The impact of social media on journalism today and how it will change the way we report in the futur

For better or worse, social media has forced its way into journalism and has become a new source of information not only for the general public, but for journalists as well.

While social media is generally seen as unreliable by nearly a third of journalists which is 32%, it still serves as a news source four roughly 50% of journalists. Fact checking has also decreased since the emergence of social media. This is corroborated by both the amount of journalists (80%) that have published without checking facts first, as well as PR professionals, more than half of which claim to be contacted less often for fact checking purposes.

Journalism is now driven more than ever by an increasing need for views and clicks. Social media has a great impact on journalism and it doesn’t look like social media in journalism is going away any time soon. In fact, according to this info graphic it will only increase more and more as time goes by.

In the future journalists will be more embedded with the community than ever, and news outlets will build their newsrooms to focus on utilizing the community and enabling its members to be enrolled as correspondents. Bloggers will no longer be just bloggers, but they will be relied upon as credible sources.

Reporting has always in some ways been a collaborative process between journalists and their sources. So in the future, journalism will happen in a collaborative reporting. This will also require a shift in the mindset of journalists who are used to deciding what news is and how news should be covered, produced and distributed.