Study illuminates how journalists use digital media

The sixth annual Oriella Digital Journalism study, published in 2013, surveyed 500 journalists in 14 countries – Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Italy, New Zealand, Russia, Spain, Sweden, the United Kingdom and the United States – to understand how they use digital media in their daily work.

The survey chronicles how journalists verify and source stories, approach the content development of their stories, trust in some sources more than others, and use social media like Facebook and Twitter for both their work and personal lives.

Story verification and sourcing has shifted online through popular blogs and microblogs; however, offline industry insiders and wire services continue to be the top, go-to targets for story sourcing and verification, according to the study.  “Unfamiliar” blogs and microblogs are the only category of growth for these journalistic processes, showing that journalists are looking to experts on these social media for verification and information for their stories.

World Newsmedia Network has published Global Digital Media Trendbook each year since 2006. The trendbook contains 500 data sets and 230 pages of analysis about digital media usage and revenue patterns, including this data set. To download a free executive summary, go to www.wnmn.org