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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Five of the biggest news publishers in the UK and US have increased their core Tiktok followings by more than two million people in just over 18 months.

Press Gazette has updated our ranking of the biggest and fastest-growing news publisher Tiktok accounts, having last done so in January 2023.

The analysis features the 70 news publishers from Press Gazette’s most recent lists of the 50 biggest UK and US news websites that were found on Tiktok. 

Nineteen of the publishers are not included in the growth comparisons as they were not included in our previous analysis – with some of those likely to have been more recent sign-ups to Tiktok. 

The rankings look at each publisher’s main account only but it should be acknowledged that some news outlets create separate accounts for different verticals.

Reuters and The New York Times saw by far and away the biggest percentage increase in their Tiktok following during the period, but this is due to their small followings at the start of 2023.

Among those with over 100,000 followers at the time of our last update, the 371% growth seen by BBC News was the largest.

CNN (238%), GB News (221%), Yahoo News (218%), CNBC (205%) and The Independent (204%) were the other larger accounts to more than triple their follower count.

There was also some impressive growth for local news sites such as the Liverpool Echo (204%) and the Manchester Evening News (193%), though Newcastle’s Chronicle Live (464%) remains small (6,200 followers) despite that growth.

At the other end of the spectrum, the Washington Post (13%) and The Telegraph (14%) took the least advantage of TikTok’s growth.

In terms of absolute growth, there was no matching the Daily Mail, which added 5.6 million new followers over the period. This was more than two million more than any other news publisher in our analysis.

Insider, a section of Business Insider, was a distant second place, adding a still impressive 3.5 million new followers in the period.

CNN (3.1 million), Sky News (2.9 million) and BBC News (2.9 million) also added more than two million followers each since the start of 2023.

The New York Times added almost 750,000 followers from a starting point of under 5,000, while Reuters added over 175,000 from a base of less than 1,000.

Who are the biggest news publishers on Tiktok in the UK and US?

The Daily Mail, which was in third place behind ABC News in January 2023, is now leading the way at the top with nearly ten million followers for its main account on the platform at the time of writing. (Between our data collection and time of publication, it has now surpassed ten million.)

One of its smaller accounts, Daily Mail UK, which has 980,800 followers, would still place comfortably in the top half of the outlets considered. It celebrated surpassing ten million across all its accounts, which also include a global news account and others dedicated to crime, sport, royals, showbiz, the US and Australia, in January this year.

It does have a smaller Tiktok following than Ladbible (13.8 million followers on its main account), but although the younger brand was top of the ranking in 2023 it was not included in our latest update as it is not currently ranked in the top 50 news websites in the UK.

Of the 70 newsbrands covered in this analysis, 21 were followed by more than a million people. This was more than the number (19) who had followings below 100,000.

This increased reach comes off the back of further growth for TikTok, which is now used for news by 8% of people in 12 key markets including the UK and US according to the 2024 Reuters Institute Digital News Report - up from 1% in 2020.

Across all countries surveyed where Tiktok operates, it is now used for news by 13% of people - overtaking X/Twitter (10%) for the first time - and 23% of 18 to 24-year-olds, the report found.

However 27% of Tiktok users said they struggle to detect trustworthy news on the site, the highest of all social media platforms covered. And only 34% of Tiktok users said they pay attention to journalists or news media, preferring online influencers and personalities. By contrast, on X 53% of users say they pay attention to journalists or news media.

Note: This article was updated after publication to add Channel 4 News, which we discovered had been wrongly missed off our list of the UK's top 50 publishers and therefore met the criteria for inclusion on this ranking.

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What were the most viewed videos of the 2024 general election campaign posted by news publishers on Tiktok? Here Press Gazette lists some of the most watched Tiktok videos relating to the 2024 UK general election campaign published by leading news publishers.

(Note this story was updated on 17 July to reflect new information shared by publishers.)

1) Rishi Sunak: What’s your Nando’s order?

This video posted by Mirror Politics was just 11 seconds long and revealed the former Prime Minister’s go-to Nando’s order. It tops our list with 6.1m views.

@mirrorpolitics

medium. what a wet wipe

♬ original sound – Mirror Politics

2) Bearded Boris rails against Keir Starmer

The Daily Mail was in the lead with 5.3 million views on one TikTok. The 40-second video, with the caption “Boris Johnson records himself dissuading people from voting for Starmer as it will lead to reintegration with EU”, features a bearded Johnson urging viewers against voting Labour. The Daily Mail has invested heavily in Tiktok and now has more than nine million followers for its main account.

