This year, "trust in news in Portugal reaches its lowest value since the start of the Digital News Report Portugal, with 54% of Portuguese people saying they trust news in general".

This is "a drop of two percentage points compared to 2024 and 10 percentage points compared to 2015", the first year of the DNRPT.

"Despite this drop, Portugal remains among the countries with the highest levels of trust, ranking 7th among 48 markets analysed, standing out mainly for net trust. It is one of the countries where the proportion of people who trust the news is higher compared to the proportion of people who do not trust the news," the report says.

In a sociodemographic analysis, "older people, people with higher income and education, and Portuguese people with left-wing and centre-left political orientations are those who trust the news the most," the study says.

Conversely, "younger people (25-44 years old), those with lower education and income, and those who are politically undecided are the segments with the lowest level of trust."

As for the relationship with the news, half of the Portuguese people said they were interested in the news this year, "with this indicator remaining practically unchanged compared to 2024 and consolidating the stabilization recorded in the last three years, after the sharp drop seen in 2022."

Older people, those with higher levels of education, higher incomes and those with a declared political orientation are those who express the greatest interest in news.

In individuals over 65 years of age, interest reaches 62%, compared to 39% for the age group between 18 and 24 years.

"Interest is also higher among men than women and significantly lower among those who are politically undecided," says the report, which states that politics and trust in news "continue to be central predictors of interest in news."

These groups "still show distinct behaviours: they rely more on direct sources to access news, use fact-checkers more frequently and are more concerned about online misinformation."

Payment for digital news "is also higher among those who show interest, but interestingly it is more significant among those who are interested but do not trust (or who only trust a specific brand), suggesting that interest is a more determining factor for payment than trust in news".

In turn, the consumption of local and regional news in Portugal this year "confirms the relevance of this segment for a significant part of the audience", with some notable differences between sociodemographic profiles.

Overall, "38% of Portuguese people say they are interested in local and regional news, with a higher prevalence among men, older people, those with higher incomes, higher levels of education and those with a declared political position".

Among the most sought-after topics are local culture (38%), information on local services (35%) and local news (34%).

This data reveals that, "despite the attention that crime or local politics may attract, the most sought-after content is associated with cultural life, practical utility and the daily life of communities", followed by local politics/administration (27%).

The DNRPT25 has been produced annually by OberCom - Observatório da Comunicação since 2015, published together with the global report by RISJ - Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, at the University of Oxford. The project surveyed around 97,000 Internet users in 48 countries worldwide in 2025. The fieldwork took place between January 13 and February 24 of this year.

In Portugal, 2,012 individuals were interviewed.