Where Gen Z Gets Their News
The experiences, priorities, and challenges young people face can vary dramatically depending on who they are and where they live.
If you ask a young person where they get their news, you’ll probably hear two words: social media. It’s true that social media platforms play a major role in how young Americans learn about what’s happening in our country and the world. Our latest research, The 50 Million: Gen Z’s Power, Priorities, and Participation, dives deeper into what that means.
Gen Z isn’t relying on one app for information. Instead, they’re using platforms to build personalized news diets that combine traditional journalism, podcasts, content creators, and local news — often switching between multiple platforms before coming to their own conclusions.
But their seemingly personalized feeds still reveal patterns and trends about race, gender, and political identification among Gen Z.
As part of Pass the Mic to Gen Z’s research survey, we wanted to better understand not just what young people care about, but where they go to learn about it. Here’s what they told us.
That’s one of the reasons we launched Pass the Mic to Gen Z. Alongside our broader survey of this generation, we made a deliberate effort to listen more deeply to Black and Latino Gen Zers by oversampling both groups in our research. We wanted to move beyond assumptions and hear directly from young people about the issues shaping their lives.
Here’s what Latino Gen Zers told us about their beliefs, how they engage with politics, and the challenges that can make it more difficult to participate in elections.
Gen Z still looks to traditional news outlets
One of the biggest misconceptions about young Americans is that they’ve abandoned traditional journalism. When asked for their top sources of information:
- 48% of Gen Z selected news websites or news apps,
- 24% selected TV news from major networks,
- 16% selected local TV, and
- When specifying their favorite news sources, 21% of respondents mentioned at least one traditional site.
While many Gen Zers continue to name legacy outlets as favorite sources of information, respondents made their concerns about media bias clear. Several mentioned taking active steps to address it, such as reading “both sides sometimes just to get both perspectives” and seeking out other options “to balance out [their] bias.” Others said they use news aggregators like Ground News or follow international news organizations like the BBC.
Traditional journalism hasn’t been replaced. What’s changed is the way Gen Z consumes it. The nightly broadcast and the morning paper have largely given way to digital formats. And rather than relying on a single news organization to both alert and inform them, many young Americans first hear about stories on social media and then turn to established outlets to verify information, add context, compare reporting, and learn more. As one respondent put it, “Typically [I] first hear about it on social media [then] go to confirmed sources.” And when it comes to events closer to home, local news continues to serve as an important source for verifying information. Traditional journalism is still an essential part of how Gen Zers make sense of what they’re seeing online — especially because their feeds are more fragmented than ever.
Gen Z’s favorites in a fragmented information landscape
In the past, Americans of all ages and political backgrounds tuned into Walter Cronkite, 60 Minutes, and the like for a trusted shared news experience. Today, there isn’t one front page but rather millions of personalized feeds.
Driven by political identification, personal preference, and algorithms, no two Gen Zers consume the same news diet. From CNN to Fox News, they follow their preferred traditional outlets and journalists across multiple social media platforms. In addition, many look to a variety of ‘news influencers’ like Aaron Parnas, Hasan Piker, Ben Shapiro, and Tucker Carlson and follow their commentary across multiple platforms — from podcasts and podcast clips featuring The Joe Rogan Experience and The Daily to short-form content and newsletters like TLDR News or Heather Cox Richardson. The result is an information landscape that’s highly personalized, both for individuals and across different communities.
Those differences begin with the platforms young people prefer. Instagram ranks first as Gen Z’s favorite app to get the news (39%), followed closely by YouTube (38%) and TikTok (38%). Diving deeper into demographics, TikTok is the top source for both Black and Latino young people at a respective 54% and 48%. YouTube is ranked first amongst young men (51%) and sixth for young women (26%), and TikTok is the top platform for women (50%) and ranks fifth for men (25%). X/Twitter shows a similar divide to YouTube, but is less popular overall (fourth for men and ninth for women).
The data also revealed how party identification influences Gen Z’s news diet. While our results confirm that most Gen Zers identify as Independents (43%), news websites and apps are the top choice for information across party identification, with 55% of Democrats selecting this option and 45% of Republicans. But there is notable variation in which platforms young partisans rely on: young Democrats have a preference for TikTok and TV news, and young Republicans prefer YouTube and Facebook. But Gen Z’s media preferences don’t just reflect identity, they may also shape it. In examining what came first, the platform or the politics, the findings from our poll suggest that where young people get information can shape their political beliefs — especially when it comes to nontraditional journalism.
Closing the information gap
The breaking news from Pass the Mic to Gen Z? Assumptions about young people rarely tell the whole story. But understanding where young Americans get their news is more than just about tracking trends — it has real implications for civic participation and for organizations working to engage the next generation of voters.
Young voters face higher barriers to the ballot box, with the most highly reported barriers being informational: overall, 28% indicated a lack of information about candidates and 20% noted a lack of information about ballot issues. And Black Gen Zers are more likely to experience informational barriers than Gen Z overall.
With nearly 50 million members of Gen Z eligible to vote in the 2026 midterms, helping young people access trustworthy information remains essential to increasing voter turnout in this election and beyond.