news aktuell releases survey results for “Research 2018”: The way journalists work today

Personal interviews and press releases continue to be the most important sources for journalistic investigation. This was the outcome of the major survey of journalists “Research 2018” carried out by the dpa subsidiary news aktuell. Other results: Social media are now part of a journalist’s daily routine. The demand for multi-media press material has risen further. And: Mobile reporting and data journalism are for editors the most significant trends for the future. The full results are available as a white paper free of charge.

Interviews and press releases the most important sources for information – The personal interview continues to be – or is once again – the most important source for the overwhelming majority of those surveyed for their day-to-day research (88 per cent). Press releases are seeing undimmed vitality as well, with 86 per cent saying that they make use of press releases for their research. Almost every fifth journalist believes that their significance has even risen over the past two years (18 per cent). Among journalists younger than 35, company releases are even the most important source of information (92 per cent).

Social media has become routine – Even if only just over half the journalists surveyed see social media as their most important source of information (58 per cent), the social networks come out a clear winner in this year’s survey: Twitter, Facebook and the like have gained increased significance over the past two years for more than half of those surveyed (55 per cent).

This growth in significance is also clearly shown in journalists’ working patterns. Well over half of those surveyed incorporate up to date information from social media in their own reporting (59 per cent). Two years ago this figure was just 42 per cent. This means that social media are now used not merely to initiate inquiry, but also for producing the material. As was the case two years ago, Facebook is far out in front as information source for journalists (68 per cent), followed by YouTube (61 per cent) and Twitter (58 per cent). Nevertheless, only Twitter was able to show slight growth by three percentage points. By contrast, the other two platforms saw a slight decline.

Demand for pictures and videos continues to grow – The old journalistic adage that “one picture is worth more than a thousand words” is today truer than ever. For almost half of those surveyed (46 per cent) the demand for images has increased over the past two years. For this reason, the overwhelming majority of journalists (87 per cent) see it as important that press releases contain images, as well as links to further information (90 per cent). As many as 41 per cent would like video as back-up material, whereas in 2016 this figure was just 33 per cent.

Press office as service provider: What journalists desire – Has cooperation between newsrooms and companies improved by comparison with 2016? Just 60 per cent of survey participants are currently critical of slow responses to requests for information, down from 67 per cent in 2016. Nevertheless many working in the media continue to see shortcomings in the service concepts of communicators. For example, 43 per cent call for improved accessibility, and more than a third (36 per cent) say the press spokesperson should also be knowledgeable about the sector.

How will journalists work in the future? – Journalists are increasingly all-rounders. This is shown not only in the increased significance of multimedia and social media. By comparison with 2016, the number of journalists working exclusively for the print media has halved. More than 60 per cent now produce for both print and online. In addition, the number of media creators producing their own videos has increased by 44 per cent. Two clear trends emerge with respect to future technologies for newsroom routine: More than half of those surveyed believe that both data and mobile journalism will increase in significance over the years ahead.

About “Research 2018”:

Initiator: news aktuell
Title: “Research 2018: Inputting visual stories into the media”
Participants: 554 journalists in Germany
Method: Online questionnaire
Period: November 2017

All survey results in the new white paper “Research 2018 – Inputting visual stories into the media”: https://www.newsaktuell.de/academy/wp/recherche2018

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Release ID: 261508