Lisbon, June 17, 2025 (Lusa) - Most Portuguese people use news brands they trust and official sources, and a minority consult more than three different sources to confirm suspicious information, with young people diversifying their sources more.
This is one of the conclusions of the Digital News Report Portugal 2025 (DNRPT25) report, released on Tuesday, regarding fact-checking, with men over 55 relying more on institutional sources and trusted brands than women in the same age group.
The DNRPT25 has been produced annually by OberCom - Observatório da Comunicação since 2015, published alongside the global report by RISJ - Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, at the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom.
According to the report, fact-checking remains a “relevant practice” among Portuguese people this year, “but marked by strong diversity in the resources used and the socio-demographic characteristics of users”.
The majority “mainly use news brands they trust (38%) and official sources (38%), such as institutional websites, followed by search engines (35%) and independent fact-checkers”, such as Polígrafo (22%), and “a minority consult more than three different sources to confirm suspicious information”.
According to the report, “the responses show that young people (18–24 years old) tend to diversify their sources more, using social networks, comments from other users and artificial intelligence chatbots more frequently (20% compared to 10% of the overall average)”.
Higher income and education groups are “more likely to turn to brands they trust and official sources”.
Older men (55+) “use institutional sources and trusted brands more than women of the same age, and AI chatbots for verification are more widely used” by young people (18–24 years old) of both genders (25% and 15%).
The use of social media as a source for verification “is higher among young people, especially men,” the document states.
As for the perception of the role of platforms in removing false or misleading content, 39% of Portuguese people believe that social media remove little content.
This perception is “stronger among older people and among those with higher income and education levels.”
Conversely, young people (aged 18–24) “are more inclined to consider that platforms remove the right amount of content (30% compared to 20% in the general sample), revealing a more balanced view of the regulatory role of platforms”.
Taking into account the digitisation ratio of different brands and sectors (the proportion of digital and traditional users), “only the press sector has more digital than traditional users, with the radio and television sector in an intermediate stage of digital transition”.
Digital news outlets, “such as Notícias ao Minuto, Observador and Portal Sapo, continue to maintain a very strong digital presence, where they overlap with traditional brands”.
As in the previous year, “in 2025, the ranking of trust in news brands continues to be led by state broadcaster RTP, with 75% of Portuguese people saying they trust its information, a year-on-year drop of four percentage points, followed by Jornal de Notícias (74%), Expresso (73%), SIC (73%), Rádio Comercial (72%), Público (71%) and Rádio Renascença (70%).
Lusa has the trust of 69% of Portuguese people, although, “as a news agency, it does not tend to reach consumers directly, but through the use of its news production by other media brands”. TSF, with 69%, and RDP Antena 1, with 68%, complete the top 10.
There is a “worrying trend that encompasses virtually all news brands in the study:” trust in brands is falling across the board, with three exceptions”, Correio da Manhã, Observador and Notícias ao Minuto have been, since 2018, when this indicator was first used, “the only news brands to increase and improve their situation in terms of trust attributed to them by the Portuguese”.
The fieldwork took place between January 13 and February 24 this year.
In Portugal, 2,012 individuals were surveyed.
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