Just over a fifth of US adults now regularly get news from influencers on social media, a new Pew-Knight Initiative survey has found.

An analysis of who those influencers are indicated few of the most popular accounts for news online have ever formally worked in journalism and that they are more likely to lean right than left.

The findings come as the US media grapples with the result of the the 2024 presidential election and what it means for the reach and influence of professional journalism.

The survey, published on Monday, canvassed 10,658 US adults this summer and was weighted to be demographically representative of the US population.

Of those surveyed, 21% said they “regularly” get news from influencers. That figure rose to 37% among US adults aged 29 and below and 26% among those between 30 and 49.

Black, Hispanic and Asian Americans were more likely than the average US adult to regularly get news from influencers, at 27%, 30% and 29% respectively. Lower income Americans (26%) were the most likely socioeconomic bracket to get news this way and women (23%) were more likely to do so than men (19%).

Nearly two-thirds (65%) of Americans who said they got news from news influencers rated the content positively, saying it “helped them better understand current events and civic issues”.

About a quarter said it made little difference to their understanding of the world while 9% said it made them “more confused”. About six in ten (58%) said they follow or subscribe to at least one news influencer.

There was little difference between right-leaning (21%) and left-leaning (22%) people in how likely they were to get news from social media influencers – even though the influencers themselves were more likely to create right-leaning content.

[Read more: From James O’Brien to Joe Rogan — Rise of news influencers and alternative voices]

Top US news influencers are mostly male and lean right

As well as the survey, the Pew researchers looked at a sample of 500 “news influencers”, defined as individuals who had used news-related keywords in early 2024 who had a minimum of 100,000 followers. across X (formerly Twitter), Youtube, Instagram, Tiktok or Facebook.

Figures captured within the research included the likes of podcasters Joe Rogan and Felix Biederman, NYU journalism professor Jay Rosen, psychologist and Trump family member Mary L Trump, Twitch streamer Hasan Piker, journalists Piers Morgan, Megyn Kelly and Katie Couric, lawyer Alan Dershowitz and actress Alyssa Milano.

Less than a quarter (23%) of the news influencers sampled had ever worked for a news organisation. On X (formerly Twitter) the proportion of news influencers with ties to a news organisation rose to 26%, whereas on Youtube it fell to 12%.

Most of the 500 news influencers did not self-identify as right or left. Of those that did, 27% explicitly identified as Republican, conservative or supportive of Donald Trump and 21% as Democrats, liberal or Kamala Harris supporters.

The influencers who had worked in news were less likely to explicitly disclose a political orientation (with 64% staying unaligned, versus 44% of those without a traditional news affiliation), but those who did articulate a position were more likely to be right-leaning (25%) than left (9%).

Instagram was the most explicitly political platform for news influencers, with 55% of the creators there disclosing an orientation (30% right, 25% left). Although Facebook had a higher proportion of ostensibly unaligned news influencers, it also had the biggest proportion of right-leaning news influencers (39%, compared with 13% who were left-leaning).

Tiktok was the most left-leaning platform, with 28% of news influencers explicitly identifying themselves as left-leaning compared with 25% right-leaning.

Most (63%) of the news influencers assessed were men. Tiktok was the most gender-balanced platform, with 50% of the news influencers there men and 45% women. Youtube was the least balanced: 68% of the news influencers on the video platform were men versus 28% women.

X was the most used platform among news influencers, with 85% of the 500 assessed present there. Half had an Instagram account, 44% posted to Youtube, 32% to Facebook, 30% to Threads, 27% to Tiktok and 12% to Linkedin.

Of the 500 news influencers, 59% were monetising their presence. The most common way of doing this was through subscriptions (49%), with 29% accepting donations and 21% selling merchandise. The proportion monetising their accounts rose to 74% on Tiktok, 77% on Facebook and 80% on Youtube.

A third (34%) of the influencers also host a podcast and 22% have a newsletter.

The Pew research incorporated ChatGPT into its methodology. The chatbot was handed text and transcribed audio from the influencer accounts and asked to analyse the content to determine whether the influencers identified themselves, for example, as left or right. A human researcher then spot-checked 1% of the results to check they were accurate, and the error rate was included in the research.

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Press Gazette has ranked the biggest UK and US news publishers on Instagram with four achieving follower-counts above ten million.

We looked at the news publishers from our top 50 UK and US website rankings to compile our new research.

Two publishers – BBC News (27.8 million) and CNN (20 million) – are above the 20 million mark. When Press Gazette last ranked publisher Instagram accounts (in June 2023) BBC News had 7.4m followers on the platform and CNN 4.2m.

The top two on Instagram are followed by the New York Times (18.2 million) and People (13.6 million).

In comparison, only one news publisher (Daily Mail) from the two top 50 lists has topped ten million on Tiktok, the newer platform.

Ladbible does not feature in the latest ranking because it has it has fallen out of the list of the top 50 news websites in the UK. It currently has 14.1 million followers to its biggest Instagram account. Cosmopolitan, The Daily Wire, The Verge, NME, Epoch Times and Gateway Pundit similarly have fallen out of our top 50s so do not eapp

Excluding the impact of Ladbible’s removal, the top seven remain the same – but The Guardian (5.8 million followers) in eighth place has overtaken Buzzfeed and Unilad (both 5.7 million).

The fastest-growing Instagram account over a two-year period was the New York Post, increasing by 74.7% since 2022 to 1.2 million.

It was followed by Healthline Media (up 60% since 2022 to 1.3 million) and UK tabloid the Mirror (up 57% to 441,000).

Four news publishers on our list saw their Instagram followings decline since June 2023: Buzzfeed (down 7%), sister publication Huffpost (3% to 3.2 million), Unilad (down 2%) and The Daily Beast (down 2% to 452,000).

