AT THIS STAGE of the year, if you feel – as I do – that 2025 has already been a rollercoaster, you’d be right.

The recently published Core Research REVIEW 25 highlights the stories that shaped Irish life and culture over the past twelve months. But beneath the headlines lies a deeper shift in how we, the public, interact with news itself. Across a decade of data, a consistent pattern is emerging: fewer people are aware of the news around them, yet the stories they do follow feel increasingly significant.

That tension sits at the heart of understanding our modern information habits. The stories we rate as important are, unsurprisingly, the ones we actually know about – but the pool of stories people notice is narrowing. Which begs the question: are people turning away from “news,” becoming more selective, or redefining what counts as news?

All three can be true at once, and a ten-year dataset offers a useful lens to see how these forces interact.

Across the past decade, Core Research has interviewed more than 120,000 people living in Ireland about the news shaping their lives. Within this dataset, I’ve analysed over 2,000 stories spanning sport, politics, economics, social issues and culture. What consistently emerges is a public recalibrating its relationship with information – switching off from some stories, but investing more meaning in those that break through.

The Reuters Institute Digital News Report captured this contradiction earlier this year:........

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