The most common way that Americans prefer to get their news is by watching it: 44% of U.S. adults say this, according to an August 2025 Pew Research Center survey. A smaller share (37%) prefers to get news by reading it, while 19% prefer listening to the news.

Pew Research Center conducted this analysis to understand Americans’ preferences on how to consume news.

For this analysis, we surveyed 5,153 U.S. adults from Aug. 18 to 24, 2025. Everyone who took part in the survey is a member of the Center’s American Trends Panel (ATP), a group of people recruited through national, random sampling of residential addresses who have agreed to take surveys regularly. This kind of recruitment gives nearly all U.S. adults a chance of selection. Interviews were conducted either online or by telephone with a live interviewer. The survey is weighted to be representative of the U.S. adult population by gender, race, ethnicity, partisan affiliation, education and other factors. Read more about the ATP’s methodology.

Here are the questions used for this analysis, the topline and the methodology.