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Sunday, April 25, 2010
Is Social Media Good
For Journalism?
There is an increase in the use of social media, such as Twitter, Facebook, and blogs, as research tools by bloggers and reporters, but is this a good thing? 
“Among the total respondents, the use of blogs and social networks for research increased significantly in 2010 as compared to 2009; however this spike appears to be skewed by online magazine/news reporters and bloggers. While 91 percent of bloggers and 68 percent of online reporters ‘always’ or ‘sometimes’ use blogs for research, only 35 percent of newspaper and 38 percent of print magazine journalists suggested the same,” according to a survey sponsored by PR Newswire.
The survey also found that of the 1,568 traditional and non-traditional media participants polled, “33 percent of respondents indicated using such assets (social media networks for research), but blogger usage (48 percent) was greater than newspaper (31 percent) and print magazine (27 percent).”
As mentioned in a related editorial, many bloggers are not journalists who know how to find reliable sources. When writing news stories, non-journalistic bloggers should use real news stories for sources or research 90 percent of the time, depending on the type of story of course.
But that’s not happening here. While blogs and posts from Twitter and Facebook can point you in the right direction and give you a great lead, the reliability of them should always be questioned, especially if they are non-news ones. That’s why 19 percent of newspaper reporters and 22 percent of magazine reporters only use a Twitter post, or tweet, for their stories.
However, bloggers use a tweet 55 percent of the time.
This doesn’t mean that all social media is bad for journalism. Journalists should embrace any and all forms of popular social media to help spread information to the masses. And depending on the story, sometimes a reporter needs to quote a blog or Facebook post. This can add great depth to a story.
But social media should not be a substitute for good, old-fashion legwork and reliable sources.
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