Blogs Influence Journalists

Statistics can be boring, but I thought that this was very interesting and thought that I would pass it along to Talk Wisdom readers.

Christine

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Blogs Influence Journalists

Blogs are not only having an impact on the speed and availability of news but also influencing the tone and editorial direction of reporting, according to a survey of US journalists by Omnicom Group. New media (social media and blogs) are having an impact on many aspects of reporting, particularly the speed and availability of news. The majority of journalists said blogs were having a significant impact on news reporting in all areas tested - except news quality:

* The biggest impact of blogs is in the speed and availability of news.
* Over half also said that blogs were having a significant impact on the “tone” (61.8%) and “editorial direction” (51.1%) of news reporting.









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. Blogs are a regular source for journalists:

Over three-quarters of reporters see blogs as helpful in giving them story ideas, story angles and insight into the tone of an issue.





Nearly 70% of all reporters check a blog list on a regular basis:

* 20.9% reporters said they spend over an hour per day reading blogs
* 57.1% reporters said they read blogs at least two to three times a week
* 71% of journalists have a list of blogs that they check on a regular basis
* 47.7% have five or fewer blogs
* 23.3% have a regular blog list of six or more
* 29.9% of journalists have no regular list

One in five reporters spend over an hour a day reading blogs, and nearly three in five read blogs at least 2 to 3 times a week.





Journalists are increasingly active participants in the blogosphere:

One in four reporters (27.7%) have their own blogs
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.


What Journalists Use as Sources

More than 8 of 10 business journalists (84%) say they have used or would use blogs as primary or secondary sources for articles, according to the a new study by marketing consultancy Arketi. The survey sought to understand the uses of technology by B2B journalists covering various industries.
Overlapping the Social Graph

OpenSocial is Google's new open platform toolset which allows social networking site the ability to connect their databases and users together creating "open standards" so users can access their data on any social network. The project is still taking shape, but it looks like it will give users access to widgets across a bunch of social networks.

HT: Ken Radio