‘Alarm bells are ringing’: Why Indian newsrooms are losing the trust of the public

The Reuters Institute’s Digital News Report 2026 highlights a news industry in India that is in flux. Trust in news fell four percentage points year-on-year to 39 percent, in line with a global decline to a decade-low 37 percent — “the lowest since we started recording this figure a decade ago,” says Jim Egan, senior research associate and lead author of the report. To unpack what these findings mean on the ground, Mitali Mukherjee, director of the Reuters Institute, hosted a panel featuring Dhanya Rajendran, editor-in-chief of The News Minute, Pradeep Gairola of The Hindu Group, Sannuta Raghu of Scroll, and Jim Egan, who discussed what this shift means for newsrooms of very different scales. The decline in trust resonated closely with Dhanya Rajendran. “What I was taken aback by is the lack of trust that people have in the media, though it’s not surprising to see that the trust is going down further. Alarm bells are ringing in my brain as to how we can salvage the situation,” she says. She points to a related shift in the data: “If you look at the India statistics, it says that a lot of people are on YouTube – they’re consuming news on YouTube. And it also says that traditional media houses are not capitalising on YouTube as much as content creators, and I think that is applicable even to smaller organisations like The News Minute.” That tension between where audiences are and where newsrooms can follow runs through the report’s wider findings. Social media and video platforms have overtaken both TV and news websites as the primary source of news worldwide, and India shows some of the highest YouTube news consumption globally. AI chatbot use for news is notably higher in India, too, at 22 per cent, compared with the global average of 10 per cent. The conversation also touched on news avoidance, generational trust gaps, and the challenge of monetising video, underscoring an industry still searching for sustainable footing amid rapid technological change. Watch this conversation for more insights. Subscribe to Newslaundry: https://pages.razorpay.com/nlsm Join us on WhatsApp: https://whatsapp.com/channel/0029Va61... Download the accessible Newslaundry app: https://www.newslaundry.com/download-app Follow and engage with us on social media: Facebook:   / newslaundry   Twitter:   / newslaundry   Instagram:   / newslaundry