The Center for Media Research has a "Research Brief" blog with a recent post about ... well, blogs. Specifically, it reports on a survey of journalists that indicates most in the journalism profession believe "blogs are not only having an impact on the speed and availability of news but also influencing the tone and editorial direction of reporting."
To me, that seems to be reporting the obvious. What I found more interesting were a few statistics buried further down in the report. Nearly two-thirds of respondents said blogs were at least "somewhat helpful" in "getting new story ideas and angles;" nearly 70 percent of reporters check one or more blogs on a regular basis; a significant minority said blogs were at least "somewhat helpful" in getting information on breaking news and sources; and finally, more than 20 percent of reporters admit to spending at least an hour a day reading blogs.
That's a lot of reporters spending a lot of time reading blogs during the work week. Maybe they're all just wasting time on those blogs and not really doing any work. I doubt that's generally the case, however.
Surveys can ask reporters for their thoughts on blogs, but it's even more revealing to ask them about their daily habits, actions and routines. And reporters' actions indicate that blogs are here to stay as a source of story ideas, sources, news and, of course, opinion. Ultimately, this survey indicates that traditional news media are increasingly relying on blogs, either out of choice or necessity.
Stop and think about that for a minute. It's a pretty astounding admission, and certainly more intriguing than the headline "Blogs Influence Availability of News, But Not Quality." It also provides an interesting problem for those who dismiss bloggers by claiming they only feed off of and rehash actual reporting that traditional news media has done. In some cases (perhaps even most), that is probably true. But it's clearly not true in all cases -- otherwise so many traditional reporters wouldn't be relying so much on blogs, as this survey indicates they are starting to do.
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4 comments:
You wrote that most of the statistics from the study were obvious but I was quite surprised by most of them.I wouldn't have guessed so many journalists were using blogs as often and in the ways that they are. I guess because from reading other material I had a pre conceived notion that all journalists feared the move towards more citizen journalism.
You bring up a really interesting point by adding that journalists' turn towards accepting blogs is out of necessity rather than choice. Here I thought that they were just expanding their minds when really perhaps it is simply fear of getting left in the dark.
Thanks for making me think Derek!
I, too, was surprised by some of the statistics -- mostly the ones I cited in my post. When I referred to reporting the obvious, I meant specifically the lead of the story that concluded journalists felt blogs were influencing the speed and tone of news.
The statistics also surprised me. Who knew that journalists were sitting around reading blogs in the newsroom?
It kind of puts a new perspective on things. To me, nationally the view is that blogs aren't journalism. And that journalists don't see "citizen journalism" as real journalism. Yet they ARE reading blogs.
Interesting.
One paragraph in here caught my eye:
"That's a lot of reporters spending a lot of time reading blogs during the work week. Maybe they're all just wasting time on those blogs and not really doing any work."
Reminds me of you on a daily basis up in the office. Only you look at youtube not blogs.
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