News consumption in Australia is rising sharply, especially among young people, according to a new report from the University of Canberra.
The 2026 edition of the Digital News Report shows how Australians get their news has shifted dramatically, with social media overtaking news websites for the first time.
The report also found that Australians are now consuming more news than they were before, placing the country above the global average for interest in news.
Here’s what else is in the report.
News access
TV (57%) remains the most-used general news source overall, with social media close behind at 56%.
The use of podcasts (13%) and AI chatbots (9%) for news continues to grow.
Facebook remains the most popular social media platform for accessing news across the entire sample.
News.com.au and ABC News are the most read news websites at 27% each.
And (this is the last time we’ll mention it) TDA is now the most popular Australian-owned independent news outlet, with 7% of Aussies turning to TDA for news on the internet (thank you!).
Influencers
Overall, 43% of Australians now get news from creators or influencers, rising to around 70% among 18-24-year-olds.
People with lower interest in the news in general are more likely to go to influencers for updates.
Influencer news is rated as more entertaining and relatable than traditional outlets, but scored lower on trustworthiness and impartiality.
Young Australians
Interest in news among 18-24-year-olds has jumped 12 points since 2024, to 47%.
Almost two-thirds (60%) of that age group said they have never read a print newspaper.
Almost half (48%) now use TikTok for news, making it the top platform for that cohort for the first time, overtaking Instagram.
Under-35s are more interested in politics than those aged 35 and over.
Trust
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Overall, trust in Australian news is unchanged, with 43% of respondents saying they trust what they read.
For the second time on record, under-35s were shown to be more trusting of news than older Australians.
General trust among under-35s rose from 36% to 50% since 2024.
Half of news consumers distrust news on social media (51%) and AI chatbots (49%). Men were more likely than women to trust those two sources.
Trust in news brands recovered almost across the board in 2026 after dropping last year.
The Sydney Morning Herald had the biggest single-year trust jump, up nine points to 56%.
Misinformation
Australia and the UK had the equal-highest level of concern about what is real or fake online, with 77% of respondents sharing those worries.
The figure has grown consistently since 2018.
Separately, 77% of Australians also believe media owners influence news coverage, and 75% say the same of politicians.
Global landscape
Globally, interest in news has been declining. Australia is bucking that trend.
At 57%, Australian interest in news is 10 percentage points above the global average, driven largely by young people.
On trust, Australia sits above average too. Globally, 36% of people trust news. In Australia it’s 43%.
Australia also leads the world on one unexpected metric: paying for digital news. Of Australians who pay for news, 35% subscribe to digital-only outlets, the highest proportion of any country surveyed.
Method
Since 2015, the University of Canberra’s News and Media Research Centre has published the annual Digital News Report: Australia.
It uses a sample of around 2,000 Australians selected to be representative of the whole country, and is part of a global study run by Oxford‘s Reuters Institute covering 48 countries.
Fieldwork was conducted in January and February 2026.
