More people in Japan are consuming online news than watching TV or reading newspapers, but they don¡¯t necessarily trust what they read, according to a recent report from the Japan Press Research Institute.

The report, which is based on 2,665 responses gathered via a door-to-door survey between July and August this year, asked recipients about their news consumption habits as well as how much trust they placed in each of these forums.

Some 46.5% of respondents reported checking news online daily, slightly more than the 46.1% who said they watched commercial television every day. Around 35.8% turned to NHK, Japan¡¯s public broadcaster, for daily news, while 33.4% relied on newspapers. Radio was the least-used medium, with 9.2% tuning in each day.

But while online news was the most accessed news source, in terms of trustworthiness, it trails behind traditional media sources.

On a scale of 100 points, NHK received the highest rating for trustworthiness with 66.8 points, just a fraction ahead of newspapers at 66.2. Online news was ranked 47.4 ¡ª a continued decline from 58.0 in 2008.

Despite ranking newspapers as among the most trustworthy sources, readership was in decline. The newspaper readership rate fell to 50.1% this year, down 3.7 percentage points year on year. The decline has continued since the survey began in 2008, when the number of newspaper readers was 88.6%.

Some 40.7% of all respondents said that they intend to continue to subscribe to newspapers ¡ª in 2018, the number was 58.5%. Some said they still read newspapers but relied on free access through libraries or online sources.¡¡¡¡

In June, the Reuters Institute Japan report painted a similar picture, surmising that ¡°broadcasters are losing their audiences to YouTube and other video networks. Traditional media are also struggling to find sustainable business models as the shift to digital gathers pace.¡±