About the paper
The report examines the state of journalism in 2026 through original research based on a self-administered online survey of journalists.
Muck Rack says it surveyed 1,044 journalists between 30 January and 2 March 2026, with 897 responses retained after data cleaning; the sample is predominantly U.S.-based, with additional representation from the United Kingdom, Canada and India, so the geographic scope is international but heavily weighted toward the United States.
Length: 48 pages
More information / download:
https://muckrack.com/resources/research/state-of-journalism
Core Insights
1. What does the report say are the biggest pressures shaping journalism in 2026?
The report portrays journalism as a profession under pressure from several directions at once rather than one dominant crisis. The top concerns are disinformation and misinformation and lack of funding, both cited by 32% of journalists. Just behind them are public trust in journalism and unregulated or unchecked use of AI, each at 26%, followed by government interference in the press at 25% and politicisation and polarisation at 23%. The report’s own framing is that the threat environment is broadening, with AI moving sharply up the agenda rather than replacing older concerns.
That wider strain also shows up in how journalists describe their working lives. While 65% still say their work feels meaningful, 47% say it feels exhausting and 38% say it feels precarious. More than half say misinformation has made reporting harder over the past year, and nearly one-third say safety concerns have affected how they do their job. Altogether, the report suggests a profession that still finds purpose in the work but is operating in a more fragile, contested and demanding environment.
2. How are journalists’ day-to-day working conditions and career outlook changing?
The report presents a mixed picture: journalists retain some short-term confidence, but the broader career outlook is less secure. On workload, 62% say their responsibilities have expanded in the past year, exactly matching last year’s level according to the report. At the same time, most still feel they can usually meet their standards: 18% say they always have enough time and 39% say often. Even so, 15% say they rarely or never do, which points to a notable minority under significant time pressure.
Support levels are also mixed. A slim majority, 56%, feel supported in terms of tools, training or editorial guidance, but 21% feel unsupported to some degree. On career confidence, 53% feel confident about their long-term prospects in journalism, whereas 66% feel their current job is secure over the next 12 months. That gap is important: it implies journalists are somewhat more confident in immediate job continuity than in the long-term health of the profession. The report reinforces that interpretation by noting that short-term job security outpaces long-term career confidence.
3. What role do AI and social media now play in journalism, and how is that role shifting?
AI is clearly moving from experimentation towards mainstream use. The report says 82% of journalists now use at least one of the listed AI tools in their work, up from 77% the year before. ChatGPT remains the leading tool at 47%, while Gemini rises to 22% and Claude to 12%. Transcription tools remain steady at 40%. At the same time, concern about unchecked AI use in journalism has risen from 18% to 26%, so adoption and anxiety are growing together. That is one of the report’s most important tensions: journalists are integrating AI more deeply while also becoming more worried about its consequences.
Social media tells a different story. Its importance for producing journalism has weakened: only 21% now say social media is very important for their work, down 12 points from 2024. Yet it remains highly important for promotion, with 45% saying it is very important for that purpose. So the report suggests social platforms are becoming less central to reporting itself, but still crucial to distribution and visibility.
The platform landscape is shifting too. Facebook is rated the most valuable platform overall at 28%, LinkedIn is second at 20%, and X has dropped to 17%. In trust terms, LinkedIn stands out most strongly, with 58% saying they trust it to treat journalistic content fairly. By contrast, distrust in TikTok has risen to 61%, and Bluesky’s momentum has weakened, with the share spending more time there falling by 14 points year on year. The report’s wider implication is that journalists are becoming more selective and pragmatic about platforms: they are not abandoning them, but they are recalibrating where value and trust still exist.
4. What does the report reveal about the relationship between journalists and PR professionals?
The report shows a relationship that is clearly important but often poorly executed. More than half of journalists, 53%, say relationships with PR professionals are important or very important to being successful at their job. And 86% say at least some of their published stories began with a PR pitch, even if for most journalists the share is modest. That means PR remains a meaningful input into the news cycle, even though it rarely drives the majority of coverage.
However, the quality and relevance of outreach remain major problems. Only 3% say pitches are always relevant to what they cover, while 43% say relevant pitches are seldom received and 4% say never. Unsurprisingly, 88% say they immediately disregard or delete pitches that are irrelevant to their coverage, 71% reject pitches that feel overly promotional, and 50% are put off by what look like mass emails. The report is therefore quite blunt: PR can be useful, but most failures come from poor targeting and low editorial sensitivity.
The findings also show what journalists actually want. Seventy per cent say a pitch should clearly demonstrate relevance to their beat, 58% want interview access to relevant sources, and 40% value original data or research. When the question shifts from beat relevance to audience relevance, the answers become even more revealing: 78% say a pitch feels genuinely relevant when it directly affects the community their audience belongs to, and 45% want clear local or cultural context. So the report’s deeper message is that good PR is not just about matching a topic area; it is about understanding the outlet’s audience, community and public value.
5. What broader conclusion does the report draw about the state and future of journalism?
The overall picture is not one of collapse, but of a profession in uneasy transition. Journalism still appears to offer strong intrinsic meaning: that is the dominant emotional response in the survey. There is also evidence of resilience, with majorities feeling at least somewhat supported, somewhat secure in the near term, and still able to meet their standards most of the time.
But that resilience is under strain from structural, technological and reputational pressures all at once. Funding pressures remain severe, disinformation continues to complicate reporting, AI is both increasingly embedded and increasingly feared, and journalists are operating in a more fragmented and less trusted information environment. The media relations section adds another layer: journalism still depends in part on external information subsidies from PR, but the quality of those interactions often falls short of what journalists need.
In that sense, the report’s implicit argument is that the future of journalism will depend not only on newsroom adaptation to AI and platform change, but also on restoring relevance, trust, editorial support and sustainable resourcing. The profession still has purpose and momentum, but the survey suggests that its future will be shaped by whether institutions can reduce precarity while helping journalists navigate a noisier, more politicised and more automated media landscape.