STUDY: Has Social Media Changed Journalism for the Better or Worse?

A recent study by finance/investor relations group ING attempts to answer a question crucial to the PR industry: how has social media changed the nature of journalism as a product and the behavior of those who practice it?

The answer: more crowdsourcing, less fact-checking and, inevitably, more corrections/retractions.

We know why that matters to PR. Details after the jump.

Here are the numbers you need to know:

• 1/3 of journalists say social media posts aren’t trustworthy
• Yet 50% of them say social is “their main source of information“

On the corporate communications front:

• Half of journalists say consumer sentiments are more reliable than corporate statements
• Many research said sentiment on social media, where they can’t always check for accuracy (and sometimes choose not to)

The current motto, when it comes to accuracy: “publish first, correct if necessary.”