Future of Journalism Notes 3: Swedish business journalists and blogs

Just rounding up the notes on the Future of Journalism Conference in Cardiff last week - a short piece on this paper on Swedish business journalists and blogs.

Blog-Journalist Relations: Business News in Transformation
(Maria Grafstrom and Karolina Windell)

This study looked at the use of blogs by business journalists in the press in Sweden.
- used content analysis and a survey
- 187 business journalists, 79 replied. Response rate 42%.
- Covered all the main business news outlets in Sweden.
- 0 articles in 2001 mentioned the word blog.
- Over 1,000 articles containing 'blog' in 2006.
- 61% of the articles mentioning the word blog were stories about blogs.
- 16% of the articles include a direct quote from a blog.
- 23% of the articles referenced a blog.
- 63% of journalists strongly disagreed with the statement 'I reference blogs in my work'.

One Swedish business journalist said: "I have simply no time to read blogs. I have not yet seen any reason as to why I should prioritise something factual oriented less in favour of the more opinion oriented blogsophere".

The Swedish researchers said that journalists are referencing blogs but at the same time they are quite hesitant to admit that they do so. They claimed that there seems to be a difference between blogs and other online sources.