The wider picture - and the ERC Method

What research tells us about news consumption 🔎

  • Findings from the Digital News Report 2024 show that younger audiences often encounter news incidentally through feeds, video, and other people rather than by seeking out a news brand first.

  • Trust in news is uneven. About 40% of people worldwide trust most news most of the time, but there are big differences by country. For example, 67% of people trust the news in Finland and 68% in Nigeria, compared with just 22% in Greece and 28% in Morocco. Even in long-established news markets like the UK and Germany, trust has dropped sharply in recent years.

  • News avoidance has become a regular behaviour for many. It's linked less to disinterest than to saturation, repetition, and the emotional weight of constant updates.


  • News use is fragmenting across platforms with YouTube used weekly for news by about 31% of people, WhatsApp by around 21%, and TikTok by 13% - indicating that stories move through multiple spaces where meaning and relevance are shaped as they circulate.

In short: younger audiences don’t come to news in the old way. They find it through feeds, video, and friends.

What this means 📰

The antidote for this would seemingly be to provide the solution to each of these issues. If there’s a trust issue, we need to demonstrate the reasons why we can be trusted. To protect the discourse and ultimately the relationship with audiences, it’s about opening up more about the process of news-making which is arguably hugely misunderstood.

Journalists sharing behind the scenes, the moments that a story succeeded, but also opening up about the times in which they have failed could make a huge impact, as it invites the audience into what can seem like a faraway world. It’s also about adopting a connected mindset in news reporting. As AI is being introduced, I think reporters who weave in a factually accurate depiction of scenes they, themselves are witnessing is a superpower.

And it’s often the strongest type of reporting, which creates more connection with audiences as well as for the reporter, with their work. Or championing the reporting that starts from people’s lived experience - this could build trust through transparency and proximity, and by following these stories as they circulate. Basically, making it something people can understand more deeply.

The Embed, Relate, Circulate (ERC) approach

How do we do this? Reporting for hard-to-reach audiences in this sense is not just about trying to change the content in which we are feeding them. After writing for under 35 audiences at WalesOnline, one of Reach Plc’s largest regional news sites, I have spent the last few months working out a simple formula, based on research that will help to start more meaningful conversations and empower journalists to connect with hard-to-reach audiences now, and into the future.

Based on what the data tells us, journalists and news rooms need to:

  • Embed reporting in people’s everyday lives

  • Be transparent about how they’re made

  • Follow how they circulate through social platforms and communities

By doing this, trust and relevance grow as the story moves rather than relying on publication and page views alone.