In a recent YouGov online survey on social media as a news source covering around 70,000 people across 36 countries, it was found that over 54 per cent of the respondents use social media as a news source. While 24 per cent of them feel social media can separate real news from falsehood, 40 per cent of the respondents think social media are already filtering the news.
In the UK, those who have faith in news media are more than twice as confident in social media. The figures are about 41 per cent to 18 per cent. Whether social media poses a significant threat to news organisations depends on how you want to see it.
News media release news every day while the news is being shared on social media once in a while. The truth is only very few people go to social media for news. For instance, it is good to make it a habit to either listen to the news or get to news sites to get a daily update on happenings in your country and worldwide. You won’t head to Facebook or Twitter for news updates.
Giant news media now have official social media accounts to share real-time information. So, considering this argument, social media can never threaten news media. All of them have official social media accounts to reach their readers faster.
If you like CNN’s Facebook fan page and also follow it on Twitter, you will see it when any piece of news is tweeted or posted on Facebook. The news is being shared by news media via social media, so on which side do you place news? Did social media share it, or did news media share it?
Considering this scenario, you could say social media boost news media activities, and you won’t be wrong. Right now, it has become a standard for all news media in the United States, United Kingdom and all over the world to have a Facebook fan page and a Twitter account.
On the other hand, you could also see social media as a threat to news organisations because a lot of news has been broken first on social media before news agencies came up to give details. For instance, the death of Osama Bin Laden was first shared on Twitter. Sohaib Athar, a man living near Bin Laden’s compound in Pakistan, recorded the arrival of the American Helicopters and the whole operation. He tweeted it all out before any news media could break it. News from CNN and other news media about the issue were seen as mere confirmation. What makes news hot is timely dissemination. Nothing will be news to you if you have heard before.
News organisations can’t just break any news without verifying the authenticity to avoid lawsuits. Besides, it is even unprofessional to do so. Meanwhile, anybody can share any news on social media without waiting to verify. This is one of the reasons social media will always beat news media to it. So, in this regard, social media could be a potential threat to news organisations.
