Digital News Landscape

U.S. adults in this group are less likely to get the facts right about COVID-19 and politics and more likely to hear some unproven claims.

Traffic to digital-native news sites has plateaued in recent years. After rising from 2014 to 2016, it remained steady through 2019.

In March 2020, about three-quarters (74%) of public Facebook posts about COVID-19 linked to news organizations, while just 1% linked to health and science sites.

Many U.S. news organizations are covering the coronavirus pandemic while themselves facing financial pressure from the outbreak.

More than half of these social media news consumers say they have encountered made-up news about COVID-19.

Americans who closely follow political news are more likely to have confidence that the public will accept election results. And that's true across party boundaries.

Both Democrats and Republicans express far more distrust than trust of social media sites as sources for political and election news.

Many Democrats and Republicans hold divergent views of President Donald Trump's withholding of military aid to Ukraine. But in today’s fragmented news media environment, party identification may not be the only fault line.

Roughly six-in-ten U.S. adults often get news on a mobile device, compared with 30% who often do so on a desktop or laptop computer.

Getting news from social media is an increasingly common experience; nearly three-in-ten U.S. adults do so often.