Into the lions’ den
Jinfo Blog

2nd April 2010

By Tim Buckley Owen

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Can you trust social media as a source of intelligence? Reuters has recently issued guidelines to its journalists implying that they can’t afford to ignore them. ‘We encourage the use of social media approaches in Reuters journalism,’ says Dean Wright, who leads on standards for the news organisation. He also comments that some competitors have been ‘more proscriptive’ with their rules or guidelines (http://digbig.com/5bbgmf). He may have been thinking of the Financial Times, whose news editor Robert Shrimsley warned his journalists back in October 2008 that ‘I read it on Wikipedia’ would not play well as an excuse when confronted with a demand for a correction (http://www.vivavip.com/go/e14595). Wikipedia can be a good starting point for research, but should not be used as an attributable source, says the Reporting from the Internet section of Reuters’ Handbook of Journalism. So move on instead to official websites or other sources that are worthy of attribution (http://digbig.com/5bbgmg). It’s good advice, and there’s more. Clear such activity with your manager. Don’t misrepresent yourself in a chat room or ‘pick locks’ in pursuit of information. Do a reality check on the information you glean from social sources. Is it within the bounds of what was expected? Information managers pondering the ‘free vs fee’ dilemma may also want to take note of the Handbook’s strictures against Reuters journalists breaking news on Twitter. Break it first via Reuters’ proprietary channels, it says – ‘Don’t scoop the wire’. But if social media are OK sources for journalists, what about the rest of us? Last year’s FreePint survey of news needs and preferences showed web versions of print products still earning by far the highest average rating among respondents, with independent professional blogs ‘a distant second’ (report summarised in VIP magazine 72 – http://web.vivavip.com/go/shop/magazine/72 – or available to purchase in full at http://web.vivavip.com/go/shop/report/1524). Perhaps the Pew Research Center’s State of the News Media report for 2010 helps explain why. Although the leading news stories in the blogosphere and on Twitter tend to differ substantially from the mainstream press, bloggers’ main sources are disappointingly predictable: the New York Times, CNN, the BBC (http://digbig.com/5bbgmh). But when it comes to niches, we all have our favourite experts. ContentBlogger (http://shore.com/commentary/weblogs/), Content Matters (http://www.contentmatters.info/) and Techcrunch (http://www.techcrunch.com) are among those favoured by LiveWire contributing editors, for instance. So what about yours? You could do worse than try Business Pundit’s 75 Best Business Blogs of 2009 (http://digbig.com/5bbgmk) – featured recently in LiveWire’s sister publication ResourceShelf (http://digbig.com/5bbgmj) – or the 50 best business blogs highlighted by Strategist News last June (http://digbig.com/5bbgmm), to mention a couple. Or simply try a search in your chosen field on Google Blogs and – bearing in mind the Reuters’ Handbook’s good advice – see what happens.

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