How Reporters Use Blogs and Social Media

The survey includes responses from 2,386 journalists; 48% were editors or editorial staff and 34% reporters or writers.

Some valuable insights:

• Half of journalists report visiting a corporate website or online newsroom at least once a week; they complain about not being able to find contact information for a media representative or to find contact information for those representatives.
• Journalists use blogs, with almost 75% saying that they read “one or more blogs to keep up with the subject matter they cover.” About 29% read five or more blogs to keep up with their beat.
• About three-fourths of journalists use social media to research stories. “Almost 38% of journalists now say they visit a social media site at least once a week as part of their reporting. Only 25% say they don’t use social media.
• “An overwhelming majority of journalists74.8%prefer to receive information about corporate, not-for-profit and government news by email. Commercial newswires were a distant second choice, with only 8.1% of respondents indicating that preference.”