The Seventh Annual Survey of the Media in the Wired World looked at the practices of more than 500 newspaper, broadcast, and magazine journalists, and found that nearly all agreed that the Internet had made their jobs easier and improved the quality of their work.
The study found reporters spend an average of 15 hours a week reading and responding to email, and that journalists are increasingly using the Net to conduct article research and to find sources and press releases.
The survey also found the Internet is helping reporters stay in touch with their readers: more than 70 percent of those surveyed said they regularly used email to respond to readers' comments and queries.
But the study's authors say the same efficiencies offered by the Internet--combined with a greater emphasis at most publications on profitability--have also led publications to expect more from their reporters as a result.
Most respondents said corporate Web sites were a key source of information when reporting breaking news. Only 44 percent said they would not consider using Web chat room or newsgroups postings as primary or secondary sources, and 47 percent said they would consider reporting or spreading a story that originated online, provided they could confirm it by an independent source.
"What we have now is a situation where the old mainstream journalism of accuracy and clarity now must deal with the new media of speed and timeliness," said the study's co-author Don Middleberg, CEO of Middleberg Euro RSCG, a communications firm in New York.
"You can't have a press conference these days unless it's really earth-shattering because journalists most times can't leave their desks," Middleberg said. "They're looking to get information online and going to company Web sites in numbers we've never seen before."
Steve Ross, an associate professor at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism and co-author of the study, said many respondents were also unaware of the ease with which an individual online could mask or "spoof" their identity.
"Many don't know how easy it is for people to fake an ID in chat room, newsgroup or email," Ross said. "While most of those we talked to said they didn't actively use those forums, many of them said they would report rumors from them."
The majority of those surveyed also said they had not received any training in computer-assisted reporting, which teaches journalists how to use specialized Web sites to find information that cannot be located with a simple search engine such as Yahoo!
Roughly half of newspaper reporters said they had received some training in using the Internet. Only 30 percent of broadcast reporters and fewer than 12 percent of magazine writers said they had received any training. Almost half of those who reported receiving training got it on their own initiative.
Ross said many journalists were unaware that a search for the text of federal legislation on Google would not yield a link to the full text of the bill on Thomas, an archiving site run by the Library of Congress.
"It's almost as if good has become the enemy of 'great,' in that almost anyone can muddle through on the Net and get some information," Ross said, noting that only 10 percent of those surveyed ever used Thomas. "What they're doing is using Yahoo links a lot, and they're not getting the best the Web has to offer."
The survey also notes that publications rarely provide their readers with hypertext links could be used go online and find more information about the subject of the article.
Ross said this highly useful tool often is excluded because publications are reluctant to give credit or help to their competition.
"A lot of sites they'd link to in covering a good-sized story might be a radio station on the other side of town or to a site owned by another newspaper," Ross said.
The study did not seek the opinions of "pure-play" online journalists who publish exclusively on the Web, something both authors of the study promised to remedy in next year's survey.
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