@dailymailuk Boris Johnson issues stark warning over Keir Starmer saying if he ‘really wins this election he will take us back into the Customs Union and the Single Market.’ Read his column in the Daily Mail. #borisjohnson #keirstarmer #dailymail ♬ original sound – Daily Mail UK

2) Larry the Downing Street cat

A short video about Larry the Downing Street cat from Sky News achieved 5.3m views and is in joint second place in our ranking.

@skynews ♬ original sound – Sky News

4) Sky News predicts 212-seat majority for Labour

Sky News drew 3.7m views with a video on the eve of the election based on polling which predicted a 212-seat majority for Labour. Keir Starmer in fact achieved a majority of 172 seats.

@skynews #Labour are on course for a landslide victory on Thursday with a majority of 212 seats according to the final YouGov #poll projection of the #GeneralElection2024 campaign #fyp ♬ original sound – Sky News

5) ITV News interview with candidate who polled fewer votes than Count Binface

ITV News achieved 3.6 million views for its video “Niko on why he’s running as an MP”. The 3 minutes and 19 seconds video showcased Youtuber Niko Omilana’s interview with ITV digital video producer Daniel Ajose. In the interview, Omilana outlined his reasons for running for election and said that he took Rishi Sunak’s claims to bring back national service personally. Video views did not turn into electoral success for Omilana, who recorded 160 votes — around half the total achieved by comedy candidate Count Binface.

@itvnews YouTuber @NDL Ringside speaks to @Dan Ajose in his first media interview of the 2024 General Election #politics #niko #itvnews ♬ original sound – itvnews

6) Candidate holds up ‘L’ sign behind Rishi Sunak

A Sky News video featuring Niko Omilana holding up an L sign behind Rishi Sunak as the results for his constituency poll were announced received 3.2m views on the platform.

@skynews

Niko, who is known for his pranks online, stood behind the Tory leader after Mr Sunak won his seat in Richmond and Northallerton. The prankster, whose full name is Niko Omilana, stood as an independent candidate in the constituency, winning 160 votes.

♬ original sound – Sky News

7) Yahoo UK: Woman pulling faces

Yahoo UK got 2.7 million views for a video titled, “Woman spotted pulling faces behind Rishi Sunak during election speech”. Posted on 30 May, the 36-second video focused on a woman in the background who appeared to roll her eyes as Sunak spoke.

@yahoouk A woman reacting to a Rishi Sunak election speech has gone viral this week. Eagled-eyed viewers watching the campaign in Devon spotted her in the background, reacting to the Prime Minister’s claim that throughout the pandemic and the war in Ukraine ‘I had your back’. During his whistlestop tour across Cornwall and Devon, the Prime Minister also clambered into the seat of a Jackal 3, the latest in a range of armoured vehicles, had a pint of lemonade in a county pub, and spliced a fibre optic broadband cable. #Election #election2024 #RishiSunak #tory #conservative #conservatives #devon #ukelection #ukelection2024 #uknews #ukpolitics ♬ original sound – Yahoo UK

8) Sunak and Starmer asked about young home ownership

BBC News garnered 2.5 million views for a video titled “Sunak and Starmer asked about young home ownership”, which featured a snippet from the ITV leaders debate when Sunak and Starmer were asked about young people being priced out of the property market. Sunak highlighted what the government had done in building homes, but said his approach would help young people save. Starmer responded by saying that Labour has a clear plan to deliver homes and services such as schools around homes.

@bbcnews The Labour and Conservative leaders are asked about young people being priced out of the property market. You can hear from the other political parties on Friday, when leading figures from seven parties debate on the BBC from 19:30. #RishiSunak #KeirStarmer #ElectionDebate #GeneralElection #UKElection #Election #Election2024 #News #UKPolitics #BBCNews ♬ original sound – BBC News

9) Sky News: Rishi Sunak heckled by GP

Sky News got 2.2m views for a Tiktok video titled BREAKING NEWS: PM Rishi Sunak heckled by GP who challenges him on the NHS” which was posted on 7 June. In a rare unscripted campaign moment Sunak was interrupted by a heckler offscreen while giving a speech to Conservative supporters.

