Australians’ concern about online mis and disinformation is among the highest in the world, but one in four Australians say social media is their main source of news according to the Digital News Report: Australia 2024, produced by the News and Media Research Centre at the University of Canberra.

Concern about online misinformation in Australia rose from 65 per cent in 2016 to 75 per cent in 2024 and is well above the global average of 54 per cent.

Trust in news fell three percentage points to 40 per cent, but remains within the long-term trend, hovering in the low 40s. Distrust in news continues to rise, up 8 percentage points at 33 per cent.

Almost 60 per cent of Australians are less comfortable with the use of AI to produce news than consumers in most other countries (45 per cent), though they “more at ease with journalism produced mainly by humans with AI assistance, than journalism primarily created by AI with human oversight”.

Journalistic standards and transparency are the most important trust factors, and influence consumers’ willingness to pay for news.

Other key findings:

• Over half of Australians (51 per cent) access news more than once a day, which is a 3 percentage point increase from last year.
• Almost half of Australians (49 per cent) use social media to access news, up 4 percentage points
• News avoidance remains high at 68 per cent, while people saying they are “worn out by the volume of news” is up 13 percentage points.

“There is a clear link between trust in news, familiarity with AI technology, and audience comfort with the use of AI in news,” the report reads. “Audiences want news organisations to be transparent about how they produce news and the role that AI plays in this.”

The report includes commentary on this interplay between trust and misinformation, written by Public Interest Journalism Initiative CEO, Anna Draffin.

“Our society has never needed high quality news more,” she writes. “But of the many headwinds buffeting public interest journalism across Australia, the increase in the number of Australians who say they distrust the news is particularly troubling.”

She outlines the need for “collaborative effort that brings together government, industry, digital platforms, wider corporate interests and civil society to nurture and protect news in the interest of our society.”

Now in its 10th year, the report is coordinated by the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, based at Oxford University.