Younger audiences find and consume news in ways that are meaningfully different, and their information-seeking behavior is a signal to the changes that publishers should anticipate from audiences in general. That’s a key finding in the just-released Next Gen News 2 report, which surveyed 5,000 adults across five countries and included 84 in-depth interviews with 18-28-year-olds. Jeremy Gilbert, Knight professor of Digital Media Strategy at Medill School of Journalism and a co-author of the study, shared key findings from the study at Local Media Association’s recent Local News Summit in New York.

Importance of news

“Younger audiences do see the value of news,” said Gilbert. “But they feel overwhelmed.”

Gilbert said it’s a myth that young people are not interested in news. While it’s true that older audiences do engage more with the news, the Next Gen News 2 research found that 35% of young people engage with the news multiple times per day. 

Sources of news

Younger audiences rely far more heavily on social media, video and search as sources for information, while TV and radio remain strong among news sources for older audiences. About one-third of all surveyed age groups reported that they get their news at least “sometimes” from national newspapers/magazines or local newspapers/magazines. Search was the news-finding method that most united the different age cohorts, with half of each of the surveyed age groups saying they “sometimes” used search to find news.

A bar graph showing the percent of each age group getting news at least “sometimes” from seven news sources. This is a slide from a presentation Jeremy Gilbert shared at Local Media Summit in New York on March 10. Image courtesy of Jeremy Gilbert.

Trust in news

Gilbert noted that, while younger audiences are less tied to traditional news brands, these traditional sources do enjoy a “halo effect” among younger news consumers. But trust is a challenge. 

“Younger news consumers have learned to question the motives of anyone who creates content, including news,” said Gilbert. “They demand transparency and don’t automatically trust legacy news sources.”

Creators as news sources

Gilbert explained how the practices of news ‘creators’ have earned trust among younger consumers. He said creators earn attention and build community through:

  • Credibility earned from personal experience/expertise rather than institutional affiliation
  • Trust through affinity: “trust their information by first trusting them as people”
  • Transparency as key to this trust, fostered by authentic presentation of their personality
  • Accessibility through use of recognizable language and formats

News avoidance & news fatigue

Among young people, 54% agreed that “keeping up with the news should not take up very much time, noted Gilbert. “Our job is to figure out how to make it easy to keep up.”

While younger audiences are less likely to report avoiding the news, Gilbert said they worry about managing the feeling of content overwhelm. Along those lines, Next Gen news audiences consider AI “helpful” to put the news in context, to summarize and to explain the news. 

News seeking and news consumption

A key overall finding of the latest study is that “news consumers consciously choose how to spend their attention,” said Gilbert. News audiences behave in ways that help them find news that meets their needs, “especially when it comes from brands and voices that they trust, in formats that they value.” 

The Next Gen News 2 study summarized these modes of engagement with news into three categories:

  • “Sift” – How audiences discover information
  • “Consumption” – what audiences get from information
  • “Socialize” – How we share and connect information with others

A slide from a presentation Jeremy Gilbert shared at Local Media Summit in New York on March 10. Image courtesy of Jeremy Gilbert.

Gilbert described this as a shift from an old model, where a few media outlets controlled the distribution of news, to a new customer-driven model where the news audiences decide when and how — the ‘time and place’ — they consume news. 

Strategies to serve future audiences

The Next Gen News 2 study suggests an approach news organizations can pursue to respond to this significant shift, by anticipating the audiences of 2030 and adapting for their needs and behaviors. Here are four broad strategies supported by this audience research:

  • Workflow Shifts: Newsrooms should prioritize distribution strategy early in the process and invite audience input before and during the reporting stage.
  • Platform Specificity: Content must be tailored for specific platforms rather than simply repurposed; what works on a podcast may not be effective in text or on social media.
  • Engaging Narratives: When seeking to build trust and community, newsrooms should focus on accessibility, transparency (including explaining business models) and incorporating human perspectives.
  • Community Connection: Real-world events that combine news with community interaction (such as gatherings in social spaces) are highly effective ways to build affinity with audiences.

Slides from a presentation Jeremy Gilbert shared at Local Media Summit in New York on March 10. Image courtesy of Jeremy Gilbert.

The Next Gen News 2 report was created by Northwestern University’s Knight Lab and FT Strategies, with support from Google News Initiative. The full report includes detailed strategies for anticipating and meeting the needs of the 2030 news audiences, as well as case studies of newsrooms innovating today to meet the needs of news audiences tomorrow.