A new report from the Indiana University School of Journalism shows how US jouranlist are using social media to report the news. Based on online interviews with 1,080 U.S. journalists conducted during the fall of 2013, the new report updates previous findings and adds new ones concerning the role of social media in journalism.
Key Findings:
- 78% of US journalists check social media for breaking news
- 56.2% use it to find additional information about a topic
- 54.1% use social media to find sources for stories
- 40% of U.S. journalists said that social media are very important to their work.
- 34.6% spent between 30 to 60 minutes every day on social networking sites.
- 53.8% regularly use microblogs such as Twitter for gathering information and reporting their stories.
- 23.6% visit blogs maintained by other journalists.
- 22.2% use Wikipedia
- 20.2% use YouTube
Over 80 % say that social media does help to promote their work. Almost 70% say because of social media they are more engaged with their audiences. 62% say that social media allows them to do faster reporting of news.
The Need for Digital and Visual Media Training
Many U.S. journalists (68.1 percent) said that they would like additional training to cope with new job expectations. The largest group (30.5 percent) sought video shooting and editing skills, followed by 28.4 percent who wanted skills to improve social media engagement. PR practitioners should follow suit! This lack of skill in the newsroom opens the door to providing visual content with your news stories. Digital skills and visual content training are some of the most valuable skills to master, whether you are a journalist or a PR person.
