The most useful number in this year’s Digital News Report: Australia 2026 is not the 68% of Australians who avoid news at least sometimes. It is that figure sitting next to a rise in news consumption, up eight points since 2023 to 56%, and a rise in interest, up four to 57%. The University of Canberra’s research team surveyed 2,025 people online, and the picture that comes out is of an audience that wants news and keeps stepping away from it, often within the same month.
A generous threshold
“At least sometimes” is a generous threshold, so 68% does not describe a country that has tuned out. It describes nearly everyone doing some rationing. The report summary doesn’t say why people avoid news, so I’m not going to claim the data proves overwhelm. But the conditions point that way: more consumption, more avoidance, and a feed that keeps delivering whatever a person last engaged with. Anyone who has watched a single clicked story turn into a fortnight of the same topic knows how quickly that becomes wearing. People who ration news are managing their own capacity, and organisations that communicate to them should plan around it.
Most communication planning does the opposite. When engagement drops, the instinct is to publish more, post more and send another reminder. That treats attention as something you can keep drawing on, when the evidence suggests many people are already running low. For news avoidance in Australia, the sensible response from a communicator is usually to cut, not to add. Fewer messages, each one clearer about what it wants from the reader, will outperform a heavier schedule aimed at an audience that is already looking for the exit.
Where people go instead
The same report shows where the audience goes when it does engage. Social media (32%) has overtaken direct visits to news websites (31%) as the main pathway to online news for the first time, and 43% of Australians get news from creators and influencers. Among people who use them, majorities say influencer-led news is more entertaining (59%), more relatable (55%) and easier to understand (56%) than traditional news. Ease of understanding is the finding worth lingering on. Audiences aren’t only choosing who they trust, they’re choosing who makes the least work for them.
AI is following the same logic. Nearly one in ten Australians (9%) now use chatbots for news, rising to 16% of under 25s, and almost half of those users (49%) go to them to follow up on a story. They value summarising and explaining. Yet trust in news via AI chatbots sits at 19%, and 77% of Australians are worried about telling real from fake online. People want the short version and are wary of where it comes from, which is an awkward position for a reader to be in, and a gap that credible organisations can fill.
Trust is the real opening for communicators
That gap is the real opening for PR and organisational communication, and I think it is a bigger one than the usual advice about making content snappier. Trust in news overall is steady at 43%, but trust in the news brands people actually use has risen to 54%. A familiar, reliable source gets a pass that an unfamiliar one doesn’t. If your organisation is going to ask for scarce attention, it helps to have already earned the right to ask, through consistent facts, plain explanations and a track record of not crying wolf. This part is my reading of the data rather than something the report tested, but it fits what the numbers show about where people place their trust.
Designing for an audience that is running low
In practice, communicating with an overwhelmed audience comes down to a few habits. Put the point and any required action in the first lines, in plain language, and let people choose how much further to go. Keep facts identical across channels, because the reader may meet your message first through a summary, a screenshot or an AI tool and you won’t control the packaging. Use human voices and concrete examples, which is the part of creator-led news that audiences say works, but don’t trade accuracy for relatability. And during a long issue or crisis, tell people when the next update will arrive and then stick to it. A predictable rhythm is far easier to live with than a stream of alerts, and it lets people step away without fearing they’ll miss something.
A quiet audience should also be read carefully. If people stop responding, it may be depletion rather than disagreement, and the better move is to make re-entry cheap: a short recap, a single next step, an option to opt in when they’re ready. Chasing them harder confirms the thing they were avoiding.
What newsrooms can do with it
For news outlets, the implications are more structural. If most of the audience dips in and out, the way a story is packaged matters as much as the reporting itself: a clear statement of where things stand, a signal of what is genuinely new, and context for someone arriving halfway through. Low trust in AI-delivered news gives outlets that are open about their sources and methods an edge they should use.
The cost to public understanding
There is also a cost to public understanding that no single organisation can fix. If people take in news in bursts, their knowledge of slow-moving or complicated issues will be patchy, and the gaps get filled by whatever the feed happened to serve while they were paying attention.
That is a reason for communicators to explain why an issue matters every time, not only the first time.