Less Than Half Of People Trust The News, Report Reveals

According to the report, trust in the news has decreased from last year

42% of Irish people say they trust the news – a sharp decrease from 51% last year

It comes as the Digital News Report for 2026 has been published today by Coimisiún na Meán. 

News avoidance is the highest it has ever been in Ireland at 47% – up from 41% last year

RTÉ News and local radio emerge as Ireland’s most trusted brands – with both on 71%

Irish people continue to trust major news brands but are losing trust in news more generally according to the annual Digital News Report Ireland 2026.

Trust in news is lowest (33%) among the 18–24-year-old age demographic, and highest (52%) among those 65+. 

Despite this decline in trust in news, Irish people continue to trust major news brands. RTÉ News and local radio news emerge as the most trusted brands, with 71% of those surveyed saying these are trustworthy sources of news. They are followed closely by local newspapers (69%), the Irish Times (69%) and the Irish Independent (68%). 

Interest in news in Ireland has held steady when compared with last year’s Report. 54% of Irish people say they are ‘extremely or very interested’ in news, down from 70% in the Covid-era of 2021. In comparison, the rates of people who say they are ‘extremely or very interest’ in news is 48% in the US, 44% as the European average, and just 37% in the UK.

When asked which platform is your main source of news, 31% of Irish respondents said television with the same percentage citing online (excluding social media. Newer news sources such as podcasts (2%) and AI chatbots (1%) are far less likely to be cited as a main source of news.

The Report shows that 22% of people in Ireland are now paying for news, up from 9% ten years ago in 2016. When Irish respondents were asked why they paid for online news, 39% said to get useful content they can’t access any other way, with 38% saying it was to support journalism because they think it is important to society. 

When asked which, if any social media platform they have used for finding, reading, watching, sharing or discussing news in the last week, Facebook was cited by 33% of Irish respondents, followed by WhatsApp at 27%, YouTube at 26%, Instagram with 23%, TikTok at 15% and X at 11%.

When asked for their thoughts about online news, 71% of Irish respondents say they are concerned about what is real and what is fake online, an increase from 68% last year. 

Research for the Digital News Report is undertaken by the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at the University of Oxford and analysis of the Irish data is provided by the DCU Institute for Future Media, Democracy and Society (FuJo).