Are We Affecting the Media?
Posted by Anthony LaFauce on January 9th, 2008 3:00 PMTameka Kee, over at Online Media Daily, just posted an interesting article on the effectiveness of bloggers on traditional media. The study alleges out of 180 journalist surveyed in multiple industries less than half believed that new media had a ‘very or somewhat’ effect on their reporting quality.
Juxtapose that figure to the fact that the report boasts almost three-quarters of journalist said that new media had a ‘very significant’ impact the speed of news reporting.
At first I threw my hands up in utter disbelief until I read an interesting paragraph towards the end of the article.
“In terms of the survey demographics, the majority of respondents (45%) were business journalists, while 34% hailed from various industries like gaming, government and politics, and community news. Just 2% and 4% of the respondents worked in the tech and lifestyle industries, respectively.”
Putting these facts into perspective shows why a low percentage of journalists see bloggers and new media as a viable source of information makes much more sense. Traditional businesses, much like traditional media, more often than not wait for the early adopters to map out techniques before adopting themselves.
All things being equal we are seeing a larger percentage of traditional journalist bridging the gap of social media and blogging as a way to complement their work at their respective publications.
Could the study be right? Are bloggers and new media services making less of an impact than they think? Or is this just the beginning of a demographic shift in the way media views ‘new’ media?
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Highlights of the study indicate that 60% say they spend more than 20 hours a week on the Internet. When asked what they did, here's what they said:
98% reading news
97% emailing
93% finding news sources
89% finding story ideas
72% reading blogs
67% watching webinars or webcasts
Seems like journalists are turning to the web and new media as a source. But maybe that's all they see it as - a source. The jury seems out in terms of whether they feel it improves the quality of what they're writing.
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