THE ANNUAL REPORT on the state of digital news media in Ireland has found that RTÉ News online and The Journal are the two biggest sources of online news here.
This is now the sixth year of the Reuters Institute Digital News Report for Ireland which gives an authoritative view of news consumption patterns across the country. As well as measuring what news sources are used by the population, and how often, it also looks at trust levels in news media, how we see the role of journalists and news organisations, what news we will pay for and where we access it.
This year, as in 2021, RTÉ News online and The Journal are accessed most frequently of any digital outlets in Ireland (on three days or more in a week). RTÉ was cited by 26% of those surveyed as a frequent destination for online news, down from 30% last year; The Journal was cited by 19% of respondents, up 1% from last year.
The Irish Independent online was in third place, with 17%, and The Irish Times online and breakingnews.ie on 13% each.
This year’s report also looked at the impact of diversity and gender on media consumption in Ireland; the survey data notes that those who cited The Journal as a frequently-used news source were evenly split between male and female users.
“Trust in news in Ireland is considerably higher than other markets, with over half of those surveyed agreeing or strongly agreeing that they can trust news most of the time,” noted Celene Craig, CEO of the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland (BAI). The BAI commissions the Institute of Future Media, Democracy and Society (FuJo) in DCU to carry out the report, which itself contributes to a global Reuters Institute report on news markets.
“It is timely to note that FuJo, DCU, was chosen by the European Commission to be part of the first ever network of hubs established by the European Digital Media Observatory (EDMO) to fight disinformation,” said Craig. The Journal is a partner in the Ireland EDMO hub, providing factchecking services through its dedicated FactCheck unit.
The report also notes that, for the first time in Ireland, the smartphone has taken prime position as the first device that most consumers reach for to access news in the morning (35%). “There are significant differences in age groups, with 46% of the 18-24 cohort turning first to the smartphone versus only 19% of those aged 65+. For the latter cohort, 46% still turn on the radio first thing in the morning,” it reads.
There is some sobering news in the report, especially when it comes to younger audiences turning away, not just from the main national news sources but from engaging with news itself. The report notes: “18-24 year-olds are the age cohort most disinterested in news and least engaged with news brands. In the 2016 Digital News Report, 53% of this group reported being extremely or very interested in news, but that figure has declined to 25% in this year’s report.”
Irish audiences are also much more concerned by the rise of misinformation and ‘fake news’ than the average European citizen. While 48% of EU respondents to the wider Reuters Institute Digital News Report are worried about misinformation, 58% of Irish people surveyed said this was a concern. The situation is a step more heated in the UK and the US though, where 61% and 60% respectively are worried about it.
Reporting the climate crisis
The focus on the climate crisis at every level of society has created a huge appetite from news consumers for trustworthy information on the topic, with nine out of ten people “paying attention” to how climate change is covered in the news. Almost half of all surveyed – 44% – said the media should focus on what corporations and governments do about the issue, while 21% believe the focus should be on individuals’ actions.
The report finds: “Academics, scientists and other experts are by far the most trusted sources on news about the environment, and they feature in news coverage of climate change across all the markets compared in our survey. Trust in these sources is relatively high in Ireland (49%), but in the UK the authority of scientists and academics is even more widely accepted (57%).”
As part of its focus on the issue, The Journal launched a climate change newsletter called Temperature Check last year, with original reporting by Orla Dwyer and Lauren Boland, who are also assigned to report throughout the year on climate and environmental topics for the site.
Fellow Journal Media site, investigative platform Noteworthy, has won awards for its environmental and climate reporting including an international award for outstanding investigative reporting for Niall Sargent’s exploration of the negative impacts coniferous forestry policy in Ireland.
Noteworthy, which shared a position with business publication The Currency in being accessed frequently by 1% of survey respondents in the Reuters report, has published a number of deep investigations into environmental affairs in the past year from peat harvesting to the loss of biodiversity and degradation of river habitats, agricultural subsidies and fish farming to industrial carbon emissions.
Dave Robbins, Director of DCU’s Centre for Climate and Society, in an essay for the report – and published later this morning on The Journal – said that there is much work to be done by the media in providing solid facts on environmental issues, in order to create literacy and understanding among their audiences.
He also sounds a warning note to media not to underestimate who is open to information on the climate crisis, citing the report’s findings that the assumption of the young vs older, urban vs rural divide in engaging with climate issues doesn’t ring true here.
“Despite the widespread impression that younger people are more engaged with these topics,” he writes, “demand for climate news is greater among the older age groups. Some 55% of those aged 65 and over want to read news reports about climate, compared to 34% of those aged 18-24.”
He adds: “People in Munster are just as interested in climate news as people in Dublin (both 45%), and those in Connacht and Ulster (42%) and the rest of Leinster (43%) are not far behind. The report gives clear cues to the media concerning climate coverage.”
Sign up to The Journal’s Temperature Check climate change newsletter here>
See how you can contribute to Noteworthy’s current environmental investigative proposals here>
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