@skynews A woman saying she is a GP has heckled #primeminister #RishiSunak at a campaign event in Wiltshire #generalelection ♬ original sound – Sky News

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The Daily Mail today launched a long-form video strategy around a slate of original series designed to be watched primarily via the Youtube app on home TVs.

The Mail’s new Global Video Studio is developing about 20 shows, including “Price of Fame”, which looks at how expensive it is to live the life of a celebrity, and “Your Body on Sport”, which looks in-depth at the physiological and medical issues facing professional athletes.

“The company is basically making a big investment in video”, Tony Manfred, the Mail’s global head of video, told Press Gazette. “This is a hit strategy. We expect these to be big, blockbuster, million-view-an-episode-type of things.

“Not all of them are going to work, but the hope is we’re sitting here next year and we have the beginnings of a slate of our shows that we know work.”

New York-based Manfred joined the Mail about nine months ago from Business Insider.

The Mail has a team of about 12 producers working on the series, led by Patrick Bulger also in New York, the relatively new head of shows at the title.

The Mail has about 50 people in total working in video. About 20 work on the “social” team (under head of social video Phil Harvey in London) creating vertical short-form video for platforms like Tiktok.

The remainder work on the “site” team (under head of site video Olivia Bateman, also in London) which creates video to accompany Mail Online’s text-based reporting, Manfred said.

New Youtube shows will be up to 30 minutes long (versus two minutes on Tiktok)

“The big Youtube trend that is happening in the last 18 months now is the amount of engagement they’re getting on televisions. I think Nielsen puts out a report every month of the biggest TV broadcasters in the US, and Youtube is number two behind only Disney,” Manfred said.

When all US viewing numbers are combined, for both TV and via on-screen apps, Youtube claims almost 10% of all US television use. Disney has 11.5%, according to Nielsen.

Most of the Mail’s audience on social and third-party platforms is now outside the UK.

“We’ve seen just completely explosive growth on Tiktok in the last 18 months,” Manfred said. The paper claims 13 million followers on TikTok. “We get more than a billion views a month there. So, part of the reason to pour gas on that fire is that it exposes our brand to people who might have never come in contact with a Daily Mail story otherwise.”

The Mail is part of Youtube’s partner sales program and is thus able to sell its own ad inventory on the app.

Each show will be 15 to 30 minutes long, instead of the 30 seconds to two minutes favoured by Tiktok. That allows the Mail to design the series with sponsors and brand partnerships in mind. A 22-minute-plus show has room for a presenting sponsor, pre-roll ads, and multiple midroll ad breaks, Manfred said.

The Mail claims it receives 125 million monthly views on Youtube. “The idea is that these unlock commercial opportunities that wouldn’t be available to us otherwise,” Manfred said.

Manfred is aiming to publish five to ten episodes of its new shows per week. That’s a much lower cadence than the Mail’s existing social media video output, which is producing ten to 20 short videos per day, he said.

That frantic pace is sustainable only because the Mail’s operations are larger than most newsrooms.

“The reason I came here [from Business Insider] is because they have all the resources, they have all the stuff you need to do video really well at scale,” Manfred said.

“They have a huge amount of money. They have the distribution megaphone on a bunch of different platforms. The going-from-zero-to-60 thing, that is really hard if you’re starting at a standing start. It’s not the case here. In my discussions with them there’s buy-in from the people in power here, the folks at the top were like ‘this is an opportunity for us and we trust you, and we like your plan, and go for it’. So that’s why I came over.”

“As growth in video consumption continues, we’ve adapted to give our global audiences access to the most captivating stories, and now advertisers have access to our premium video production capabilities,” Dominic Williams, Mail Metro Media’s chief revenue officer, said in a statement.

Read more:

• How Daily Mail went from voice of Middle England to Tiktok sensation
• At 1,500 stories per day, Mail Online is UK’s most prolific news website
• Daily Mail podcast chief Jamie East on publisher’s rapidly expanding audio empire.

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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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In recent years large social and video networks, offering powerful creator tools and free global distribution, have provided a platform for an increasingly wide range of voices and perspectives. Most of this content has nothing to do with news. Much of it generates very little attention, but some accounts and individuals have become increasingly influential around politics, and a range of other subjects  

In previous research we have shown how in newer networks such as TikTok and Instagram as well as in long standing video platforms like YouTube, mainstream media are significantly challenged by a range so called creators, influencers, and assorted personalities, as well as smaller, alternative news outlets. This contrasts with networks such as Facebook and X (formerly Twitter) where mainstream media and journalists still tend to lead the conversation when it comes to news.

