How Real Journalists Do Research
November 8, 2016
I read “Search & Owned Media Most Used by Journalists.” The highlight of the write up was a table created by Businesswire. The “Media Survey” revealed “Where the Media Look When Researching an Organization.” Businesswire is a news release outfit. Organizations pay to have a write up sent to “real” journalists.
Let’s look at the data in the write up.
The top five ways “real” journalists obtain information is summarized in the table below. I don’t know the sample size, the methodology, or the method of selecting the sample. My hunch is that the people responding have signed up for Businesswire information or have some other connection with the company.
| Most Used Method | Percent Using |
| 89% | |
| Organization Web site | 88% |
| Organization’s online newsroom | 75% |
| Social media postings | 54% |
| Government records | 53% |
Now what about the five least used methods for research:
| Least Used Method | Percent Using |
| Organization PR spokesperson | 39% |
| News release boilerplate | 33% |
| Bing | 8% |
| Yahoo | 7% |
| Other (sorry but no details) | 6% |
Now what about the research methods in between these two extremes of most and least used:
| No Man’s Land Methods | Percent Using |
| Talk to humans | 51% |
| Trade publication Web sites | 44% |
| Local newspapers | 43% |
| Wikipedia | 40% |
| Organization’s blog | 39% |
Several observations flapped across the minds of the goslings in Harrod’s Creek.
- Yahoo and Bing may want to reach out to “real” journalists and explain how darned good their search systems are for “real” information. If the data are accurate, Google is THE source for “real” journalists’ core or baseline information
- The popularity of social media and government information is a dead heat. I am not sure whether this means social media information is wonderful or if government information is not up to the standards of social media like Facebook or Twitter
- Talking to humans, which I assume was the go to method for information, is useful to half the “real” journalists. This suggests that half of the “real” news churned out by “real” journalists may be second hand, recycled and transformed, or tough to verify. The notion of “good enough” enters at this point
- Love that Wikipedia because 40 percent of “real” journalists rely on it for some or maybe a significant portion of the information in a “real” news story.
It comes as no surprise that news releases creep into the results list via Google’s indexing of “real” news, the organization’s online newsroom, the organization’s tweets and Facebook posts, trade publications which are first class recyclers of news releases, and the organization’s blog.
Interesting. Echo chamber, filter bubble, disinformation—Do any of these terms resonate with you?
Stephen E Arnold, November 8, 2016
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