June 17 (Reuters) - Prominent podcasters like Joe Rogan

are playing a bigger role in news dissemination in the United

States, as are AI chatbots, contributing to the further erosion

of traditional media, according to a report released on Tuesday.

In the week following the January 2025 U.S. presidential

inauguration, more Americans said they got their news from

social and video networks than from TV and news websites and

apps - the first time that shift has occurred, the report said.

Traditional U.S. news media increasingly risks being

eclipsed by online personalities and creators, the Reuters

Institute for the Study of Journalism said in its annual Digital

News Report, which is based on an online survey of almost

100,000 people in 48 markets, including the United States.

The trend is particularly acute among young Americans. Over

half of people under age 35 in the U.S. are relying on social

media and video networks as their main source for news, the

report found. Across the countries that the report surveyed, 44%

of people aged 18 to 24 said these networks are their main

source of news.

One-fifth of a sampled group of Americans came across news

or commentary from podcaster Rogan in the week following the

presidential inauguration, the report found, while 14% of

respondents said they had come across former Fox News anchor

Tucker Carlson discussing or commenting on news during that

period. Carlson now generates content across multiple social

media and video networks.

Top creators during that period also included Megyn Kelly,

Candace Owens and Ben Shapiro on the political right, and Brian

Tyler Cohen and David Pakman on the left. The vast majority of

the most followed commentators who discuss politics are men, the

report found.

"These are not just big numbers in themselves," wrote Nic

Newman, Senior Research Associate at the Oxford, UK-based

Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism. "These creators

are also attracting audiences that traditional media struggle to

reach. Some of the most popular personalities over-index with

young men, with right-leaning audiences, and with those that

have low levels of trust in mainstream media outlets, seeing

them as biased or part of a liberal elite."

Despite their popularity, online influencers and

personalities are seen as the biggest sources of false or

misleading information worldwide, along with politicians, the

report found. In the United States, politicians are considered

the biggest sources of false or misleading information.

Over 70% of Americans say they remain concerned about their

ability to tell what is true from what is false when it comes to

news online, a similar proportion to last year. That compared to

58% across all of the surveyed markets.

AI is another emerging theme in news consumption,

particularly for young people. Of respondents under age 25, 15%

rely on AI chatbots and interfaces for news each week, compared

to 7% of respondents overall, the report found.

ChatGPT was the most mentioned AI service for news, followed

by Google's Gemini and Meta AI.

The trend is raising concerns about a potential loss of

search referral traffic to publisher websites and apps, the

report found, as chatbots eliminate the need for users to click

on a story link.

Text remains the most preferred way for people worldwide to

consume news, although around a third say they prefer to watch

the news online and 15% say they prefer to listen.

Younger people are much more likely to prefer watching or

listening to the news.

Social media platform X, formerly Twitter, is also becoming

a more popular source of news in the United States, particularly

among right-leaning users and young men, with 23% of sampled

Americans consuming news there - up 8 percentage points from

last year. Rival networks like Threads, Bluesky and Mastodon are

struggling to gain traction globally, with reach of 2% or less

for news.

Levels of trust in news across markets are currently stable

at 40%, and unchanged for the last three years, the report

found.

The Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism is funded

by the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the philanthropic arm of

Thomson Reuters ( TMSOF ).