Who are the biggest ‘news influencers’ in the UK, US and France?

In this year’s Digital News Report, we wanted to understand more about who these news influencers are, what type of ‘news’ they discuss, and what this means for wider society. 

We did this by asking a random selection of people who use a range of popular networks including Facebook, X, YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok to name up to three mainstream and/or alternative accounts they followed most closely that related to news.

We then counted the most popular individuals and news brands from the combined data. We did this in around 20 countries around the world, but in this article, we explore findings in just three – the United Kingdom, the United States and France. 

United Kingdom: High representation of 'mainstream' journalists

Traditional UK news brands established an early and strong presence in social media networks such as Twitter (now X) and Facebook, but have been slower to adapt to newer networks.

Despite this, across all networks studied we find that the majority (57%) of all mentions were for mainstream news brands and their journalists and 43% for other individuals and alternative media.

Big broadcasters such as the BBC and Sky do best, along with The Guardian, but these brands are more challenged in YouTube and TikTok by a range of youth orientated outlets such as Politics Joe, LADbible, and TLDR News – and also by more partisan political outlets such as Novara Media and individual creators.

[Read more: Video brand TLDR finds way to make money providing news for the young]

When it comes to our list of top ten individual accounts, we also find a high representation of journalists from mainstream media brands.

Topping the list is LBC’s James O’Brien who has been particularly effective on YouTube and TikTok with smartly packaged video clips from his radio show regularly going viral. ITV’s political correspondent Robert Peston, an early adopter of social media, is in second place.

Also represented is former CNN, ITV, and TalkTV host Piers Morgan who recently took his eponymous Uncensored show online-only to get round what he calls the "unnecessary straitjacket" of TV schedules.

There is a clear absence of women in the most-mentioned list. Partisan perspectives are provided, on the left, by columnist and author Owen Jones and on the right by TV hosts from GB News. These include Nigel Farage, now leader of Reform UK, and Neil Oliver, whose controversial views on lockdowns and vaccinations have led to complaints to the broadcast regulator Ofcom. 

 
Comedian Russell Brand attracts an eclectic crowd for his outspoken, libertarian and anti-mainstream media views expressed manly via YouTube (and Rumble).

Sports journalists David Ornstein and Fabrizio Romano, both with a reputation for transfer scoops, are widely followed, as are others with specialist knowledge such as Dan Neidle, a former high-profile lawyer who breaks stories about dodgy tax affairs of the rich and famous. 

Influencer Dylan Page operates what he claims is the biggest English language news account on TikTok (10.6 million followers).

Celebrities, such as BBC football presenter and podcast entrepreneur Gary Lineker (nine million followers on X) tweet from time to time about politics and refugees and Elon Musk’s tweets (150 million followers) are also widely followed in the UK. 

United States: Much higher use of YouTube for news

We see a very different picture in the United States with much higher use of use of YouTube for news compared with the UK and a higher proportion of those users paying attention to alternative news sources.

X (formerly Twitter) is another important network for alternative voices in the US, where creators have been encouraged in recent years by owner Elon Musk. The network has recently refocused its strategy on video and is supporting commentators like Tucker Carlson, who was dismissed by Fox News, and has subsequently built a significant audience there.

Our list of the most mentioned individuals is headed by Carlson along with Joe Rogan who runs a successful daily show on YouTube (as well as Spotify).

It is striking that all of the most mentioned (top ten) individual names are known for political commentary or chat - rather than original newsgathering. Most of the content is partisan – with little or no attempt to put the other side, and the entire top ten list is made up of men.

Many of these names can hardly be called ‘alternative’, as they often come with decades of experience from legacy media, having previously been fixtures for years on traditional cable or talk radio networks.  

Some of these US individuals are attached to wider online networks, such as the Daily Wire and Blaze TV (conservative) and Young Turks and Medias Touch (progressive) that contain multiple creators within a wider brand. 

But whatever the politics, the look is remarkably consistent – somewhere between a podcast and a TV broadcast – with mostly male hosts armed with oversized microphones talking to mostly male guests.

