A new study by PR Week and PR Newswire (via TechCrunch) reports that 52% of bloggers included in the survey consider themselves to be journalists (up from one-third of surveyed bloggers in 2009).
Considering how many news stories broke on blogs and Twitter, were analyzed and reported on by bloggers, and debunked on blogs over the past year, a segment of authoritative bloggers certainly has emerged from the clutter of the social Web. In fact, more and more of those influential and respected bloggers are being called to discuss their expertise and insights in various media outside the social Web everyday.
In other words, the world of traditional news and journalism has changed, and bloggers have become an important source of news and authoritative commentary. The results from the PR Week and PR Newswire study support this trend. The study found that 91% of bloggers and 68% of online reporters surveyed “always” or “sometimes” use blogs for research while just 35% of newspaper and 38% of print magazine journalists turn to blogs or social networks to research stories.
Similarly, 64% of bloggers and 36% of online reporters use Twitter for research while only 19% of newspaper reporters and 17% of print magazine reporters use Twitter for research. I suppose these results shouldn’t be surprising given the amount of backlash that traditional news organizations like CNN got during the summer of 2009 for delayed coverage of the Iran election — and that’s just one example of blogs and Twitter delivering news faster and more thoroughly than traditional news organizations.
It appears that there is still a gap in understanding between traditional journalists and the credibility, experience and expertise that many authoritative bloggers, Twitter users, and active participants on the social Web bring to the table. It will be interesting to watch these numbers shift in coming years as more and more people turn to the authoritative content producers online for news and information. The question is how fast that shift will happen. What do you think?
Image: Flickr
A definition of “journalist” would be helpful.
Like so many regular old jobs, reporters have been slowly inflated into “professionals” by the J schools as academe has spread into everyday life. It keeps colleges (oops, they’re all universities now) in business, which is the point of having the journalism guild.
I question whether a third grade teacher needs to have a master’s degree in anything, especially pedagogy. Additional courses after graduation could perhaps include history, math, science, literature, languages, basic economics — i.e., anything that makes that teacher actually learned rather than indoctrinated with whatever is the current teaching theory. Perhaps then our children would end up with more knowledge than is currently the case.
Same with journalism. That was a job my grandfather held before he went to college, as a way to support his sibs during their education. What would Mark Twain, or any good editor of his time, think of what today’s reporters churn out?
Like teachers, jopurnalists need to broaden their own knowledge base in science, economics, history, etc., before they sit down to a keyboard to write news stories about these subjects. Otherwise they are even more credulous than their readers.
It’s all been dumbed down, while the titles and the claims of “professionalism” have been inflated to the point of silliness. The best teachers are often the unaccredited ones in small private schools. They retire, rich in experience, and *then* they teach.
I’m a blogger, not a journalist. My blog is a channel for the accumulated wisdom of our readers; the breadth of their knowledge is impressive. We are most fortunate to have them writing for us. For free.
One of my favorite “foreign correspondents” is an ex-patriate in Indonesia. He speaks at least three languages. He’s an engineer by training, but his knowledge about his own country’s culture and history is better than anything I can get from the newspapers in his place of origin.
Accumulating information is what bloggers do. And mistakes in fact are quickly called out by readers (and corrected just as quickly if one wants to retain credibility).
News reporters have access, but they often lack knowledge or context and they have little accountability.
Their ‘objectivity’ is a sham. In fact, proclaiming lack of bias as a virtue is a late acquisition of reporting news. It wasn’t so long ago that newspapers and reporters were willing to acknowledge their point of view. However, with scientism as the new religion, journalists pretend an objectivity that no one believes.
In that respect, bloggers are a welcome relief. One knows where they stand.