89% of Journalists Source Stories From Social Media, Yet Only 15% Admit Its Importance
February 16, 2010, 3:48 pmNow this looks familiar.
A new survey by Cision and Don Bates of The George Washington University, suggests that 89% of journalists source their stories from blogs, 65% from social networks such as Facebook, and 52% from Twitter.
That’s no surprise.
Yet despite this admission, journalists continue to downplay the importance of social media to their reporting efforts, with just 15% citing it as “important.”

Hmm, does that seem to you like a profession not wanting to admit that citizen-journalists and content creators are making their job obsolete?
Breaking down the data, we see that those journalists writing for web publications are more likely (69%) to use social media for news sources, than those writing for magazines (48%).
While this demonstrates the importance of pimping your company via social media channels, the survey also highlights the importance of having a kick-ass media room on your corporate site–with 96% of journalists heading in that direction, when researching a story.
Want advice on building your corporate media room? There’s a book for that!
