Alternative voices received more citations in total from our US sample than traditional media, but mainstream media brands and their journalists still accounted for 42% of mentions with CNN and Fox News heading the list.  

On TikTok, however, alternative news approaches are also prominent, such as @underthedesknews, an account which features creator V Spehar presenting news updates from a lying down position to contrast with the formulaic ‘over the desk’ approach on mainstream TV. The account has over three million subscribers with content aimed at explaining current events and news for younger audiences. 

Elon Musk regularly posts content on subjects such as free speech, AI, and the failings of mainstream media. Donald Trump was also frequently mentioned and has 65 million followers on X and 6.5 million on Truth Social. 

France: Young news influencers lead the way

In France, we find mainstream media challenged on social and video platforms by a range of alternative media including a number of young news influencers.

Head and shoulders above others we find YouTuber and podcaster Hugo Travers, 27, known online as Hugo Décrypte, (literally Hugo Deciphers … the news). With 2.6 million subscribers on his main channel on YouTube and 5.7 million on TikTok, he has become a leading news source for young French people.  

In our survey data, Décrypte received more mentions than Le Monde, Le Figaro and Liberation combined. His followers had an average age of 27, around 20 years younger than many other news brands according to our data. Travers regularly interviews top politicians and global figures such as Bill Gates. The social media generation “won’t start reading a newspaper or watching the news on TV at 30,” he says.

Youth focused news brands such as Brut and Konbini have also built large audiences via social and video distribution. This level of engagement highlights the weakness of many traditional French news brands, which still primarily cater for older elites and have been slow to innovate through social platforms.

Protecting the environment has become an important theme for alternative voices with Hugo Clément (32) and Salomé Saqué (28) two prominent voices, who have built their ecological reputations through social media.

Meanwhile many older, male, right learning commentators, such as Pascal Praud and former presidential candidate Éric Zemmour, are extending their influence through like-minded and mostly older communities on X and Facebook.

Far right politicians such as Marine Le Pen (one million followers on TikTok) and her 28 year old protégé  Jordan Bardella (1.6 million) were also mentioned in our data as the National Rally leader successfully targeted the youth vote ahead of the European elections. 

Implications for mainstream media from news influencer findings

Looking across our three selected countries we find that news related accounts of any kind are cited more often in the United States than they are in the UK or France.

In the United States we also find a greater number of alternative news or individual accounts mentioned as opposed to mainstream news brands and journalists, suggesting that the trend towards news influencers is far more developed here.

In the United Kingdom, by contrast mainstream media brands and journalists are both active and widely followed leaving less of a gap for independent operators. 

Digging further into the content itself, we find that many of the most cited accounts belong to partisan political commentators (from left and right), some of whom have been criticised for factual inaccuracies and for spreading conspiracies or misleading narratives, even as they are highly trusted by those who share their political views.

Many of the commentators now committed to online distribution emphasise their ability to speak freely (e.g. Tucker Carlson Unfiltered, Piers Morgan Uncensored), setting themselves up as an alternative to a mainstream media that they say ‘suppresses the truth’ or is driven by ‘elite and corporate interests’. But any increase in the range of views is not matched by diversity, with the most popular accounts mostly white and male in the three countries included here. 

A second important trend is the popularity of news creators and influencers that speak to younger audiences, mostly using video formats. In France Hugo Décrypte is blazing a trail in trying to make news more accessible and entertaining. Elsewhere brands such as Brut, Politics Joe, and TLDR News are engaging a large number of under 35s using younger hosts, as well as an agenda that includes more content about climate, social justice and mental health.

The vitality of alternative voices in social and video networks in some ways highlights perceived weaknesses of news organisations on such issues as trust, diversity, and digital storytelling – at least with some people. All this means that traditional media still has much to learn on how to better engage audiences in this increasingly complex and competitive space while staying true to its mission and values.

You can read more detail about news consumption across countries and about wider audience trends at www.digitalnewsreport.org/2024.

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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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This is the first entry in a new election diary in collaboration with ITN. Insights will come twice a week from across the ITV News, Channel 4 News and Channel 5 News teams.

People come to Tiktok for the memes, but stay for the politics. Well, it’s my job to try and make sure that happens.

This has been called the first Tiktok election, and that was proven when all the main political parties joined the platform within days of the national poll being called.

