News avoiders shouldn’t be ignored

The ranks of people who call themselves “news avoiders” will likely grow in the coming year, just as their numbers did in many countries in 2022 and 2023. In an election year in the U.S., many will plead Trump fatigue. Others, fueled by distrust of mainstream news, will turn to alternative sources or no news at all. Endless coverage of the election on top of two ongoing wars will test the commitment of even the most devout news lovers. And — as it usually does when surveys show growing numbers saying they sometimes or often avoid news — much handwringing will ensue.

As I argue in a new book co-authored with Benjamin Toff and Rasmus Kleis Nielsen titled Avoiding the News: Reluctant Audiences for Journalism, the growing number of people who say they are actively turning away from news is a meaningful sign of a fundamental breakdown in the bond between the public and the press. They express larger frustrations that many hold about how they encounter and engage with news today.

But this type of news avoidance — what scholars call selective news avoidance — is probably not the type of news avoidance that journalists should be most worried about. People who say they take intentional breaks from specific topics in news or news altogether (often because they find it too depressing or depleting) usually end up consuming almost as much news overall as people who do not report intentionally avoiding it. Selective news avoiders remain relatively informed, and often report feeling healthier when they don’t consume news 24/7. Taking these breaks may well help them conserve emotional resources so they can continue to consume news and engage in public life.

More concerning are people who say they consume little or no news at all over time — a smaller group we call consistent news avoiders. They have many of the same complaints about news as selective news avoiders, but either have taken steps to cut it out of their lives entirely or never picked up the habit in the first place. They often find news depressing, untrustworthy, and repetitive, as well as fixated on subjects (often political) that are difficult to understand, with no clear connection to their own lives. Crucially, we argue, unlike many selective news avoiders, consistent news avoiders usually don’t belong to social communities that pressure them to keep up with news. Why tune in only to feel miserable about issues you feel that you (and those around you) can do so little to change?

For anyone who thinks the value of news is obvious — most likely anyone reading Nieman Lab predictions — it can be tempting to dismiss consistent news avoiders as a lost cause. But journalists who see it as their mission to serve the whole public should think twice about that stance. Consistent news avoiders are disproportionately likely to be younger and poorer, women, and people who already feel alienated from politics. Decades of research show that consuming news helps people engage more knowledgeably in public life. If growing numbers of people in already disadvantaged groups turn away from news completely, they will be less informed and less equipped to advocate for themselves in a political arena that already favors dominant groups.

Addressing consistent news avoidance is difficult, not least because many underlying causes are structural — beyond the control of any individual journalist or news organization. But we believe that for the news media to deliver on its core mission and value proposition, it needs to try. Predictably, we have some suggestions for how best to go about it.