We often talk about news avoiders. And when we do, they are usually described as passive or uninterested; that they cannot handle a “normal” news flow, or only want TikTok-ified news clips.
But when they themselves explain why they avoid news, it seldom has to do with a lack of interest in the world.
It is about experiencing the news flow as:
- Constantly negative, confrontational or alarmist
- Emotionally draining
- Irrelevant or disconnected from their everyday lives
In short, it no longer feels good to consume news.
At the same time, this group is often quite well-informed, so perhaps they are more news-site avoiders than news avoiders.
Of course, one can mock a coddled generation or insist that we in the media cannot take responsibility for how the audience feels after consuming our material. We are supposed to convey news, period.
For a long time, I myself have belonged to the latter camp. But I have begun to waver.
And I am apparently not alone. As the numbers show a decline among younger audiences – and also among women – news avoiders have become a buzzword in the industry.
“How do we get more women to read the news?” we ask ourselves.
It’s a relevant question – but our answers are not always equally well thought out. They often land in more articles, new topics, maybe a new sub-site. (A lifestyle format? A series on endometriosis? As Irena Pozar put it a bit mockingly – which I am now also doing.)
But that will not be enough.
One aspect of the discussion about news avoiders that is often overlooked is that we assume the way we package news today is neutral. This is news, plain and simple!
But of course, it is not.
Most news sites have, for years, been optimised for the audience they already have. And in many cases, that audience is men. Every second, minute and week, we have followed traffic, topics and behaviour and tweaked headlines, placement and formats according to what performs best. Performs best for roughly 55-year-old men, that is.
That we as an industry then fail to include other audiences – such as women or younger people – is perhaps not terribly strange.
Compare this with the platform X, which, according to recent numbers, has also lost female and left-leaning users – largely because the climate on the platform is perceived as increasingly toxic. I’m not saying that traditional media sites are like X – but it is hardly by posting a few more cat clips or progressive takes that X would win back those who have already left (if they would even be interested in that, which nothing suggests).
The problems run deeper than that. It is about culture, about atmosphere, about how it feels to exist in the flow.
The same applies to news sites. Adding a few articles “for women” or “for young people” is not enough if the overall experience still feels stressful, judgmental or emotionally draining.
It is about the fact that many simply do not want to be in the editorial universe we have built.
There is a trend of constructive news, “slow news,” and upstarts such as Zetland and the aforementioned Irena Pozar’s Hint that try to address this.
The problem so far with many of these is that they tend to struggle to grow really large, and sometimes even become elite products.
Or is that a problem? Perhaps not. Not everyone can have the ambition to reach everyone, and a future with further fragmentation is not impossible.
It may even be necessary if we want to build experiences that actually suit different people’s needs.
Personalisation is often highlighted as a remedy for news avoidance – and I also believe in that. But when we talk about personalisation, we almost always think in terms of topics: “This one likes sports, this one likes politics, this one likes lace-making.” Or formats: video, text or audio?
But perhaps that is where we are thinking too narrowly. Perhaps personalisation is not only about what and how people want to consume news, but how they want the news flow to feel.
Not just content, but the editorial environment.
There is a difference between publishing more articles “for women” and building an editorial culture where more women actually feel at home.
So instead of asking: “How do we get them to read more news?” Perhaps we should ask: “How do we build a news experience more people want – or even better, feel they must – be part of?”
Martin Schori is Head of AI and Innovation and Deputy Publisher at Aftonbladet, Sweden, and author of the multi-award-winning book Online Only – Everything you need to know to become a journalist of the future. In 2026 he will release a new book about AI and Journalism in both English and Swedish.
This opinion piece was originally published by Dagens Media and is republished with permission.