It’s one of the world’s most used social media apps, and it’s where many young people spend most of their spare time, so it makes sense that it’s where much of the campaign is taking place.

ITV News has been on Tiktok a while but this year we evolved our strategy and became one of the first established news organisations to set up a Tiktok account dedicated to politics, to keep people informed in an election year on a platform where misinformation can run rife.

We wanted to keep people informed, with the same trusted news they expect from our website and TV bulletins. I was hired as the man to do that job.

It’s been a rollercoaster. The plan was to build a following before a general election in “the second half of the year”. We didn’t expect it to be on the first week of the second half of the year.

‘Young people more interested in politics than I expected’

But we were ready. Young people are a lot more interested in politics than I expected. Since the end of January, we’ve gained 100,000 followers and our videos have been seen almost 50 million times.

Of course, the many gaffes this year have been great content for the account but our explainers and original content are regularly seen being viewed by millions of people.

Videos on what many might think are the dull topics of First Past the Post and Purdah have been viewed almost a million times.

The government’s advice for emergencies, a much more exciting topic, has more than 1.6 million views.

But Tiktok isn’t just a platform for sharing our content, we also use it to talk to our audience.

During the campaign we’ve been asking our followers to send in questions, which we then put to the leaders.

So far our interviews with Ed Davey and Carla Denyer have been viewed almost three million times, with answers on electoral and drug reform getting the most traction.

ITV News on Tiktok: ‘We love getting views but we don’t forget who we are’

We love getting lots of views, but we don’t forget who we are. At ITV News, we hold our social media content to the same Ofcom standards that are required for our TV output, so there’s a balance to strike on tone and style.

Content needs to be impactful from the beginning, to stop people scrolling past, but it’s also important not to sensationalise. In a nutshell, it must be accurate, impartial, and concise.

Brevity is particularly important and difficult to master. A Tiktok must be long enough to include all the relevant information, and to the point enough to keep people’s attention.

But voter apathy this election suggests politicians must also do more to keep their attention – because people are losing interest in politics.

Many people I’ve spoken to this campaign have told me they have no trust in politics, that the system is broken, and all politicians are the same.

That’s despite the parties making a huge effort to reach them on social media.

Labour has gained 190,000 followers and 4.4 million likes on Tiktok since launching on 23 May. The Conservative Party has gained just 58,000 followers and its videos have been liked 457,000 times.

Despite both of their best efforts, young people are uninspired by politics.

Barely any of the young people I spoke to in Manchester after the ITV debate had watched it live on TV. Most however had seen clips on social media.

So it shows there is a role for trusted news organisations bringing news to young people on these platforms, even if many of them don’t plan to vote in this year’s general election.

Almost a fifth of young people who are eligible to vote in this year’s general election are unlikely to take part, a survey by the Duke of Edinburgh award found this week.

Just four in ten of those aged 18 to 24 said they are likely to cast their ballot on 4 July, around 43% said they were still questioning whether to vote and 18% said they are unlikely to.

And even more discouragingly, recent polling by Techne UK found that 20% of all Britons have already decided not to vote.

The parties will be doing what they can to change that before 4 July – and you can see the best of it on our Tiktok.

The post ITN election diary: Report from the frontline of the first Tiktok election appeared first on Press Gazette.

Publishers have been told there is “no magic formula” for Tiktok but that they should focus on quality over quantity to boost how many people see their videos.

Brands were also advised how to think like influencers and told they can jump on Tiktok trends without seeming too “cringe” at a video panel at the PPA Festival in London last month.

Edward Lindeman, head of publisher operations at Tiktok in the UK, said although there is “no magic formula” for getting big reach on the platform, the algorithm which is the “secret sauce” for its For You feed focuses on “the quality of the content”.

“So some of the key things we do know that it looks at is the completion rate of the video,” he said. “Is someone watching it to the end? That’s 100% completion rate. Do they watch it multiple times? That can be 200-300% completion rate. Are they sharing it, commenting on it, liking it?

“Probably most people sitting in this room are like ‘yeah, well, that’s obvious’, but I think it was important to just state that that’s the kind of key things that the platform, I think, and most other platforms, are similarly looking at that and then it will use that to determine how many people that video should be distributed to.”

Lindeman continued: “The reason I set that context and that scene is that you can come to the platform and create lots and lots of videos, but unless you’re getting very strong engagement and high completion rates – the video quality score, let’s call it – unless it’s high the distribution will be relatively low.

