News publishers see a surge of Facebook engagement from photo posts

Facebook engagement came “roaring back” for news publishers in the first few months of 2025, according to a new report.

The social media tracking company NewsWhip looked at 50 news publishers and found engagement on Facebook has tripled year over year. Many of the top-performing posts were photo posts.

The engagement really accelerated in February. As news publishers know, Facebook giveth and Facebook taketh away — and it’s hard to know exactly what is driving the massive increases. But Meta has been tweaking its rules around hard news and political content in recent months. Back in February 2024, Meta said it wouldn’t “proactively recommend political content” including political news. And then in January 2025, Meta reversed the decision, saying Threads and Instagram users could expect more political news in their feeds.

Fox News and The New York Times were two of the biggest winners. Facebook engagement for The New York Times was up 3.5 times compared to 2024 and Fox News saw an increase of nearly 9 times its previous year numbers, according to the report. CNN and ABC News also saw large increases.

Of the 20 best-performing posts for the Times and Fox News, 17 were photo posts, two were native video posts, and one was a live video. The top post from the Times featured a photo from the Los Angeles wildfires and received more than 25,000 comments.

“This isn’t a rising tide lifts all boats situation,” noted NewsWhip director of content Benedict Nicholson. ESPN and National Geographic, for example, saw increases in engagement on Facebook, but only 7% and 10% respectively. “We’re still seeing an increase … but not the likes of what we’re seeing from hard news publishers which are seeing real levels of success across Facebook.”

Read the report here.