From the AP:

Many of Lily Ogburn’s classmates get their information from social media. Their parents didn’t watch or read news reports as they grew up, so they didn’t pick up the habit, said Ogburn, a senior at Northwestern University’s journalism school.

As with everything else it starts with the parents.

I get that working people don't have the time to keep their nose in the news like some of us (cough...me) but there is no reason in 2025 that people can't get news briefs from good sources. It's all easily available for free. Instead people turn to social media which is unfathomable to me. You can't trust a journalist but you can trust some rando on social media who has no credibility? OK...

That said it's not all bad news:

That’s one of the lessons that 16-year-old Brianne Boyack has taken from her course in news literacy at Brighton High School in Cottonwood Heights, Utah. She had little trust in news going in, but has learned the importance of double-checking sources when she sees something interesting and seeking outlets she’s found reliable.

Her classmate, Rhett MacFarlane, applied what he learned in class to investigate when a friend told him the Louvre was robbed in Paris.

“I’ve learned that there is definitely fact-checking (in journalism),” MacFarlane, also 16, told The Associated Press. “You guys are professionals and you have to tell the truth or you’d be fired. I thought you guys just did whatever you wanted and chose what to say about a topic.”

The article notes that these types of programs are rare. They need to not be rare. Schools need to be teaching this stuff, along with civics, and basic consumer ed.