Countering News Avoidance: Strategies for Engaging Audiences in the United States
News avoidance has become a significant concern in recent years, both in the United States and around the world. About 40 percent of U.S. audiences avoid the news altogether, and about 46 percent of U.K. audiences were found to do the same. The increasing prevalence of news avoidance can be attributed to several factors, including (but not limited to) negativity bias in news coverage, poorly designed websites or paywalls preventing consumers from receiving reliable news, aggressive news commentators, and varying levels of information literacy among audiences. In order to address this issue, it is essential to provide readers with a sense of relevance and ownership over the news stories and outlets they choose to engage with.
Research conducted by the Reuters Institute highlights two distinct forms of news avoidance: selective and consistent avoidance. Selective avoidance refers to individuals avoiding specific topics or sources due to news fatigue or information overload—something that was very prevalent during the COVID-19 pandemic.
"We need to think less about maximizing time with the news, and think more about quality of time," said Benjamin Toff, a Reuter’s Institute researcher.
Consistent avoidance, meanwhile, involves individuals consuming very little to no news. This type of avoidance is more concerning, as it reflects a lack of trust in the news and disengagement from current events, or lack of accessibility to news sources.
News avoiders in the United States tend to be younger, less educated, have lower socio-economic status, lesser political engagement, and are more likely to be social media users. Social media is a source of news, but since the 2016 election (and moreso since Elon Musk took control of Twitter) users have reported seeing false or misleading information shared across social media, leading to an even larger decline in trust amongst these demographics.
But it’s not just pink-slime sites causing this declining trust in news and uptick in avoidance: traditional journalism (as it is being presented during this point in history) often reinforces negative perceptions of news. Moreover, journalists fail to serve broader audiences who may not be directly connected to a particular story, as they do not include voices of the members of affected communities, or fail to connect events to its larger implications for readers as a whole.
One example of a successful approach to counter news avoidance is the U.K.-based journalism startup Tortoise Media. The team at Tortoise Media focuses on providing a sense of ownership to their members through their "sensemaker" newsletter and daily audio briefings. Additionally, they hold member-led discussions called "Think-Ins" where members can actively participate in news conversations and influence editorial output. This sense of ownership and participation can help combat news avoidance. In the United States, the News Revenue Hub, a non-profit organization, collaborates with news outlets to develop listening and trust strategies within their local communities.
Communities must feel involved in their local and even their national news in order to rebuild trust in the media. Otherwise, journalism as an industry is in for a rude awakening that may dismantle it as we know it. But it is not beyond saving—and it’s up to journalists on the ground to begin initiatives to re-involve their communities in the journalistic process.
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