Since June 2023 only, the Mirror was the fastest-growing (up 45%) followed by ITV News (up 34% to 512,000) and the New York Post (up 32%).

But the follower count for BBC News increased the most in absolute terms (2.1 million) since last year - almost double the next largest growth seen by Fox News (up 1.2 million to 9.4 million).

Four added at least one million followers to their counts - also including the New York Times and People.

The percentage of people saying they use Instagram for news has risen from 2% in 2014 to 15% this year in 12 key markets surveyed by the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism (UK, US, Germany, France, Spain, Italy, Denmark, Finland, Japan, Australia, Brazil and Ireland.

It remains behind Facebook, Youtube and Whatsapp in importance but has overtaken Twitter/X and is still ahead of Tiktok and Snapchat.

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Several media publishers in Australia have revealed how “potentially catastrophic” it would be for their businesses if Meta removes all news from Facebook and Instagram in the country.

Broadsheet Media, which publishes the culture and community news website Broadsheet and has 65 full-time employees, said it estimated it would lose up to 52% of its revenue if Meta no longer distributed news.

This would “make it nearly impossible for the business to survive,” it told the Australian Parliament’s Joint Select Committee on Social Media and Australian Society.

Meta has threatened to remove all news from Facebook in Australia if it is “designated” under the world-first News Media Bargaining Code, which has the power to force digital platforms to pay for the use of news on their platforms.

This year Meta said it was ending the Facebook News product in Australia as it has done elsewhere and will not renew any deals it previously made with publishers in the country. These began to expire at the end of May, with the last one running until December.

Three years ago Google and Meta agreed to pay Australian publishers around £100 million per year to avoid being forced into payments under the News Media Bargaining Code.

Parliament can choose to force Meta to pay publishers for their content through arbitration by designating it under the Code. But Meta’s decision to remove news might avoid that.

Meta already removed news from its platforms in Canada last summer over a similar bill that said tech giants should pay publishers for news content appearing on their platforms.

The Australian Parliament’s Joint Select Committee is now looking at Meta’s decision to abandon its publisher deals and the role of journalism in countering mis- and disinformation on social platforms. Publishers have been sending in their submissions for the past month.

[Read more: UK publishers should be ready for Facebook to switch off news altogether]

The Daily Aus, a digital news company with a full-time staff of 15, a focus on audiences under 35 and a particular reliance on Instagram, told the committee Facebook’s threat to remove news is already adversely affecting business.

“Already, Meta’s actions have led to lost commercial deals and hindered TDA’s expansion plans,” it said.

Although it told Parliament it is currently “financially sustainable”, it said it has “lost approximately AUS$450,000 (£234,788) worth of commercial advertising agreements in which clients have directly referenced Meta’s actions and a potential ban” since February.

As a result the publisher withdrew adverts for three editorial roles in March and has “deprioritised” plans to expand into the US ahead of the presidential election.

The Daily Aus claims to be the second-largest news page on Instagram in Australia after ABC News, reaching three million accounts in the 90 days to 23 June. But it has begun efforts to “diversity from reliance on Meta” including by expanding its daily newsletter, podcast, website, Tiktok and Youtube channels.

Of the potential aftermath of a news ban, it said: “A 50% revenue cut as a result of TDA’s removal from Meta would necessitate staff redundancies, limit our ability to provide free news, and stifle future growth and technological innovation.”

Publishers ‘already feeling the effects’ of Facebook news algorithm changes

The Digital Publishers Alliance surveyed its members in March, receiving responses from about half, and found that an average of 18% of independent publishers’ traffic came from Facebook referrals – ranging from 0% to 50%.

The DPA told the select committee that this showed “that despite Meta’s attempts to dial down its importance, referrals from Facebook still represent an important source of traffic for many digital publishers.

“This percentage has decreased in recent years as Facebook have intentionally tweaked their algorithms to direct less traffic to publishers.”

The survey also found that 80% of respondents said that a removal of news from Facebook and Instagram “would have a significant, or extremely significant, impact on their business” with the impact coming not just from advertising lost in referral traffic but in sponsored social media posts as well.

Australia’s Local and Independent News Association said local publishers are “already feeling the effects” of Meta’s algorithm changes and will be affected even more, and disproportionately, if news is banned.

The trade body, which represents 70 digital news publishers, said posts by its members are “now reaching around 15% of the audience that similar posts were reaching mere months ago” having a direct impact on advertising revenues.

The Conversation, an academic-led publication founded in Australia before its launch internationally , also revealed it has seen a “sharp reduction of its audience via Facebook of 40% since an algorithm change in May 2024”.

Although this has not had a direct financial impact on The Conversation because of its non-profit grant-led funding model, it said “it does mean less Australians are seeing evidenced based, trusted news and analysis where they are spending significant time” – a point made by most of the publishers in their submissions as well as the recurring financial concerns.

The co-founders of Australian men’s lifestyle site Man of Many said they anticipated a fall in website traffic of around 2% to 4% if Facebook drops news as well as the loss of 6,700,048 social interactions per month.

Around 20% of Man of Many’s overall revenue is driven by referrals from Facebook and Instagram, they said.

“This decline would not only impact our revenue but also hinder our ability to foster community engagement and maintain brand visibility.”

Private Media, which publishes digital media brands Crikey and Smart Company, cited a figure of AUS$600m (£313,000) for the payments that have come into the news industry from the likes of Meta and Google as a result of the Code but noted that despite this “in recent weeks we’ve seen significant redundancies across every major media company as they adapt, not to cyclical changes, but large structural changes that will see even more of their advertising businesses shift to the digital platforms”.

Redundancies have been announced at News Corp Australia, Seven West Media and Nine since the end of May.

