse and definitive in the industry, and does one heck of a job of summarizing the latest attitudes toward news consumption, but also finding trends that nobody else does. I read the report over the weekend and it’s my pleasure to pick three of the most interesting insights I found.
If you want to read the report for yourself — I highly recommend you do! — you can look at the executive summary and download the full report here.
Before we get to my highlights, if you're a recruiter or editor who is hiring, we're currently offering discounts for our paid promotion packages. Fill out this form and we'll get in touch.
Check out the latest edition of our Journalism Awards, Events and Fellowships Deadlines Calendar. Some of my favourite new entries include Understanding the State of Podcasting in the U.S., ProPublica’s Summer 2023 Impact Report webinar, and The SPJ Freelance Fellowship.
And lastly, take advantage of our free seven-day trials of paid subscriptions so you can try-before-you-buy. See you again on Friday! 👋
📚 Archive Corner 📚
Some of the best of Inside The Newsroom…
✍️ Job Corner ✍️
Preview of New Roles ✍️
The below listings are just a sample of the many Design, Editing and Reporting roles we list. Other categories include Audience, Audio, Broadcast, Data/Viz, Photo, Product, Social Media, Strategy and Video…
Growing Scepticism Towards Algorithms
As trust in news continues to decline, the power and influence of internet algorithms is under intense focus. It possibly wasn’t until 2016 that the general public became aware of just how easy it is to manipulate social media algorithms. During that year’s U.S. Presidential Election and Brexit Referendum campaigns, Facebook’s News Feed became filled with blatant misinformation, and the damage it did to our reality remains today. It gave bad actors the blueprint of how easy it was to manipulate the algorithms, and how lax large tech firms were in solving the issue.
Per RISJ’s report:
“For most people – across ages and countries – the key objective is not to make the feed more fun or more interesting but rather to make it more reliable, less toxic, and with greater diversity of views. Yet, despite these clearly stated preferences, social media companies competing for attention and advertising continue to optimise for engagement, with less attention to increasing quality, reliability, or diversity.”
The positive is that since then, more people are more aware of algorithms at play. As it pertains to news consumption, the below graphic shows a large decline since 2016 of people viewing personalized algorithms as a good thing.
Proportion that agree that having stories automatically selected for them based on ‘what I have consumed in the past’ is a good way to get news
Media Criticism’s Impact On Trust
The most fascinating analysis I found from the report, yet perhaps the most unsurprising, was on the correlation between media criticism and its impact on trust. It makes sense: the more you hear, see or read negative views about something, the more likely you are to buy into those opinions.
Interestingly, the U.S. and UK have some of the highest levels of distrust relative to the amount of criticism. According to the report, politicians are most often cited as the reason — 58% of the time in the U.S. — which also makes sense as we see the battle between the Democratic Party and Fox News, and the Republican Party and the ‘liberal media’ play out in front of us most days. In the UK, however, celebrities, comedians, and social media personalities are the primary source of exposure — 47% versus politicians at 41%.
Correlation Between Exposure To News Media Criticism and Distrust In News
Cost-of-Living Impact On News Subscriptions
We’ll end with a section that is most relevant right now with a cost of living crisis grappling many countries, and one that holds crucial information for any audience specialists or folks running their own publications. The below chart speaks volumes to me, with both encouraging and discouraging numbers.
On one hand, the fact that 58% of people who currently don’t pay for a subscription said there were ways to make them pay is good. It’s also encouraging, and surprising, that younger people are more willing to pay for good content that’s cheaper and flexible to pay for, considering they’re the generation that has grown up with more free media and content, and who have less disposable income than the older generation. Per the report, higher proportions of taxes going toward publicly-funded media in Europe, is a principal reason why funding good journalism is more prevalent in the U.S. Personally, I also think a huge drive among local journalists and national journalists with local ties to keep local journalism alive is a major contributing factor.
Proportion of Non-Subscribers That Say Each Would Most Encourage Them To Pay
Talking of affordability, I’m constantly thinking of new ways to make the paid option of this newsletter more accessible to more people, and creative more valuable content. I’m working on some new things this year, and in the meantime, below is a little treat for making it all the way to the bottom.
That’s all from me today. As ever, thank you so much for reading and supporting me, and we’ll speak to each other again on Friday. 🙏