The report recorded a five-percentage-point decline in overall trust in news in the United States. It also described threats to press freedom as having sharpened during 2026, citing political pressure, legal threats and journalist arrests as part of the media environment it examined.

The findings matter beyond news organizations. They describe the conditions in which Americans receive information about elections, public policy and other national issues, while also documenting changes in how news reaches audiences and how publishers draw traffic to their work.

Search and television are losing ground

One of the report’s clearest measures of the changing distribution system is a 38 percent decline in Google traffic from organic search to more than 2,500 sites in the United States between November 2024 and November 2025.

That figure applies to the sites analyzed in the report. It does not mean that every U.S. newsroom experienced a 38 percent decline, and it is not a census of all news publishers or consumers.

The report also describes audiences shifting away from linear television toward on-demand video and distribution through digital platforms. The change places more attention on services such as YouTube, Instagram and TikTok, which the source packet identifies among the report’s relevant entities, as audiences find news outside scheduled broadcasts and traditional publisher channels.

For news organizations, the shift affects how stories are discovered, watched and distributed. A decline in organic-search traffic can make it harder for publishers to reach people who begin with a search engine, while the move to platform-based video changes the relationship between a newsroom and its audience.

Pressure on journalists and public trust

The report connects a deteriorating press-freedom environment with a broader assessment of U.S. news. It says political pressure on journalists and news organizations intensified during 2026 and includes legal threats and arrests among the documented features of that environment.

The report does not establish that political pressure caused the entire five-point decline in trust. Its findings combine survey and industry data with documented examples and trend analysis rather than a complete national census of U.S. news consumers.

That distinction is important when interpreting the 25 percent figure. It is a survey-based measure of overall trust reported by the Reuters Institute, not an official U.S. government statistic and not a finding that every community or audience has changed in the same way.

The report’s broader concern is the operating environment for both national and local newsrooms. Reduced trust can affect how people assess information, while changes in search, television and platform distribution can affect how publishers fund and deliver reporting. Together, those trends shape the public’s access to journalism during debates over elections and public policy.

Local collaboration continues

Despite the pressure described across the industry, the report notes continued growth in collaborative local journalism. That finding provides a counterpoint to the declines in trust and search traffic: some news organizations are continuing to work together even as the economics and distribution of news change.

The Reuters Institute’s related 2026 industry outlook also provides context on creator advertising, platform distribution and changing media economics. Those developments help explain why publishers are adapting their formats and routes to audiences rather than relying only on linear television or search referrals.

The report is an assessment of the U.S. media market, not a government order or regulatory decision. The approved findings identify no formal policy deadline or required next step. Its immediate significance is diagnostic: it records lower measured trust, weaker Google organic-search traffic in the analyzed sample, continuing movement toward platform video and a more pressured environment for journalists.