Publishers split on whether Meta should be designated under News Media Bargaining Code

However, the publishers appeared split on whether Meta should be forced by designation under the Code to pay if this could lead to it removing news.

The Daily Aus said: “Meta’s designation will likely lead to the removal of all news pages, including TDA, from its platform. This will severely harm TDA, which did not benefit financially from NMBC deals but will face significant consequences from a news ban.

“This outcome will cause job losses for young journalists, the disappearance of vital Australian stories, and disengagement from democratic processes among TDA’s audience of over 3 million Australians, primarily aged 18-35.”

And Man of Many said: “Designation under the NMBC risks Meta withdrawing from news entirely, as seen in Canada. This would be potentially catastrophic for independent publishers in terms of audience reach, given that they have not received any NMBC funding, thereby unintentionally stifling diversity by giving an advantage to already established media players, with the financial benefits under the Code having only flown through to the large media conglomerates.”

However, The Saturday Paper publisher Schwartz Media and Free TV, an industry body representing commercial free-to-air broadcasters, said Meta should be designated.

Schwartz said: “We believe Meta needs to be designated under the code, and the full value Meta receives from news content properly represented.”

And Free TV urged the Government “to designate Meta, particularly in respect of both Facebook and Instagram, but also WhatsApp and Threads, under the News Media Bargaining Code, as there is a significant imbalance in the bargaining position in favour of Meta, without Meta making any discernible contribution to news sustainability in Australia. Government should also designate other platforms such as YouTube and TikTok to ensure that the creators of Australia’s news content are fairly remunerated.”

Several publishers backed the countering of a potential news ban by forcing Facebook and other social media platforms to carry news.

Broadsheet Media said the Code “can only be successful if it requires: 1. the digital platforms ensure news availability, with minimum prominence; 2. all eligible publishers are supported by the outcomes of the Code; 3. the Code is expanded to include Instagram, TikTok, You Tube, Threads and X; and 4. the terms of the deals completed are transparent.”

And Man of Many recommended the implementation of “policy measures to prevent digital platforms from withdrawing news content entirely, through ‘must carry’ or ‘news availability’ provisions”.

The Conversation separately suggested Meta could be forced to carry disclaimers on its content if it removes verified news providers.

“If Meta is designated and withdraws from publishing news (as it has done in Canada) to avoid triggering the NMBC, Meta could be regulated to explicitly publish disclaimers warning their audiences about the unreliable information that they disseminate much like the health warnings mandated on cigarette packaging,” it said.

Man of Many and Private Media both said a tax on digital platforms’ revenue would be more effective. Man of Many pointed to a proposed tax credit for news publishers in California that would come from taxing online advertising revenue above $2.5bn.

And Private Media said: “The sensible, sustainable approach would have been to tax the technology companies on revenues generated in Australia, and then use those funds to create incentives for public interest journalism.”

In its own submission, Meta argued that there is no evidence of an increase in misinformation in Canada since it dropped news from its platforms there and that because of changing consumption habits news referrals from Facebook have been falling anyway.

It said that since its commercial agreements with publishers and other news funding was established “there has been a change in consumer behaviour on our services. As a general rule, most people do not come to our services for news and news is highly substitutable on our services – this means that when news is not on our services, people continue to engage with other content.”

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News consumers across the world are increasingly far more likely to access news via social media than they are by directly accessing publisher websites and apps.

The 2024 Reuters Digital News Report surveyed news consumers in 47 leading markets around the world with over 2,000 respondents in each territory (big exclusions included China and Russia).

Across all leading global media markets, social media is the main gateway to news for 29% of people (up from 23% six years ago, but slightly down compared with last year).

Search (dominated by Google) remains important, with 25% citing this as their main access point to news, compared to 24% in 2018.

There has been a sharp decline in the proportion saying that direct access to publisher websites and apps is their main access point for news, down from 32% six years ago to 22% in the latest survey.

Looking at UK sources of news, social media is now cited by 37% of respondents as the main way they came across news in the last week versus 14% for print. TV has declined from 79% to 50% over the last decade.

In the UK there has been a sharp fall in the number of 18 to 24 year-olds accessing news websites or apps directly, from 53% to 25% over the last decade.

The fall amongst 25 to 34 year-olds has been less sharp, down from 53% to 34%. For those aged 35 and above, publisher websites and apps have remained important, with 51% saying they used them over the last week, a figure which has remained level.

Looking at 11 leading media economies, the survey asked which social media networks people have used to access news over the last week.

Facebook remains the most popular source of news, but it has declined from 36% in 2014 citing it to 26% in the latest survey.

Youtube has grown from 16% to 22%, Whatsapp is up from 7% to 16% and Instagram is up from 2% to 15%. Twitter/X is steady on around 11% and Tiktok has grown sharply after emerging four years ago to be used by 8% for accessing news.

Looking at particular newsbrands and sources of news, the survey underlines the dominance of the BBC over the UK media scene. The BBC is also the only UK brand cited by a significant number of US survey respondents as a source they access on at least a weekly basis.

Looking at TV/radio/print, the BBC is twice as popular (48%) as second-placed ITV News. Looking at online it is nearly three times as likely to be cited (44%) as the second-placed Guardian website.

In the US, opinionated right of centre brand Fox News is the most likely to be cited as a weekly source for both online and looking at just TV/radio/print. Overall, US newsbrands are far more evenly split in terms of popularity.

The report found that in the UK mainstream news brands are most likely to be cited as a source of news by social media users, versus alternative news outlets and influencers.

Online native brand Politics Joe made the top five most-referenced outlets in the UK survey behind legacy brands BBC News, Sky News, The Guardian and ITV News.

