75% of journalists use blogs for story ideas, angles and insight

But will they admit to it?

A survey of U.S. journalists by Brodeur, a unit of Omnicom Group (NYSE: OMC: 45.00, -0.83, -1.81%), suggests that blogs are not only having an impact on the speed and availability of news, but also influence the tone and editorial direction of reporting.

The survey is part of an ongoing research project by Brodeur in conjunction with Marketwire to dissect and understand the impact that social media and blogs are having on traditional news delivery. The online survey was conducted among a random sample of North American reporters and editors, and was focused on understanding how social media and blogs influence their work.

The report was discussed in the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas last week by Jerry Johnson, head of strategic planning at Brodeur. You can read a post about it at and get a pdf of the results from Taking the Blogosphere Seriously (a very interesting site dedicate to that concept). From Fox:

“While only a small percentage of journalists feel that blogs are helpful in generating sources or exclusives, they do see blogs as particularly useful in helping them better understand the context of a story, a new story angle, or a new story idea. It appears that reporters are using blogs more for ethnographic research than they are for investigative research,” Johnson commented.

Johnson went on to explain that the survey confirmed something many have suspected — that new media (social media and blogs) is having an impact on many different aspects of reporting, particularly the speed and availability of news. Less than half of journalists thought that new media was having an impact — either good or bad — on the quality of news reporting.

There are great graphs on Conversation Agent. Some stats reported in the Fox piece:

Nearly 70 percent of all reporters check a blog list on a regular basis. Over one in five (20.9%) reporters said they spend over an hour per day reading blogs. And a total of nearly three in five (57.1%) reporters said they read blogs at least two to three times a week.

Journalists are increasingly active participants in the blogosphere. One in four reporters (27.7%) have their own blogs and nearly one in five (16.3%) have their own social networking page. About half of reporters (47.5%) say they are “lurkers” — reading blogs but rarely commenting.

The majority of journalists thought blogs were having a significant impact on news reporting in all areas tested EXCEPT in the area of news quality. The biggest impact has been in speed and availability of news. Over half said that blogs were having a significant impact on the “tone” (61.8%) and “editorial direction” (51.1%) of news reporting.

I’ve emailed Johnson for a copy of the report.

From Conversation Agent’s conclusion, something I can imagine myself saying:

…The very development that news media outlets feared for so long may prove to be exactly what they need. With a little imagination and desire to re-imagine the news business, everyone could win. And that is just fine with me.

Of course, if those news media outlets don’t stop flouting their own policies related to political bias and adherence to professional standards, bloggers may find ways to shut them out.

Sphere: Related Content

By Jill Miller Zimon at 2:52 pm January 13th, 2008 in Media, Blogging

Comments

5 Responses to “75% of journalists use blogs for story ideas, angles and insight”

1 Joseph on January 13th, 2008 4:37 pm

An informal survey of Ohio political blogs (performed by me about 10 minutes ago) found that 95.84% use news media outlets for story ideas, angles and insight.

And some, like the new RAB, just use the news stories without adding any original ideas, angles or insight.
2 Jill Miller Zimon on January 13th, 2008 10:41 pm

Cute! lol Thanks. And it didn’t cost us a dime, did it?
3 Ben on January 13th, 2008 11:29 pm

I agree with #1….it works both ways.
4 links for 2008-01-14 | Brewed Fresh Daily on January 14th, 2008 4:21 pm

[…] 75% of journalists use blogs for story ideas, angles and insight | Writes Like She Talks […]
5 Jill Miller Zimon on January 14th, 2008 10:00 pm

Ben - I agree too, but while blogs feel obligated to link to the primary source for the material, the MSM has been much, much slower in making sure that it links to the source blogs - you know we saw that with the Bizzy Blog/Imam situation. That will change, I know, but still - when MSM journalists want to play that ethics and respect card, they need to be able to show that it’s not just a veneer.

Another example: the Dispatch’s James Nash being a member of the OLCA and then writing for the Dispatch that the OLCA told bloggers to “butt out” was wrong. Just plain wrong.