Singapore's mainstream media: More trusted than followed online
Singapore's mainstream media commands high public trust—but that trust doesn't always translate into online readership. That's one of the key findings of the Digital News Report 2025 on Singapore by the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at Oxford University.
The report shows that local outlets Channel NewsAsia (CNA) and The Straits Times (ST) are more trusted than their international counterparts. CNA enjoys a trust level of 74%, and The Straits Times is slightly higher at 75%. In contrast, the BBC and CNN are both trusted by 65% of respondents.
Yet this strong trust in local media is not reflected in their online reach. CNA's weekly online reach stands at 47%, while The Straits Times trails at 41%. Offline reach
One possible explanation for this gap is that both outlets are available offline. CNA's offline reach, thanks to its TV channel and radio station, is 33%—the same as The Straits Times , which is also available in print.
CNA 'reaches over 850,000 viewers in Singapore every week and at least 8.1 million affluent viewers in the region every month', says its parent, Mediacorp.
The Straits Times' circulation figures are not available on the website of SPH Media, a not-for-profit entity that publishes the newspaper.
CNA may be better positioned than The Straits Times . While fewer people are watching TV news, newspaper readership has declined even more sharply. Just 18% of Singaporeans rely on print in 2025, down from 53% in 2017. Over the same period, the TV news audience shrank from 57% to 43%. News consumption via social media also dipped slightly—from 61% to 54%. But online news consumption overall has remained steady at 85%. The vast majority now get their news online—and for free. Only 16% pay for digital news.
That may help explain CNA's slight edge online. CNA's digital content is entirely free, whereas The Straits Times follows a freemium model: some articles are free, but the rest sit behind a paywall. The 180-year-old newspaper—Singapore's flagship English daily—has even fallen behind the 12-year-old Mothership in online traffic.
Mothership , which is also free, has a weekly online reach of 46%, almost on par with CNA and ahead of The Straits Times . However, it doesn't command the same level of public trust. At 54%, its trust rating lags far behind the mid-70s scored by CNA and The Straits Times . BBC and CNN
Singaporeans clearly trust the national mainstream media more than the global networks. Trust in BBC News and CNN remains in the respectable mid-60s, but their reach is far lower. CNN's weekly offline reach is just 16%, and the BBC's is even lower at 12%. Their weekly online reach is similarly modest—15% for CNN, 13% for the BBC. See also Human rights NGO to analyse GE2020's effect on Singaporean youth
The Reuters Institute report also highlights the dominance of English-language media in Singapore. Chinese-language newspapers such as Lianhe Zaobao and Shin Min Daily have weekly offline reach figures of just 8% and 6%, respectively. The Malay-language Berita Harian reaches only 4%. Social media
The report shows WhatsApp is the leader among the social, messaging, and video networks, used by 33% for news and 79% for all purposes. It is followed by YouTube, used by 32% for news and 72% for all purposes. Facebook is third, used by 31% for news and 58% for all purposes. The corresponding figures are 24% and 54% for Instagram, 18% and 37% for TikTok, and 17% and 42% for Telegram. The report says: 'Audiences who say they use YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok for news all grew slightly, while the percentage who use WhatsApp and Facebook for news remain stable.'
The biggest shift in the news landscape has been in how news is consumed. The smartphone now reigns supreme. Its use for news has risen from 72% in 2017 to 78% in 2022. Meanwhile, news consumption via computers dropped from 52% to 39%, and tablet use fell from 21% to 17%. See also MOT Minister Khaw says non transparency can prevent undue panic
This mobile-first shift is reshaping how news is presented. CNA, for instance, is deploying AI-generated news summaries—known as FASTs—to cater to mobile and social media users. According to the Reuters Institute report, 7% of respondents have already used AI chatbots for news.
That may well be the next frontier:
'Hello, Gemini, tell me the news today. And please—pretty please—don't hallucinate.'
Featured image by Pexels (for illustration purposes only)
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