When survey respondents to ask individual news accounts they pay attention to for news on social media, partisan and outspoken voices dominated and in both the UK and US all the named social media accounts cited by survey respondents were men.

See more on this phenomenon of “news influencers” from Digital News Report author Nic Newman here.

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Some 41% of Tiktok users in the US say news is a reason they use the platform, versus 37% of Facebook users and 33% on Instagram.

However X, formerly Twitter, still comes out on top with 65% using the platform for news despite suggestions last year that news-heavy users like journalists might move away from the platform under changes made by new owner Elon Musk. News was the second most popular reason given for using X after entertainment (81%).

The survey of 10,287 adult internet users in the US, carried out by Pew Research Center in March, indicated a continued interest in news on Facebook despite Meta’s winding down of its relationship with publishers and its claim that just 3% of content in user feeds is news meaning publisher content is playing a “diminishing role on the platform.

According to separate Pew research, 68% of US adults use Facebook versus 47% who use Instagram, 33% who use Tiktok and 22% who use Twitter.

Among the survey’s other findings it revealed two-thirds of Facebook users aged below 50 see information about breaking news on the platform as events are happening.

However the use of Facebook for news continued to be eclipsed by other uses: for example, 76% of US users said they use the platform for entertainment, 74% to connect with others who share their interests and 93% to keep up with friends or family.

Most people who identified news as a reason they use a platform identified it as a "minor" reason. It was a major reason of use for 7% of all Facebook users and 8% of all Instagram users but this shoots up to 15% for Tiktok and 25% for X.

Nonetheless, the proportion of respondents who said they "regularly" get news or news headlines from each platform was similar to the combined proportion who said news was either a major or minor reason they use social media.

Although hard news was one of the less popular types of content among respondents, other kinds of content provided by professional publishers proved more popular. Just over half (52%) of Instagram users said they use the app to keep up with sports or pop culture and 53% of Tiktok users said the same.

Within those figures 20% of Tiktok users and 19% of Instagram users gave sport and pop culture updates as a "major" reason they use the platforms.

Another mainstay topic of news coverage, politics, was the most unpopular type of content for social media users.

Although a large minority of social media users say they actively seek out news, the survey shows news in some form or another reaches most people. More than half of Instagram and Tiktok users reported ever seeing news articles on their feeds, whether posted, reposted, linked or screenshotted.

Far more common, however, was users encountering news through jokes or opinionated posts. More than eight in ten (84%) of Facebook users said they see people expressing opinions about current events, and 81% said they see funny posts that reference current events.

In line with that, 85% of regular news consumers on Facebook said they get news from friends, family and acquaintances while 72% of Instagram users said the same.

However news outlets and journalists were a major source of news identified by respondents. More than two-thirds (68%) of Facebook users, 65% of Instagram users, 67% of Tiktok users and 80% of X users who say they regularly receive news on each platform said they get news from outlets or journalists.

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Less than half of journalists say they are using generative AI tools like ChatGPT and Google’s Gemini (formerly Bard) in their work, according to a new global survey.

Some 53% of 3,016 journalists in 19 markets surveyed for Cision’s annual State of the Media report said they are not using generative AI “at all”.

Just 5% are using these tools “often”. Some 12% are using them a “moderate amount” while 28% are using them “a little”.

Many publishers have taken a cautious approach to the use of generative AI for published content, advising their journalists not to do so until full guidance has been created.

Among those journalists who have used generative AI tools in their work, 23% said it was to research certain topics, 19% said it had helped create outlines or early drafts of content, and 13% said it was to brainstorm new story ideas.

[Read more: What UK really thinks about use of AI in journalism]

Last year's report did not include comparable questions as that survey was carried out just two months after the release of ChatGPT in November 2022. However, the 2023 report did feature some early concerns about AI, with one respondent saying journalists who hide from innovations like ChatGPT "are at a disadvantage" and another stressing the importance of being "aware of the opportunities and pitfalls of AI".

This year, journalists ranked the emergence of artificial intelligence as their sixth biggest challenge for the journalism industry over the past year. Just over a quarter (26%) of those surveyed said it was among their three biggest concerns for the industry.

What journalists say are the biggest challenges facing the industry

"Maintaining credibility as a trusted news source and combating accusations of 'fake news'" remained the top-ranked challenge for the industry, with 42% of respondents choosing it as one of their three biggest issues.

It was seen as a bigger issue in Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA) on 44% versus 41% in North America and 35% in the Asia-Pacific (APAC).

Last year, when respondents were asked to select just one biggest challenge for journalism, it was top on 27%.

In second place this year was the challenge of "adapting to changing audience behaviours around media consumption", narrowly behind on 41%.

In third place was a "lack of staffing and resources" on 36%. This was in joint second place in 2023 with 20% of respondents choosing it as their biggest challenge of the year, the same proportion as "declining advertising and circulation revenues".

Job cuts were a bigger concern in North America (41%) and EMEA (37%) than APAC (22%).

In 2023 Press Gazette estimates there were more than 8,000 journalism job cuts in the UK and North America with at least a further 1,700 in 2024 so far.

In comparison the challenge of "competing with social media influencers and digital content creators for audience attention was a much bigger concern in APAC (39%) than EMEA (27%) or North America (24%). APAC countries also struggled the most with "verifying information and finding credible sources", with 31% agreeing that was a concern versus 22% in EMEA and 15% in North America.

Meanwhile "media downsizing and reduced resources" was ranked as the biggest personal challenge for journalists in the past year with 60% citing it as one of their top three.

"Keeping up" amid downsizing and reduced resources was similarly top last year, with 38% citing it as their single biggest challenge.

In second and third place this year were "balancing reporting on important topics against pressure to drive business" (42%) and "having to compete with misinformation online" (33%).

