A significant threat to most respondents (74%) is a decline in referral traffic from search, following big declines in social media referrals over the last few years, as AI-generated summaries start to cover news stories.
This is according to a survey of 326 digital journalism leaders (whether editors, CEOs, or executives) from 51 countries by the Reuters Institute.
Why news matters
A canary in the internet coalmine: journalism tends to stand at the forefront of changes in the web, for good or for ill.
However, for marketers, news has been a critical harbour of safety and trust ever since advertising became a serious business with the rise of newspapers and later TV.
Trust in brands is a critical differentiator in distrustful times and media choices have become key to this. Research from effectiveness expert Peter Field found that the effect of newsbrand advertising on a campaign’s profitability and contribution to market share growth rocketed after 2016.
What’s going on
Despite the worries about referral traffic, publishers plan to engage more with AI (+56 net score) to try and get on the front foot; 36% of publishers expect licensing to AI firms to become an important revenue stream. However, 72% would favour a deal that would benefit the entire news ecosystem.
But publishers are also using AI, with 87% of respondents saying that their newsrooms are transforming for an AI age; back-end automation is expected to increase for 60% of the sample.
Audience-facing AI is also a focus, especially in text-to-audio features (75%), summarisation (70%), and translation (65%), while 56% of respondents are also exploring AI search interfaces.
Elsewhere, they are putting more effort into social video, especially:
- YouTube (+52)
- TikTok (+48)
- Instagram (+43)
But alternative referral channels are also becoming a core focus with greater activity on:
- WhatsApp (+39)
- LinkedIn (+39)
- Bluesky (+38)
- Google Discover (+27)
Optimism amid worry
While most respondents are not hugely confident about journalism’s prospects as a whole in the coming year (41%), at the level of their business just over half (56%) are confident their organisation will do well.
There are some promising secular effects: Trump’s return to the White House could drive a lot more readership and even subscriptions amid expected chaos. More chillingly, the rise of AI could make readers mistrustful of free or unverified news sources, bringing them back to trusted outlets for quality information.
Source: Reuters Institute, WARC
