Trust and news consumption
Trust and news consumption
How much Spaniards trust the news and each outlet, where they get their news, how many pay for online news and how many avoid it. The figures come from two surveys: the Reuters Institute's Digital News Report (University of Oxford), which every winter asks around 2,000 internet users per country, and the European Commission's Eurobarometer, with interviews of a sample of the whole population (not just internet users) of each EU member state. Everything is given as a percentage of the population surveyed.
Trend · of internet users
Trend · paid in the last year
Trend · often or sometimes
Trend · very or extremely
Trust in the news
Share answering that you can trust most news most of the time. In Spain it was 33 % in 2026, compared with 34 % in 2015. The series peaked at 51 % in 2017 and hit its low of 31 % in 2025.
The average is the simple average of the EU member states covered by the report each year, which have gone from 12 in 2015 to 20 in 2026, so the composition changes.
Comparison with Europe
In 2026 Spain ranks 11 of 20 EU countries, with 33 % against an average of 36.9 %. The range runs from 63 % in Finlandia to 17 % in Hungría; in 19 of the 20 countries trust is lower today than when the series began.
Trust in each outlet
The Digital News Report asks those who know each brand to rate from 0 to 10 how much they trust its news: those who give 6 to 10 trust it and those who give 0 to 4 do not. The brands are some 15 chosen by the report itself, not all outlets. In 2026 the most trusted is Periódico regional o local (54 %) and the least trusted, OKDiario (35 %); the one with the most people who distrust it is Telecinco (37 %).
Print, radio, television, internet and social media
The Eurobarometer asks about types of media, not brands: whether people tend to trust the written press, radio, television, the internet and social networks or not. In Spain, as in the EU as a whole, radio is the most trusted medium and social networks the least.
Television is where Spain lags furthest behind: in 2025 43 % of Spaniards trusted it, against 61 % in the EU, rank 26 of 27. Between the winter 2021-2022 wave and the autumn 2024 wave, trust in all media rises at the same time in almost every country, so that jump should be read with caution.
How Spaniards get their news
Share of internet users who used each source for news in the last week. Between 2013 and 2026 print went from 61 % to 21 % and television from 72 % to 56 %. Today 71 % get their news online (websites, apps, social media, podcasts or chatbots) and 47 % through social media.
The survey is online, so it does not represent people who do not use the internet.
Paying, avoiding and distrusting what circulates
In 2026 9 % of Spanish internet users paid for online news (subscription, donation or one-off payment), rank 14 among the report's EU countries, whose average is 14 %; the country that pays most is Suecia, with 32 %. 37 % say they avoid the news often or sometimes (EU average: 43 %).
74 % are concerned about not being able to tell what is real from what is fake in online news, rank 2 among the report's EU countries, whose average is 57 %; the highest value is in Portugal (76 %).
Methodology and sources
- Digital News Report by the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism (University of Oxford), with the University of Navarra in Spain. Online YouGov survey in late January and early February each year, around 2,000 people per country with quotas by age, sex and region; it represents internet users, not the whole population. The data are taken from each country's pages and from the executive summary (Datawrapper charts and headline figures), published under a CC BY 4.0 licence. Trust by brand has been measured since 2020 on a 0 to 10 scale; before that an average was given, which is not comparable. In the latest reports "online by any route" also includes podcasts and AI chatbots. For news avoidance there are data for Spain in 2017, 2019, 2022, 2025 and 2026; for concern about what is fake, only the 2026 comparison.
- Standard Eurobarometer of the European Commission: interviews with around 1,000 people aged 15 or over per member state (around 500 in the smallest). Question on trust in the written press, radio, television, the internet and online social networks ("tend to trust" or "tend not to trust"), in the waves that include it (from autumn 2013 to autumn 2025; there are no data for 2020 or 2023); figures taken from the PDF data annexes of each wave. The EU average is the Eurobarometer's own, weighted by population (including the United Kingdom until 2019). Reuse authorised provided the source is acknowledged (Decision 2011/833/EU).
- SpainFacts does not classify media by editorial line: the brands and their names are those asked about by the Digital News Report.