Just over a fifth (22%) of journalists surveyed for the report identified as freelance or independent. They were less concerned with challenges facing journalism from a lack of staffing and resources (22% ranking it in their top three concerns for the industry versus 42% of staff journalists) but were more worried about the emergence of AI (34% versus 23% of staffers).

Which social media platforms will get more attention this year?

Over the next year, Instagram is the social media platform most targeted for growth by media outlets, according to the survey respondents.

Some 44% of the journalists who took part in the survey said their brand/media outlet planned to get more active on Instagram.

It was followed by Linkedin (39%) and Facebook (34%) - even though referral traffic to major news sites from Facebook has fallen by 50% over the past year.

Tiktok, where many publishers have seen rapid growth while seeking younger audiences despite a relatively late arrival to the platform, remains behind X (formerly Twitter) as a priority for activity over the year ahead (21% versus 24% respectively). This is despite speculation last year that a new platform like Meta's Threads or Bluesky could take its place after Elon Musk's takeover. Threads was seen as an area of growth for 10% of the journalists surveyed.

Chinese-founded Tiktok was slightly more prominent in the survey in North America (24% versus 18% in EMEA and 20% in APAC) despite the possibility it will be banned in the US within a year. But it was still behind X everywhere except APAC (27% for North America, 24% for EMEA and 17% in Asia-Pacific).

Meanwhile Whatsapp, which has seen major UK publisher Reach win multiple innovation awards for its use of the recently-launched Channels and Communities functions, was only seen as a growth area by 11%. It is much bigger in EMEA, where 18% expect increased use over the next year, versus just 4% in North America and 6% in APAC.

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ITN has warned of the threat posed by AI-generated deepfake online videos and other misleading content featuring some of its leading journalists.

The broadcaster has also warned that social platforms including Meta, which hosts many of the misleading videos on Facebook and Instagram, can be slow to act once alerted to such content which can be used to promote illegal scams.

The latest example seen by Press Gazette last week featured ITV News presenter Mary Nightingale. The AI-generated video, posted on Meta-owned platform Instagram, appeared to show Nightingale in her own voice telling viewers about a new app purporting to be backed by popstar Adele, also deepfaked in the video, and allegedly helping people win thousands of pounds.

The bulletin ended with the faked Nightingale saying: “If you want to experience even more vivid emotions, and get a chance to win the jackpot, go to the app shop right now. The app is still available but may soon be closed to new players.”

Tami Hoffman, ITN‘s director of news distribution and commercial innovation, told Press Gazette this was the “most sophisticated one” the ITV News, Channel 4 News and 5 News producer has seen so far.

It is not seamless, especially if you know what to look for, Hoffman said. “But if you’re not looking out for it, and if you’re just viewing it on a phone or a small screen as a casual viewer, I think it’s not a bad attempt.”

“From ITN’s perspective, one of the first risks that we identified around AI was to our reputation – that obviously the easier it is to make deepfakes, that puts our reputation at risk, because obviously our journalists would never promote a commercial good like that,” Hoffman said.

“But it’s very easy to make something which looks pretty realistic and I don’t think the platforms are hugely helpful in terms of monitoring this stuff and we’re still not really in a position where the public can easily check whether something is AI-generated or not, so it leaves us really vulnerable.

“It’s bad for our reputation, it’s bad for Mary’s reputation, and it’s really bad for the industry as a whole and just public trust in news.”

Last month a fake BBC article shared on Facebook purported to report on an on-air conversation between ITV News colleagues political editor Robert Peston and UK editor Paul Brand in which Peston endorsed a get-rich-quick investment scheme and was subsequently sued by the Bank of England.

Meanwhile, last year Money Saving Expert Martin Lewis, who hosts The Martin Lewis Money Show for ITV, warned people against falling for a deepfake video share on X/Twitter appearing to show him endorsing a fake investment project by Elon Musk.

“That was exactly the same thing,” Hoffman said, comparing it to Nightingale’s video. “Somebody who trades on his impartiality suddenly being seen to promote a commercial good. He was furious about it, but it took him quite a long time to get that removed.”

BBC News and Sky News have both also seen deepfakes of their presenters shared online. More simple fake videos are also created purporting to show news content with a broadcaster’s logo superimposed.

Instagram, X (formerly Twitter), Youtube and Tiktok are all increasingly seeing these videos appear, Hoffman said, and they can jump from platform to platform.

AI deepfake threat in election year

Aside from commercial “endorsements”, Hoffman said deepfakes like these are a huge worry in a year in which the UK is expected to hold its next general election – with the next US president also being elected in November.

She said: “I think that in an election year, we’re just going to see a lot more of it. I mean, this [latest] one isn’t politically motivated. This is obviously using Mary for commercial purposes. But you can see that people could be using it for whatever it is that they’re trying to flog – whether that’s political views or a commercial product.”

Last month a fake robocall targeted voters in New Hampshire. It impersonated President Joe Biden, who was seemingly heard to be telling them they did not need to vote in the Democratic primary election.

In October a fake BBC News video appeared to show a report that open-source intelligence news outlet Bellingcat had proved Ukraine was smuggling weapons to Hamas. Bellingcat founder Eliot Higgins confirmed this was “100% fake” – but even Hoffman conceded it “looks really convincing”.

Hoffman said that “even in the last six to 12 months you’ve seen these deepfakes are starting to improve and I really worry that some of the glitches which at the moment do signal that it might be AI, that actually that’s going to start to get smoothed out over time”.

ITN: Whole organisation must ‘keep eyes and ears open’

ITN is working to educate staff on how to spot deepfakes “because obviously one of our concerns is not just about our reporters being deepfaked, but about our staff or our journalists being taken in by deepfakes,” Hoffman said.

