THE JOURNAL REMAINS one of Ireland’s most popular sources of digital news, a new report shows.
According to the latest Reuters Institute Digital News Report, 15% of respondents access The Journal three times or more in a week, making it Ireland’s second most frequently used digital brand, ahead of Independent.ie (at 14%).
The most frequently accessed digital brand was RTÉ News, with 25% of respondents saying they access it three or more times in a week.
The report will be launched later today by Coimisiún na Meán. It is now in its eighth year, and gives an authoritative view of news consumption patterns across Ireland.
The report measures what news sources are used by the population and how often they use them; trust levels in news media; how people see the role of journalists and news organisations; what news is paid for; and where users access it.
Commenting in a statement ahead of its launch, media development commissioner for Coimisiún na Meán, Rónán Ó Domhnaill said “the continuing trend toward news consumption online presents both opportunities and challenges for the media in Ireland”.
This year’s Digital News Report Ireland serves as a valuable dataset, to help ensure that the transition to news online is implemented in a structured and successful manner.
One of the headline findings this year is that more people are accessing their news online than through any other medium, including television. This is the first year that online news has become more popular than television news.
In general, the report found that Irish people retain a strong interest in news, with 88% of people saying they are either “extremely”, “very”, or “somewhat” interested in news. This is higher than the US, UK or European averages.
However, when you remove “somewhat”, significant differences emerge between older and younger generations. Nearly three quarters of people over the age of 65 say they are “very” or “extremely” interested in news, while just 30% of 18-24-year-old say they are.
The report found that trust in the news has fallen slightly on the previous year, with 46% of people saying they either “strongly agree” or “tend to agree” with the statement “I think you can trust most news most of the time”.
This is down from a high of 53% in 2021. However, the figures has stayed relatively stable since the first report in 2021.
While trust in news is down slightly overall, there have been increases in the level of trust for some news outlets. RTÉ remains the most trusted outlet, with 72% of respondents saying they trusted news from the public broadcaster. 60% of respondents say they trust news from The Journal, a rise of 2% on the previous year.
Meanwhile, the percentage of people saying they avoided the news shot up significantly. 44% of people said they avoid the news “often or sometimes”, a rise of 10% on the previous year.
There has also been a stark increase in concerns around what is real and what is fake online, with a 7% increase on 2023.
When asked about the main fake news they had seen in the last week, top of the list concerned the the Israel-Palestine conflict (38%), followed by coverage of immigration (37%).
There was also a slight increase in people paying for access to news content, with 17% saying they had paid (up from 2% on 2023).
The Irish Times remained the most popular subscription, with 38% of people choosing it. This was a 3% drop on the previous year, however, with the Irish Independent rising slightly to close the gap to 33%.
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
have your say