Is there really a war between traditional news outlets and social media? The way we consume media is changing and traditional news is not as trusted as it once once, they need to get smarter in the way they deliver news to consumers to maintian relevance.

According to Rory O’Connor, Randi Zuckerburg of Facebook believes that ‘expert’ journalists still have their place, people still want an unbiased news source. I completely agree with this. However, the fact remains that many people trust news they hear via their friends more, so if a friend recommends they read a news story, chance are they will. The chart below (from eMarketer, retrieved 7 February 2009) shows that Australian consumers place trust in peers well above both TV news and newspapers. Interestingly enough, online news is also trusted above TV news & newspapers. None of this indicates that people believe journalism is no longer relevant.

In Australia, it seems many traditional news publications feel as though they’re in some sort of war with social media, and rather than embracing it, they simply want to discredit it. But the public has embraced social media, and so traditional media needs to as well to continue to be a relied-upon source of information. Many news outlets are missing out on a great opportunity to find breaking news stories on social media sites such as Twitter. When natural disasters occur – such as the recent Haitiearthquake or last years bushfires in Australia – the news is actually breaking on Twitter as people are able to share updates from their mobile phones whilst on the move. Eye witness reports appear online long before a TV station can secure an exclusive interview, and by the time it makes their 6pm broadcast, it’s old news. This being said, just because something appears on Twitter, doesn’t make it credible, and this is where traditional news has its strength – they have the resources to conduct further research and provide broader and more insightful information. But it needs to be delivered in more thought-provoking and non-traditional formats (no that doesn’t mean a slideshow that will generate 100 clicks for your news site).

Social media provides opportunities for deeper engagement with news content. Imagine, an article is published on a news website, the popularity of this article is based on how many times it is shared (via bookmarking, Facebook & Twitter shares etc.) AND read, rather than a traditional page view metric. The newspaper publisher creates a poll on the popular story to see what more information consumers want on this issue. A follow-up story is published, it is even more widely shared as the consumers feel valued by the newspaper publisher and they tell even more of their friends about it. Ultimately news outlets control what issues we’re privy to, but imagine if the general public were allowed to do the agenda-setting rather than media agencies? There would be MORE news publications, but they would be focussed on smaller niches, be more relevant and we’d end up with news we actually valued!

Traditional journalism still has it’s place. There are naysayers out there who will argue that. But we DO still need an unbiased source for our news. To remain relevent I believe news needs to be delivered in more convenient formats (at the moment that may be via Twitter or a Facebook Application) and cater to smaller, but more engaged audiences by supplying niche news.

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