The company is about to roll out a compulsory AI learning module teaching staff the signs that can show a video has been generated by AI: for example, weird hands or the wrong numbers of fingers, strange skin tones, and something odd in the background.

ITN also has an internal email address where people can flag fakes they see, so the information can be shared across all three of its newsrooms as quickly as possible.

“I think that what we’ve realised with AI both in terms of the opportunities and the challenges is this has to be a bottom-up thing,” Hoffman said. “We’re asking staff across the whole organisation to take responsibility for skilling themselves up, and for keeping their eyes and ears open.”

‘If trust is damaged, that hits all of us’

Hoffman added that there is “really quite collegiate behaviour” between news organisations who are increasingly sharing examples and tips for dealing with the threat.

“There’s actually quite, I think, a good community growing up between the news organisations in the UK about appreciating that actually, when it comes to AI, we probably have more in common with each other than divides us,” she said.

She continued: “If trust in a reputable news organisation is damaged, that hits all of us. It might be a video about the BBC but it impacts ITN as well because it’s polluting the information ecosystem.”

Despite the social platforms having simple reporting processes, “the problem is that once it’s been reported, it’s then got to be reviewed and that can take time,” Hoffman said. “And of course, you don’t really have much time because the damage is done once it’s spread.

“We would love to have the platforms creating kind of rapid response teams. We think there’s a lot more that they could be doing with news organisations to help us…”

Hoffman added that Youtube has been the most responsive and easiest to deal with in relation to these types of videos so far.

Ultimately, Hoffman said: “We are really concerned about this in an election year. We’re doing our best to improve our internal processes, both in terms of flagging stuff, and also in training staff up, but that doesn’t help us when it comes to reputational management.

“We would love the big tech companies and the social platforms to engage more with news organisations about how they can monitor fakes, how they can identify fakes, and then obviously when something comes out how they can get it taken down as quickly as possible.”

The post ITN sounds alarm over fake online content featuring Robert Peston, Mary Nightingale and others appeared first on Press Gazette.

Supporter-funded Novara Media is closing in on 15,000 monthly donors, its new North of England editor has said.

Craig Gent told Press Gazette on Monday that despite the cost of living crisis, 2023 was “the strongest year that we’ve had in terms of supporter funding”.

Press Gazette last spoke to Gent when he was head of operations in July 2022, shortly after the left-wing news and opinion non-profit hit 10,000 paying supporters.

Following a fundraising drive at the end of last year, Gent says Impress-regulated Novara is now a few hundred people away from the 15,000 milestone. Readers are invited to make a monthly donation ranging from £3 per month upwards.

And while some paywalled publishers have faced headwinds in the cost of living crisis, Gent said Novara has seen average monthly donation sizes increase.

As a result, Gent said the publication has fulfilled the ambitions he outlined to Press Gazette in 2022: it has hired a dedicated operations manager, a labour movement correspondent and a social media editor and it has brought its live Youtube show up to five days a week and added new email newsletters.

The staff headcount is now 25, one person more than in July 2022. All staff are paid £19 per hour regardless of role (due to increase in spring), and full-time staff work 32 hours per week, which adds up to a pre-tax salary of just over £31,600. This equates to wages costs (including employers’ NI) of around £800,000 per year.

[Read more: Novara Media hits 10,000 monthly donors with ‘sky the limit’]

Making a donation model work with a social media ‘ecology’

Thursday 1 February will mark five years since Novara incorporated, having previously been a purely voluntary outfit. Its traffic today sits at approximately 500,000 monthly visits, according to Similarweb, compared with 300,000 for The Canary, another publisher that was previously a staple of left-wing media during Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour leadership.

Social media has been a particular area of growth for Novara Media recently, Gent said, with Youtube watch time doubling in 2023 and its subscriber count up 300% to 666,000. Its Instagram following tripled over the year, he added.

With Facebook referral traffic plunging for publishers and Google potentially poised to remake search with generative AI, many publishers have recently become more cautious with the tech platforms, prioritising direct distribution channels like newsletters and home pages.

But Gent said the creation of a broad Novara Media “ecology” across social media had served it well.

“What we do see when we survey our supporters when they join is that people who are joining do have quite a wide understanding of the Novara offering.

“So they will follow the Youtube, but they’re also engaging with our social-first stuff on Instagram, they’re also engaging with the articles on the website and with the podcasts.”

Youtube was “special” for driving paying supporters, Gent said, “in that you can speak with a voice directly to the audience when we’re doing Novara Live [formerly Tysky Sour] five nights a week. Michael [Walker, the host] can speak to the audience directly and say: ‘Look, this is possible because of your donations.’ And it continues to be small donations that drive us…

“We’re really focused on building a relationship. I think, by the time people become supporters, they really feel not just that we’re a reliable source of news, but they have an affinity for what we’re trying to do overall.”

Novara North

Gent was raised in Barnsley, South Yorkshire, and is today based in Leeds, where he works alongside Novara’s merchandiser Thomas Clements. In an article announcing his appointment, Gent said his remit would be to “make visible the connections between the organisation of life, work and politics across the north of England, and to find stories and connect them to important questions for the left”.

He told Press Gazette that from outside London, “it was completely obvious to me that Labour were going to crash” in the 2019 election – a defeat often attributed in part to the defection from Labour of Leave-voting, so-called “red wall” constituencies in the North.

“Although obviously London is the biggest city, and it’s incredibly important to study and understand, it’s not necessarily the best lens onto the big picture in British politics,” Gent said.

In part his new job will see him working with Novara Media’s Scottish writers “to ensure that our coverage there is more than commentary on the SNP and Labour”.

Gent said he was interested in stories like the Teesside Freeport, why so many ex-miners who would have previously fought the Thatcher government now support Nigel Farage-backed Reform Party and, closer to home for Gent, “why the water in East Leeds tastes and smells like bleach”.

