This year, we wanted to learn more about how journalists are using new media, how it has changed the way they research and write stories, as well as how new mediums have been added to their responsibilities.
 
One of the interesting things we learned—with repercussions for how PR professionals communicate with, and provide assets to, journalists—is that roughly 60% of journalists say they now contribute to a blog or other on-line site. Thirty-nine percent of our respondents said they acquired these responsibilities in the past year and 71% added on-line work to their duties in the past two years.

They are also using new media to research stories: 93% use search, 78% use electronic press kits (digital news releases), and 41% use blogs.  Other options garnered less interest with only 26% saying they used social media, 21% podcasts or videocasts and 16% RSS feeds.  And, as noted above, new media elements in releases, such as web content or embed codes for video and audio, are beginning to be more important.

But the most interesting information came from our open ended question: how has new media had an impact on your work? You can see all the unedited responses here, but, to give you the flavor, the results were passionate but totally contradictory. In short, they either love it or hate it.

Most of our respondents said new media has had a huge impact, changing how they research and publish. In that category, are responses like these: