CorpComms Magazine

Social media platforms are playing an increasingly important role for journalists looking to source stories or to verify articles that they are already working on, the fourth annual Digital Journalism Study, which polled almost 500 journalists across 15 countries, has revealed.

The findings have important consequences for public relations professionals, who can no longer afford to manage digital communications for marketing and corporate communications as separate functions.

Almost half (47 per cent) of the journalists surveyed claim that they now use Twitter to source new story angles, while 35 per cent use Facebook. While social media platforms are still not as popular as traditional sources, such as PR agencies which are cited by 62 per cent of journalists while 59 per cent turn to corporate spokesmen, the survey reveals the rapid rise in the importance of social media in a journalist's toolkit. Three out of ten journalists would look to a favourite blog for insight and assistance in sourcing a new angle for a story.

But the role of social media, while still important, diminishes when it comes to verifying stories that journalists are working on. Just one third of journalists would rely on tweets to verify a story which is a third lower than the number who would source stories on Twitter. Similarly, just one in four use Facebook to verify stories.

However, 61 per cent of journalists will use PR agencies to verify story ideas and angles while 57 per cent will turn to corporate spokesmen.

While journalists may bemoan the quality of press releases, and often highlight the disconnect between the subject matter and their key areas of expertise, the traditional press release is still the first port of call when researching a news story or feature.

More than one in five (22 per cent) journalists will turn to the press release while 20 per cent will rely on an interview with the company's spokesman as the basis for a news story or feature. One in eight journalists will be prompted to write a story or feature by an article on a competitor's website or newspaper.

Interestingly, although this may be dictated by different news agendas, official government sources rank lower than analysts and corporate websites. But all three rank higher than social media. Fewer than one in 20 journalists would go to either Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn as the first source for a news story. Only blogs and video sites, such as YouTube, are used even less than social media platforms by journalists searching for an original story.

Social media has also changed the way that journalists produce content. More than half of those surveyed (57 per cent) claim that their publications have a Twitter feed, against just one in four in 2010, and 54 per cent publish journalist-authored blogs. Almost half of all respondents, 48 per cent, say their publication now produces video content online, against 40 per cent in 2010. One in five titles also produce vodcasts, while marginally fewer produce audio podcasts.

Inevitably, the increased number of news channels has led to an increase in the workload for journalists. One in three claim to work longer hours than previously while 45 per cent say they are expected to produce more content. Indeed, 46 per cent of journalists claim that more than 60 per cent of their online output is new copy that is not reproduced from or later included in the print versions of their publications.

But this additional effort is translating into improved quality and readership levels. The survey found that 47 per cent of journalists believe that the quality of their titles have improved over the past two years, while 31 per cent remain undecided. At the same time, 42 per cent of journalists claim that the audience for their output has increased by more than ten per cent while 16 per cent say it has risen by up to ten per cent. Fewer than ten per cent of journalists have experienced a decline in audience.

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