“Tiktok is kind of different to other platforms in that regard because previously if you built a big community on Facebook, Instagram or Youtube, the distribution you would get from that community and follower base will be much, much higher than you would get through Tiktok.

“We believe that the best content should get the best reach and therefore we really lean into the idea that the video quality score has a massive influence on how many people will see it. So… really focus on the quality because if you post twice a week, but each video does 5-10 million video views, your engagement and also your follower base is going to grow much faster than posting 20 videos a week that are driving 5-10,000 video views.”

Three pillars for publishers on Tiktok: ‘Be entertaining, funny or informative’

Lindeman said that although most video views on Tiktok come from “either the creator community or normal people creating and sharing content”, the platform has “tried to lean in and build great relationships with publishing partners” over the past year or two “cause we know that actually our content ecosystem isn’t complete without really amazing videos that those publishers can produce”.

Asked whether publishers should be thinking like influencers, he said: “If your thought process as an influencer is how can I create the best content, in our case video, for my audience and people who are maybe not in my audience or they’re not in my community yet, but I would like to reach, then absolutely that’s the right thought process.

“I think the difficult thing with media groups and publishing brands is that you don’t have that individual, right?”

Referring to fellow panellist Frankie Eshun, an influencer with her family whose biggest following is on Instagram, Lindeman went on: “Frankie is Frankie and people will really buy into her as the as the individual at the heart of that brand whereas it can be more difficult… if you’re an organisation you might have some recognisable faces that people will associate with that organisation but there won’t necessarily be someone that people can necessarily directly relate to.

“So I think at that point, the challenge becomes slightly bigger, in that you need to make sure that you’re offering value in different ways. And for short-form video, the best ways to do that are to be entertaining, funny, or informative and educational. I think they’re three really great pillars to build around.”

Jungle Creations CEO: Why ‘more isn’t always more’

Melissa Chapman, chief executive of social publisher Jungle Creations whose portfolio includes food and cooking brand Twisted, said they are increasingly trying to both inform and entertain – and that although Twisted is ultimately about how to cook, “that’s not enough anymore”.

One of its new formats is therefore United Plates of America, which shows a dish from each state alongside a history of its food culture.

“Younger audiences want to watch satisfying video whilst watching something else at the same time whilst doing something else,” Chapman said.

“It’s quite scary that we kind of need three videos in one now. So when we’re putting our videos together, we try to hit all three of those notes as much as possible.”

Chapman also told the event that “for us, more isn’t always more”.

She said: “On a fundamental level the platforms will have a certain quota that you need to post regularly, needs to be consistent and so on and so forth, but don’t post for posting’s sake. So we do try to tread that balance between frequent posting, so we’re still here, don’t forget us because there’s a lot of other people here and if you go for an hour, they might forget you exist.

“But actually investing a little bit more into our formats and trying to almost keep people in that video for longer so they’re dwelling with us on a video by video level, rather than being with us for three seconds across 100 different videos that could be from anyone.”

Chapman said Jungle, which launched ten years ago, began by producing videos in studios with DSLR cameras and videographers, producers, editors and a “whole creative brainstorm process going on”.

“We were overcomplicating it,” she said, adding that Tiktok had “democratised being a content creator” by simplifying editing in-platform and allowing anyone to tell a story as long as they had a phone.

She continued: “While that’s really exciting for us as a publisher because suddenly our output tripled, we could do things quicker and become more efficient, it was also a challenge because historically our competition was other publishers and other people in the social space and then suddenly we were fighting for eyeballs with creatives as well so [at] Twisted… we thought okay, how do we start operating like a team of creatives?”

This resulted in them increasingly “putting our people in front of the camera” and “telling their stories,” Chapman explained.

“Because I think ultimately… social is by its very nature anti-social, we’ve never been more disconnected as a society than we are now, people are hungry for authenticity, for real life, for connection, and creatives really have been a great window into that in this kind of social digital world.

“So for us, it was how we work with creatives and also learn from creators in how we change our tone of voice and be less like a business and more like a collection of people around a shared passion point.”

The post Why ‘more isn’t always more’ for publishers on Tiktok appeared first on Press Gazette.

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.

The post Less than half of journalists using generative AI for work, survey appeared first on Press Gazette.