97% of journalists use social media – but most worry about reliability
A survey by Cision and Canterbury Christ Church University has revealed that although 97% of journalists use social media, more are worried about the accuracy and reliability it provides.
The research by the PR software provider and University found that more than half of the respondents to the survey thought that social media encouraged ‘softer, more opinion-oriented news’.
Dr Agnes Gulyas, principal lecturer at the department of media at Canterbury Christ Church University, said: “The survey suggests that social media is having dramatic impacts on the industry where journalists now have access to a range of sources to help them research, verify, monitor and most of all publish their work.
“What is interesting is that social media are being used to supplement existing contacts and PR professionals but is not supplanting them. It's likely that whilst concerns over accuracy and reliability remain, social media will be part of the journalists’ tool kit rather than their only tool.”
The survey found that 90% of journalists use social media more now than they did three years ago; with 89% of the surveyed journalists most commonly use social media for publishing and distributing their work.
Radio and online journalists fully embrace social media with 61% actively blogging, whereas newspaper and magazine journalists are active to a lesser degree (51%). It was also discovered that the vast majority (85%) of UK journalists used some type of mobile devices in their work, with smartphones being the most popular tool (76%).
Falk Rehkopf, director of special projects (Europe) at Cision, said: “In 2010, through our first Social Journalism Study we already uncovered that Twitter is the de facto social network for UK journalists. I am very pleased that our follow-up in 2011, the most comprehensive social media study of its kind, allowed us to drill down further and gain greater insight.
“The valid data clearly demonstrates enormous differences in uptake, views and usage of social media among journalists influenced by what type of media the journalists works for, the size of the organisation as well as the journalist’s seniority.
“I was surprised to learn how important social media are to radio journalists in comparison to newspaper journalists who are least engaged.”
The report also found that PR professionals still use traditional forms of communications to contact journalists such as email/fax (97%), press releases (86%) and face-to-face contact (48%). This agrees with last week’s research on how journalists do not like being pitched news through social media.