CNA Tops Singapore Trust and Reach Rankings in Reuters Institute’s 2026 Digital News Report
CNA Tops Singapore Trust and Reach Rankings in Reuters Institute’s 2026 Digital News Report
Mediacorp’s CNA has been named Singapore’s most trusted and most widely used online news source, according to the Reuters Institute Digital News Report 2026, published on Tuesday by the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at Oxford University. The findings cement the state-linked broadcaster’s dominance in a media landscape where its parent company, Mediacorp, occupies four of the top five trust rankings.
CNA Leads on Both Trust and Reach
CNA recorded a brand trust score of 78 per cent, up four percentage points from 2025, and a weekly online reach of 47 per cent — the highest of any news outlet surveyed in Singapore. It is the second time in three years the outlet has topped both rankings simultaneously, having previously led the trust charts for six consecutive years from 2019 to 2024.
The Straits Times, owned by SPH Media Trust, ranked second in trust at 77 per cent. Mothership placed second in online reach, followed by The Straits Times at 44 per cent.
Mediacorp’s Structural Dominance
The report underscores the extent to which Mediacorp controls Singapore’s trusted news ecosystem. Its brands claimed four of the top five spots in the brand trust rankings.
The concentration of trusted brands under a single state-linked media group raises familiar structural questions about plurality in Singapore’s information environment, even as individual trust scores remain high by global standards.
Singapore Outperforms Global Trust Average
Overall trust in news in Singapore held steady at 46 per cent, significantly above the global average of 37 per cent tracked by the same report. The figure suggests relative institutional confidence in mainstream media among Singaporean news consumers, though it leaves the majority still expressing scepticism.
Digital Dominates; Audiences Reluctant to Pay
Online and social media have become the primary channels through which Singaporeans access news, as television and print consumption continue their multi-year decline. A minority of respondents also reported using AI chatbots and podcasts as news sources — an emerging behaviour the report flags as worth monitoring.
Despite high trust scores, willingness to pay for news remains low. Only 17 per cent of respondents said they were willing to pay for news content. Meanwhile, 26 per cent reported sometimes or often actively avoiding the news.
Methodology
The 15th edition of the annual report surveyed 2,041 respondents in Singapore between mid-January and end-February 2026, commissioned by the Reuters Institute and conducted by YouGov via online questionnaire. Samples were assembled using nationally representative quotas for age, gender, and region, with additional education and political quotas applied in select markets. The Reuters Institute is funded by the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the philanthropic arm of Thomson Reuters.
