Form influence on journalsts and the media?

[Spook]

How much inflence do you think the forums have on their readers and the press/media........ Do you think that reporters and journalists get some of their ideas from such as here?

Any journalists on here?..... I assume there are plenty as this is a media influenced forum.

 

[SusannaF]

I write books and occasionally turn in some journalism, as well as maintaining a blog. I've learned a lot from HHO!

 

[EPRider]

There was a thread on here from a journalist wanting info about duplicate passports a couple of weeks back.

 

[philamena]

If you start looking for it, you'll see that big "topical" topics on here turn into features in H&H a lot of the time. I don't mind that, within reason, as it's just another way of a magazing taking the temperature of the readership and seeing what it's interested in, in order to choose between prospects for stories. But it's the laziest form of journalism to post a question on a forum and let the forum do your research for you, or to quote forum users all the time instead of finding proper case studies.

Searching existing forums / fora can be really useful to journalists who need to dip a toe into a topic, or to get a sense of how people who know more about a topic feel about it: for example probably every local newsroom in the country has had the 'horse found with plait in its mane means thieves on the loose' call or email (sometimes from the police rather than the public). Digging around on a forum or two will show the reporter the amount of doubt and debate, which should make for a more balanced piece, or them deciding not to run it. Or when researching a consumer story, finding others who've previously posted having relevant problems can bolster the journalist's certainty there's a wider story to look at. I know this sounds a bit purist, but I think it's legitimate to search old boards and get a wider picture of an issue, and lazy just to ask for the users to stump up the bulk of your "research"!