MANILA, Philippines — The Philippine Daily Inquirer has emerged as the most popular and trusted broadsheet brand both in print and online, according to the Digital News Report 2024 of the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism.
The report released on Monday showed that the Philippine Daily Inquirer was the third leading online brand and the top broadsheet based on a YouGov online survey on the news consumption of 94,943 people worldwide, including 2,014 Filipinos, in late January and early February.
READ: Philippine Daily Inquirer widens lead in readership
The Philippine Daily Inquirer was used by 30 percent of news consumers, trailing GMA News (45 percent) and ABS-CBN News (40 percent).
Rappler is at 23 percent of the list, followed by The Philippine Star (21 percent), TV5 News (21 percent), Yahoo! News (21 percent), CNN Philippines (19 percent), Manila Bulletin (18 percent), PEP.ph (17 percent), MSN News (11 percent), dzRH (10 percent), Manila Times (10 percent), local television news sites (10 percent), and SunStar (8 percent).
As for traditional offline media, the Philippine Daily Inquirer was the top broadsheet at 27 percent, behind broadcast leaders GMA Network (47 percent) and ABS-CBN (40 percent).
Trailing the Philippine Daily Inquirer are TV5 (23 percent), Manila Bulletin (22 percent), The Philippine Star (20 percent), CNN Philippines (19 percent), local radio news (13 percent), Balita (12 percent), local television news (11 percent), Super Radyo dzBB (11 percent), TeleRadyo Serbisyo (8 percent), free newspapers/alternative weeklies (8 percent), PTV News (8 percent), dzRH News (8 percent), and regional/local newspapers (7 percent).
Trust rating
The Philippine Daily Inquirer likewise enjoyed the highest trust rating among national broadsheets at 66 percent, followed closely by The Philippine Star and Manila Bulletin, which both had a trust rating of 65 percent.
GMA Network and TV5 had higher trust ratings at 72 percent and 67 percent, respectively.
Following the Philippine Daily Inquirer are Super Radyo dzBB (65 percent), ABS-CBN (64 percent), and dzRH (64 percent).
The trust ratings, however, were lower than last year, when the three leading broadsheets all had a trust rating of 68 percent. Radio stations dzBB and dzRH also had the same trust rate. On the other hand, GMA Network enjoyed a 74 percent trust rate, according to the brand trust scores released in the Digital News Report 2023.
Online news site Rappler had the lowest of the 15 news outlets named in the report, with a 47 percent trust rate and a distrust rate of 33 percent in 2023.
Meanwhile, the 2024 report also said that 37 percent of Filipinos expressed overall trust in news and that trust in their chosen sources was slightly higher at 40 percent.
Moreover, 46 percent said they were extremely or very interested in news. However, news avoidance was likewise prevalent at 47 percent and more pronounced among younger groups like those between 18 and 24 (49 percent) and 25 and 34 years old (49 percent).
Social media emerged as a major news source for 63 percent of Filipinos, followed by TV (46 percent) and print (13 percent).
The Digital News Report 2024 also showed that 82 percent of users consumed news online, including social media, but only 18 percent of users actually paid for online news access.
Facebook (61 percent) and YouTube (45 percent) were the top social networks for news, followed by TikTok (23 percent), Facebook Messenger (26 percent), Telegram (6 percent) and Viber (5 percent).
Changing landscape
According to Yvonne Chua, author of the Philippines section of the report and an associate professor at the University of the Philippines College of Mass Communication’s Journalism Department, the Philippine news media landscape saw “significant changes” over the past year, particularly in private broadcasting that saw a continuing decline in viewership.
She highlighted the upheaval experienced by broadcasters, like the potential franchise loss for “far-right” Sonshine Media Network International and CNN Philippines’ shutdown due to financial issues.
“The ownership and operation of several private broadcasters were caught in a state of flux marked by financial losses, closures, new partnerships, and government flexing its regulatory powers,” she said.
Chua added that the report showed persistent concerns over press freedom, “highlighted by the United Nations special rapporteur’s alarm over ongoing attacks on journalists and activists.”
Innovations like GMA Network’s AI sportscasters and media companies utilizing AI for summarization and moderation, such as Rappler’s AI features and moderated communities, were also underscored by Chua. —with a report from Inquirer Research