Novara Media, coming soon to a town near you

Looking ahead, Novara hopes to revive its events operation, which has been largely dormant since the first lockdown.

Gent said the publisher easily sold out a 600-capacity talk with former Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis set to take place next month, and saw success with a Christmas party and an end of year discussion late in 2023.

“I think there’s a real appetite, basically, for people to meet up and be in a space. So the Yanis event will be a talk, but it will also have a kind of afterparty as well for people to socialise. And it’s long been our ambition that we can have regular events – and also events around the country.”

They may have a chance to run those events outside London when the next general election, expected this year, is eventually called.

But as far as longer-term goals, Novara Media has still failed to establish the bar that its co-founder Aaron Bastani said he wanted in 2017.

“We still want that bar,” Gent said. “I think I said before that we need to get the right cocktail. I’m working on a twist on the Dark and Stormy – I’m going to call it the Grey and Windy. It’d be the North of England cocktail. I just need to make sure I get the quantity of Henderson’s Relish right.”

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Six months after it launched, many publishers continue to actively post on Threads despite the Meta-owned platform’s ambivalence to news.

Fellow X/Twitter rival Bluesky, which was launched in February by a group including Twitter founder Jack Dorsey, has not been nearly as widely adopted by the news industry.

Still invite-only, Bluesky hit three million accounts on Tuesday, having hit two million in mid-November.

Threads, which allowed users to quickly set up accounts from their existing Instagram profiles, claims to have 100 million monthly active users.

Which news publishers are on Threads and which are on Bluesky?

Instagram chief Adam Mosseri said on Threads shortly after launch that, while “politics and hard news are inevitably going to show up on Threads… we’re not going to do anything to encourage those verticals”.

Nonetheless publishers continuing to publish on Threads several times a day include CNN, Metro, The Sun and The Guardian.

They were joined last month by European publishers such as Corriere della Sera, La Stampa and Le Figaro after Threads made changes to conform with EU data rules, allowing it to belatedly launch there.

Comparatively few news outlets use Bluesky. German titles Der Spiegel and the politics vertical of the Süddeutsche Zeitung newspaper were the only publications Press Gazette found which run active Bluesky accounts but not Threads accounts.

In contrast, 18 of the 40 publications Press Gazette checked were on Threads but not Bluesky.

But while far more news outlets are using Threads than Bluesky, several publishers appear to have abandoned Meta's platform. The Daily Mail, Channel 4 News and the Jewish Chronicle all previously used the site regularly but have since stopped posting.

The BBC had a number of sub-accounts, although not a main BBC News account, but most - such as the BBC Today Programme - have stopped publishing, with the exception of BBC Woman's Hour and BBC Sport.

Josh Kaplan, the Jewish Chronicle's head of digital, told Press Gazette that for a small team like his Threads was "not worth the effort basically".

He said: "With Twitter, I can automate feeds and make sure all our stories go out. And when they do, they generate conversation because influential people follow us and discuss our stories.

"On Threads, it became pretty clear pretty quick that not only was no one reading our stuff on there, no one cared about the conversations that were happening on it."

A handful of publishers are publishing to both Threads and Bluesky, among them the Financial Times, The Daily Beast, The New York Times, The Washington Post and The Irish Times.

The FT in particular has become a major presence on Bluesky, with users frequently joking about the ubiquity of the business paper's journalists on the platform.

Last month the NYT's director of off-platform told Digiday: "We wouldn’t continue being on the platform and maintaining it every day if it wasn’t something that we thought was promising for the future but also currently delivering on the audience.”

Travis Lyles, The Washington Post's deputy director, social, off-platform curation told Press Gazette the publisher was on both platforms because "it’s always important to keep tabs on up-and-coming social media platforms so you can make the right decision for your newsroom and meet readers where they are.

"We currently have the largest account for a news publisher on Bluesky, and traffic from platforms like Bluesky and Threads continues to grow as users diversify their social media usage."

Lyles added that neither platform had yet become a major driver of traffic, and a technical challenge remained "the inability to schedule posts, creating more cumbersome workflows" on both Bluesky and Threads. But he said: "We’re seizing the opportunity to build The Post’s brand on the platforms and experiment with audiences and our content."

It may be easier for larger publishers to experiment than smaller ones like The Jewish Chronicle. Asked how many people staff the Post's presence on the two challenger platforms, Lyles said it has a dedicated social team of 13, "and we split the team in a way that allows us to focus efforts on established platforms, like Instagram, while also building in experimentation on emerging platforms". Three to four staff members rotate daily to work on the platform each day, he said.

But a few publishers aren't bothering with either network

For now actual returns from both platforms appear abstract. For example The New York Times and CNN, which have 2.7 million and 2.6 million followers on Threads respectively, rarely garner more than a few hundred likes on a post.

Perhaps because of this there are several major publishers who have not established themselves on either Bluesky or Threads. For example the UK's Daily Telegraph never made an account on either platform, and while Fox News set up a Threads account, it has never posted on it.

The post Threads vs Bluesky: Meta’s Twitter rival appears to be winning with publishers appeared first on Press Gazette.

Less than half of news leaders feel confident about their company’s prospects for the next 12 months for the second year running, according to a report looking at news media trends and predictions for 2024.

The Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism survey, which was carried out in late 2023 and received responses from 314 media leaders in 56 countries, found widespread concern over the “sharp decline in referral traffic” from Facebook and X (previously Twitter).

The majority of senior editorial, commercial and product staff questioned said their company will be putting more effort into Whatsapp and Tiktok in 2024 in a bid to tackle the traffic tail-off.

