Where does the news come from?
The nutshell
News is information about what is happening in the world. Reporters gather it and check it. News organisations then share it on TV, radio, in newspapers, on websites and through social media.
Every fact on this page comes from official regulators and non-partisan research. Each source tag — like Ofcom — opens where a fact comes from.
The basics
Who gathers the news
News is information about what is happening. Reporters and journalists gather it. A reporter finds out what happened, asks questions, and checks the facts before it is published. A lot of fast news also comes from news agencies. A news agency is a service that sends the same report to many news organisations at once, which is why one story can turn up in many places.
Where news is shared
Each news organisation shares the news it gathers. These include TV and radio channels, newspapers, and news websites. More and more, news also appears on social media apps. Ofcom, the UK's broadcasting regulator, found that in 2025 about seven in ten UK adults got news online, on a par with TV, and about half used social media for news.Ofcom
The same story in many places
Seeing a story in lots of places does not always mean many teams checked it separately. Often the outlets are sharing one report from a news agency. The Reuters Institute at the University of Oxford found that most people do not go straight to a news organisation's own website. Instead, news reaches most people through search and social media.RISJ
The rules news follows
Different kinds of news follow different rules. TV and radio news must be fair and accurate, watched over by Ofcom. Newspapers and news websites can back a side, but most agree to follow a code of accuracy. The House of Commons Library says this is voluntary. Most UK publishers join a regulator called IPSO, and a few join IMPRESS.HoC
- Online and social media make news free, fast and easy to reach from a phone, and Ofcom finds most UK adults now use these
- A wider range of voices can be heard, because anyone can post, not only large news organisations
- Short video clips can explain a story quickly, and the Reuters Institute reports these are growing fast with younger readers
- It can be harder to tell which posts come from a checked news report and which do not
- False claims can spread quickly on social media, which is one reason independent fact-checkers exist
- An app's ranking decides which news is shown, so two people can be shown very different stories
The deep end6 min
How news gets gathered
News starts with reporters. A reporter finds out what has happened, asks questions, and checks the facts before anything is published. Much of the fastest, raw news does not come straight from one newspaper or channel. It comes from news agencies, also called wire services, such as PA Media, Reuters and the Associated Press. A news agency sends the same report to many news organisations at once, which is one reason the same story can appear in many places on the same day.
Where people get news now
The way news reaches people has changed a lot. Ofcom found that in 2025 about 70% of UK adults got news online, level with television at 68%, and 51% used social media.Ofcom The Reuters Institute at the University of Oxford found much the same across 47 countries. Only about a fifth of people, 22%, named a news website or app as the main source of online news, and more news was reached through search, apps and social media.RISJ
The rules that news follows
Different kinds of news follow different rules. TV and radio news is watched over by Ofcom and must be fair and accurate. Newspapers and news websites are allowed to back a side, but most sign up to a press regulator and a code of accuracy. The House of Commons Library records that regulation is voluntary. Most publishers join IPSO, a few join IMPRESS, and both hold members to the Editors' Code.HoC A small number, such as the Guardian, join neither and instead use an in-house readers' editor.
Checking what is true
Because news now spreads fast and comes from many places, working out what is accurate matters more than ever. Independent fact-checkers help with this. Full Fact, a UK charity, checks claims made by politicians, in the media and online, and publishes the evidence for whether each claim stands up.FF Full Fact states that it does not take sides and checks claims, not people. Noticing where a story comes from, and whether it has been checked, is what the topics on bias and spin and on misinformation look at next.