Journalists becoming comfortable in 2008 with Internet media tools: survey

Tony Austin
Tuesday, 28 October 2008 12:04

Opinion and Analysis

A survey a study by Bulldog Reporter and TEKgroup International, Inc. shows how journalists are increasing their usage of Web 2.0 technologies to research, follow and report news and features.

The study, reported 23 September 2008 by Bulldog Reporter and TEKgroup International, Inc., shows how journalists are increasing their usage of the Internet and other online resources to research, follow and report news and features.

The survey of working journalists across all media was conducted for the second year in a row using SurveyMonkey.com as the data collector, and generating valid responses from 2,386 journalists, of which approximately 48% were editors or editorial staff and 34% were reporters or writers.

The objective was to track year-over-year changes in journalist usage of the Internet and other resources to research, follow and report news and features material.

The report doesn't say, but these were journalists in the USA, presumably. It also doesn't mention what proportion of those surveyed were online journalists (like your friendly team at iTWire). They, naturally enough, are not just users of the types of online resources under study (blogs, RSS feeds, etc) but the very creators of them.

Respondents again reported that the single greatest change in journalism practices due to new Internet technology is that they can now research corporate and other news online 24 hours a day (77.8%) and they can now access media contact phone numbers and email addresses online (67.5%).

Nearly half of all journalists report visiting a corporate website or online newsroom at least once a week, and almost 87% report visiting a corporate website or online newsroom at least once a month. Ironically, despite such heavy traffic from journalists, most corporate websites seem inadequately designed to accommodate them:

Almost half of journalists complain that when they visit organizations’ websites, it’s often difficult to find the organizations’ media representatives or to find contact information for those representatives.

Journalists also report a significant increase in usage of blogs, social media and RSS feeds to stay on top of the news.

Almost 75% of journalists read one or more blogs to keep up with the subject matter they cover, compared with only about 70% a year ago. Today, some 29% of journalists regularly read five or more blogs to keep up with their beat, compared with about 26% last year.

PLEASE READ ON...