Social Media Infiltrates the Newsroom and Optimism Returns to Journalism According to Fourth Annual Oriella Study
This morning, we launched our annual Oriella Digital Journalism Study. This is the fourth time we have
carried out the project since launching in 2008 and this year’s study yielded the most interesting results to date. A key trend was the extent to which social media has infiltrated the newsroom.
For the first time this year, we asked about the tools journalists use to source and verify their stories. Unsurprisingly, the reliance on established sources remains strong, with 61% using the PR agency and 58% using corporate spokespeople. However, what was notable was the new use of social media. 47% used Twitter and 35% used Facebook to source their stories. The blogosphere was also highly valued with 30% using blogs they know to source new story leads. However, a surprisingly high 42% of journalists also looked to blogs they didn’t know.
For the verification stage, the results were slightly lower, but a significant amount still turned to social media, despite its tendency to spread false rumours – a third used Twitter and a quarter used Facebook.The internal use of social media has also helped to shape media outlets' output. For the first time, the number of outlets that offered a Twitter feed and journalist-authored blogs exceeded 50% (55% and 54% respectively). The use of video has also increased significantly with 48% of media outlets now offering this channel. The impact of social was just one of the topics covered in our study – aspects such as audience, revenues, quality and job satisfaction have all been covered.
All the results can be found on our sister site dedicated to the study – do check it out and let us know what you think of the findings.
TrackBack
TrackBack URL for this entry:
» http://www.typepad.com/services/trackback/6a00d834524c9b69e201543264362e970c