The Reuters Institute survey also found few media leaders are optimistic that licensing deals with generative AI companies will benefit the industry – but newsrooms are nonetheless adopting the technology en masse.

Digital subscriber numbers also appear to be growing for numerous paywalled publishers.

[Read more: Reuters Institute news leader surveys from the end of 2022 and the end of 2021]

Media trends and predictions for 2024

Media leaders not confident about prospects for 2024

Almost half (47%) of the survey’s respondents said they were “confident about journalism’s prospects in the year ahead”, compared with 12% who were “not confident” and 41% who were neither. This was broadly in line with last year’s figures.

The Reuters Institute cited “a slower ad market, the imminent demise of remaining third-party cookies and less reliable traffic from big tech platforms” as likely causes for low confidence, as well as “an erosion of media trust” globally.

The authors said: “Overall, the mood in our survey responses is one of strong belief in the value of journalism but great uncertainty about the year ahead, fuelled by the knowledge that another huge wave of technical disruption is on the way.”

Publishers pivot away from Facebook and X towards direct audiences, Whatsapp and video

Almost two-thirds (63%) of survey respondents said they were worried about the decline of referral traffic from Facebook and X.

Asked how their companies will deal with that decline, 77% said they focus more this year on the distribution channels they have direct control over, for example websites, apps, newsletters and podcasts.

Just over a fifth (22%) said they will likely need to cut costs to cope, while 17% said they will spend more money on marketing.

A fifth of respondents said they will respond by putting more effort into alternative platforms, with Whatsapp standing out as the biggest beneficiary of that shift.

[Read more: Whatsapp for publishers - how Reach is driving millions of page views via messaging app]

Taking advantage of the messaging app’s Channels feature, 61% of those surveyed said they would be putting more effort into Whatsapp in 2024. The Meta-owned platform is not the only social network publishers are interested in, with a net of 55% of respondents saying they will put more effort into Tiktok, 49% Google Search, 44% Youtube, 41% Linkedin and 39% Instagram.

In contrast, a net of 38% of leaders surveyed said they would put less effort into Facebook and a net of 39% would put less effort into X.

As well as these specific platform changes, most media leaders told the Reuters Institute they will lean into video in 2024 - with net 64% of respondents saying their newsroom will produce more visual content.

Similarly, a net of 52% of respondents said they will increase newsletter production and net 47% will boost podcast output. A net of zero news leaders said they would increase output of written articles.

Publishers worry money from AI deals will not be equally shared

Despite some publishers, for example Axel Springer and the Associated Press, successfully minting deals with ChatGPT owner OpenAI, the news leaders surveyed were downbeat on how lucrative generative AI copyright agreements will be for the industry.

Asked what was most likely to follow licensing deal negotiations with AI companies, 5% of respondents said “the money will be relatively evenly shared between all media companies”.

Instead, 35% said it was most likely that most of the money “will go to big media companies” and nearly half (48%) said there would be “very little money for any news company”.

Most subscription publishers saw modest or major digital subs growth in 2023

Eight in ten survey respondents said recurring subscription or membership payments would be important in 2024 - a six percentage point increase on 2020.

Among the 216 respondents who use a subscription model and answered the question, a clear majority said they saw digital subscription growth in 2023. Although 2% saw a large subscription decline and 7% a small one, 43% said subs were “up a bit” and 30% said they were up “a lot”.

Advertising remained a significant but diminishing revenue source, with 72% of the media leaders saying display advertising or sponsorship would be important for them in 2024 and 61% saying sponsored content would be important. Those figures were down from 81% and 75% respectively in 2020.

How publishers plan to tackle news avoidance trend in 2024

News avoidance has emerged as a major trend in recent years, with 41% of Britons telling last year's Reuters Institute Digital News Report that they often or sometimes avoid the news these days.

Doomsday narratives on climate change are one possible source of news fatigue, according to the institute. However it notes that some publishers are responding not by turning away from difficult topics, but addressing them with deeper explanation or so-called "solutions journalism".

"Some newsrooms have been upping their specialist coverage of green tech (Bloomberg Green) or creating eco-tips and inspiration for greener living," the Reuters Institute said.

"Earthtopia’s Tiktok round of ‘Good News’ is consistently their most engaged-with content. Irish public broadcaster RTE runs a positive climate series called ‘Climate Heroes’, showing how individuals and businesses are making a difference."

Generative AI in the newsroom in 2024

The survey revealed that more than half (56%) of news leaders think using AI to automate back-end tasks will be very important in 2024.

Various publishers have experimented with using AI to create summaries that appear at the top of an article and have been found to boost engagement, for example Aftonbladet in Sweden and Verdens Gang in Norway.

AI tools have also been used to suggest SEO-driven headlines, to aid note-taking and transcription and to assist with translation. AI illustration tool Midjourney is widely used by publishers.

The German tabloid Express.de has a virtual journalist who now writes 5% of published content (after it has been first reviewed by human editors). The site has also automated website curation and selection of suggested links, the Reuters Institute reported.

However, the survey found 56% of news leaders felt deploying AI in content creation carried a risk of reputational damage.

AI, elections and the news in 2024

With 2024 set to be an election year in the UK, US and many other countries around the world, concerns have been raised about how AI will be deployed to create misinformation and fake news.

The Reuters Institute noted: "The Israel/Gaza conflict has also thrown up countless examples of fake, doctored, or stylised images being used for propaganda purposes – from supporters of both sides. Recent versions of tools like Midjourney can conjure up hyper-realistic and detailed images of any situation that are hard to distinguish from real-life photographs, using simple prompts."

Overall, 70% of respondents said they felt AI and generative AI will lower trust levels in news.

The post News media trends for 2024: AI, Whatsapp, newsletters and video among focus areas appeared first on Press Gazette.