Americans Suffering From 'News Exhaustion'

(Source: MIRS.news, Published 02/20/2026) Most Americans agree, 80 percent, that news is important, but the extent of the agreement ends there, according to a Pew Research survey. It isn't a one-off and help is needed from the Legislature to fix the problem.

Dante Chinni, the director of the American Communities Project at Michigan State University, said his work matches a Feb. 11 Pew Research Center's survey. Those findings point out that a large pool of people have “news exhaustion,” a belief that someone can stay informed without reading news, news should be free and people have more faith in their own research capabilities than those of professional journalists.

"This survey, when I get into it, makes me deeply concerned about the direction of the country," Chinni said.

He said it was a concern that 50 percent of all adults in the country actively look for news to stay informed. For those ages 18–29, that number drops to 27 percent. As recently as 2019, the number was as high as 60 percent.

Chinni said people who just let the news come to them have a false sense of knowledge.

"When you ask them factual questions, they don't know. They don't know the basic things and that's a problem," he said.

He said it is true that, generationally, the youth have never been keen on keeping up with the news, but there was a glaring gap. The youth of previous generations saw their parents reading the newspaper.

"You understand, ‘Oh, part of being an adult is this thing comes to your door, and you read it, and it tells you what’s going on out in the world.’ That's gone. Their parents are probably less likely to have a local newspaper," Chinni said.

Along with that comes the Pew finding that 8 percent of all Americans believe people have a responsibility to pay for the news.

A 50-year-old woman told a Pew Researcher, "I don't pay to go to church, to get a spiritual message, you know? And if you're true, and your mission is to relay facts that are fundamentally important for people's well-being, do I need to pay you for that?"

Chinni's answer is yes. You need to pay for that, because news is expensive to gather and report.

"The funny thing is, most people would tell you, 'You get what you pay for,' when it comes to getting a car or buying a house or buying a pair of jeans. You get what you pay for. Yet they don't seem to apply that point of view when it comes to news," he said.

With the amount of information and media flying around social media, people end up believing they know how to check the accuracy of the news, with 69 percent saying they are confident they know the steps to check. That confidence drops to 25 percent in other people.

"I think it's great when people have current events discussions, but if you don't have the knowledge about the news, it's not terribly helpful. It can actually be the other thing. It can be worse," Chinni said.

Also, 65 percent of Americans say it is important for people to "do their own research" to check news accuracy, but even what that means is splintered.

Chinni said there is a perception that anyone can be a journalist, which is true if they train for the skills to be a journalist. He pointed to football fans and if you told a Lions fan they needed a new offensive coordinator, there would be questions regarding that person's experience in doing the job.

"Nobody who is a Lions fan would accept somebody saying, 'Oh yeah, they got this guy from the 7/11. He's a nice guy and watches a lot of football. Seems to really know what he's doing, and we think he's going to be great,'" he said.

Journalists call sources to walk them through the tough and complicated subjects, or talk with the legislators behind policy or the bureaucrats that are entrenched in the deep subject knowledge of the department.

"I have nothing against citizen journalists. Some of them can do very good jobs, but when you break your leg, do you go to the citizen doctor, or a doctor? When the plumbing is broken in your house, do you go to the citizen plumber?" Chinni said.

Chinni said what was needed was to increase media literacy, so people could know what "doing your own research" entailed.

Western Michigan University Journalism Professor Sue Ellen Christian created the Wonder Media Library, which seeks to boost the significance of media literacy. She was also creating a musical named "Click: Connect IRL." Five songs were out on Spotify.

Christian said that there was so much information flying around that she wasn't surprised people were experiencing news exhaustion, but she said it also wasn't true that all the information pouring through the social media feeds were reported news.

"That differentiation between news and information. Professional reporters follow a set of guidelines and ethics and practices. That means that their information is rooted in evidence, and – as much as humanly possible – doesn't include the journalist's point of view," she said.

She said much of the information reflected in the Pew survey could be looked at through the lens of people not understanding what journalists do, how newsrooms work and what steps are taken to ensure the information that reaches them is as accurate as possible.

She said people aren't inherently trained to know how to vet information and when exposed to a 24/7 stream of information through a smartphone, it can be overwhelming.

Christian said 18 states require media literacy education be taught in schools. Michigan is not one of those.

"We definitely need Michigan legislation that mandates media literacy education and K-12 programming as part of the curricula every year, embedding it into the way that we view and process the news and information that students are receiving," she said.

She said the school cell phone ban recently signed into law was a great start to helping sort through information.

Christian said average media use for adults ages 18–24 was more than 12 hours per day.

She said one in five adults also fail to see how the news they do come across is relevant to their lives.

"I think this is a message for news outlets to continue to demystify the news and to speak in as clear terms as possible when delivering information, but also stress why news is relevant to an individual in a city in Michigan," she said.

When it comes to buying news or purchasing subscriptions to news outlets, she said a couple were recommended.

"I would really encourage people to put their money where their home is, meaning funding local news sites is important," she said.

She said public media had also taken a hit in funding and that was something that could be fixed through state funding.

"I think that legislators have got to understand that an informed citizenry is the best citizenry for democracy, and legislators can be doing their part to put up some guardrails and protections and funding for public media," she said.

When it comes to media literacy, Christian said humans are ruled by emotion, endorphins and the flashy colors of social media. News is no longer the 30-minute presentation by an anchor like Walter Cronkite. The idea of that news was run over and splattered on the information super-highway by a news influencer.

"Education has got to start early and broadly so that individuals know they're not left to their own devices. We haven't been taught it and why would we naturally know," she said.

Christian said media literacy isn't a partisan issue either, because it teaches critical thinking skills. The evidence is the driver, not the partisanship. Looking at the audience, purpose of the message, values, what is left out, what is being held up or put down.

But even the older generations were being smashed in the face by deepfakes, AI slop and pure partisan information.

"It's a huge problem right now what to trust, and it does feel exhausting," she said.

She said pick a national news outlet like the Associated Press or Reuters for the big information and something that is relevant to you locally for your community news. She said the key was looking for news that could be held accountable.

"I would really encourage people to take the time to appreciate what those local news organizations are doing and invest in them, because you get what you pay for, and if you expect free news, you're going to get a whole bunch of opinions from people who are uninformed," she said.

She also said there was hope left with the Legislature and the ability to mandate media literacy, which would also probably help reading rates go up.

Christian said it was in people's own self-interest to invest in media literacy and credible news sources.

"It helps us to govern ourselves, and if we can't govern ourselves wisely, we don't live in a free and fair democracy anymore," she said.