USA: Journalists tapping into social networks

An article published in the Chigaco Tribune today (29th February) describes an evolution in the way that journalists work. The old-school ?street-leather reporting? news gathering methods, like knocking on doors, meeting all the potential witnesses and following leads are being outdated by social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace.

?Now journalists are using social-networking sites as a tool that combines the speed and reach of the Internet with traditional fact-checking and, as with everything on the Internet, the absolute need for healthy skepticism?, reports the Tribune.

Perhaps this new reporting frontier should really come as no surprise as some estimates say that the number of Facebook users globally increases by 250 thousand every day and already counts with something like 60 million active users. Even more staggering are MySpace figures, that happens to have the same amount of subscribers, 300 million people, as the US population.

More and more journalists are learning how to reach out people and their friends through Facebook and MySpace. Like reporter Karoun Demirjian who uncovered a story about a Chicago based cycling subculture and a network of underground riders that would have never come to light had she not done her MySpace research: ?I was able to identify these people through their MySpace profiles and essentially spam them and their friends with requests to talk? explains Dermijian.