PR lessons from the Reuters Digital News Report 2025

The latest Reuters Digital News Report provides an insight into news consumption across the world. Most of the themes don’t feel surprising: declining engagement in “traditional” news and a shift towards using social media and video platforms for news consumption, plus challenges from AI, fragmenting platforms and misinformation. 

While this might feel challenging for those whose PR strategies are still largely driven by media relations, there are important lessons in the report for how PRs need to evolve and innovate for our work to stay relevant and impactful. 

Social media’s role in providing news

For example, in the US we can see that the proportion of people accessing the news via social media and video networks has overtaken TV news and news websites for the first time. Where they go, the UK tends to follow so a wise PR would already be thinking about how to include social media-friendly assets like vertical video into their pitches. That said there’s also a warning about taking stats at face value; there are huge variations in platform use between countries. For example, in Thailand almost half of people surveyed use TikTok for news, while in Europe that figure is only 11%, although dig a layer deeper again and you’ll see this number increases for younger demographics. 

Similarly, the fragmentation of media platforms and the rise of what the report terms ‘a personality-driven alternative media sector’ means that simply targeting the same ‘big name’ media outlets we always have simply won’t have impact. Instead, PR should be considering who are the creators on YouTube, TikTok and Facebook they should be building relationships with. Some sectors - like travel and fashion - have been doing this successfully for years, and there’s a humbling lesson for those who think that what they do is ‘more serious’ about what they can learn from these practitioners. 

The role of vertical video

The move towards video feels like it has been going on for some time, and although the report does show that over half of people asked still prefer their news in a text-based format, the proportion who prefer it to be presented as video or audio increases strikingly for younger generations. Even ‘traditional’ news websites are embedding vertical video. As a side note, the fact that news websites are referred to as traditional media throughout the report feels significant - the days of claiming to be a digital PR expert simply because you understood the difference between web and print are long gone. 

The effect on PR of changing news consumption

What does this mean for PRs planning campaigns or longer-term activity? Many of these themes have been growing over the past few years so it's not about making sudden U-turns but rather about thinking how you can strategically embed this insight into your plans. As ever it's about knowing who you're speaking to and meeting them where they are. Don't be distracted by something like TikTok if your audiences are middle aged, and don't be rushed into leaving a platform like X if you might need it to influence a future government that's further to the right than our current one.

PRs will also need a deep understanding of emerging culture. Bear in mind that AI snippets are largely driven by media coverage so the skills of media relations are still crucial but you might need to think about whether what you're pitching will feed into that. And how to measure that is a whole new question - the new Barcelona 4.0 principles have also just been launched, but will the promised focus on impact and outcomes ever actually materialise in the face of much easier to measure metrics like volume?

The key lesson to take from the report is that the media landscape is changing more quickly and chaotically than ever, and PRs need to be ready to think on their feet to create campaigns that have real value.

Download the Retuers Digital News Report 2025.

Kat Dibbits  is head of communications at the  Teenage Cancer Trust and a Chartered PR practitioner.

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