This paper presents a qualitative study of contextual factors that affect news consumption on mobile devices. Participants reported their daily news consumption activities over a period of two weeks through a snippet-based diary and experience sampling study, followed by semi-structured exit interviews. Wunderlist, a commercially available task management application and note-taking software, was appropriated for data collection. Findings highlighted a range of contextual factors that are not accounted for in current ‘contextually-aware’ news delivery technologies, and could be developed to better adapt such technologies in the future. These contextual factors were segmented to four areas: triggers, positive/conducive factors, negative/distracting factors and barriers to use.