News outlets shift strategies as 'overwhelmed' gen Z tunes out

Newsrooms around the world are deploying "ethics boxes", story summaries and bite-size explainers to tackle the growing trend of "news avoidance", as an increase in content and distrust in the media cause more people to tune out.

- Michael Savage

Less than half (47%) of those asked about their news consumption said they viewed television news programmes regularly or had done so in the last week, an Opinium poll found. The figure fell to 29% for radio news and 26% for news websites.

Wars in Gaza and Ukraine, inflation and the climate crisis have added to concerns that the news is too negative, too voluminous and too overwhelming, according to research examining the problem.

The trend of consciously avoiding the news is being bolstered by a lack of trust in the media among young people - as well as technical changes to social media and search platforms that has meant less traffic driven towards news sites.

Reaching generation Z is a preoccupation in newsrooms. With trust seen as a driver of their fatigue, some editors in the UK are planning to push content that shows how a story was put together, with more explicit information about the number of sources spoken to and who was involved.