Back in the day, journalists used to have time to wine and dine their contacts. There was time to write beautiful prose and create well-crafted features. There was even time to break the odd story or two. Nowadays many journalists have become ‘churnalists’ and the job has become more like a production line. Time is obviously a very precious resource.
Surveying 110+ journalists
TheNewsMarket.com, a content hub for journalists, wanted to know a bit more about what makes journalists tick. So they surveyed more than 110 of them about how they use online content resources to support their editorial stories; what frustrates them and what elates them*. And the results are fascinating. Here are few of the highlights…
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The key findings
- On the positive front, 65% of those surveyed visit online content hubs on a daily basis. They tend to visit as they are looking for stories and/or they have received an email alert. And on average, they tend to stick around for about 10 minutes.
- The assets they find most useful are press releases (97%). Over 90% of them find text stories with video and images of use. 88% find video useful and 86% find images useful.
- Interestingly enough, whilst nearly a third of them mentioned that editorially independent content is the most important resource, over 60% of them say that brand-led news and editorially independent stories are of equal importance.
- They were also asked what frustrates them most. The top answer was: they can’t find useful content (57%). Whereas 42% of them say they are unclear over rights and restrictions as regards to free media assets. And 34% say they can’t download media assets in useable formats.
- As regards to registering for content, surprisingly the majority of journalists are happy to sign up for full access (76%). A mere 6% would prefer not to register.
- Finally, 68% of those questioned say they access content on their desktop. But the figures show the increasing trend towards using different devices such as mobile and tablet to access content on the move.
(*Total responses -114. Survey Date – October 2017. Breakdown: 42% online; 35% print; 10% broadcast, 8% blogger and 5% no answer)
