Research, Quality Standards, and Funding in Everyday Digital Life

MEDIA PROFESSIONALS Bitkom surveyed 1,300 journalists from all media sectors to find out how they navigate their digital daily lives, how they conduct research, and how the internet has changed their standards for quality and their funding. 

Journalists do most of their research on the Internet.Journalists spend an average of 163 minutes researching every day. At the equivalent of 2 hours and 43 minutes, this corresponds to around a third of an eight-hour working day. When asked about their assessment of whether they had enough time for research, a clear majority of 61% said that they often had too little time for in-depth research. Only 19% disagreed with this statement and stated that they had enough time for in-depth research.Internet use is essentialWhen asked what they primarily use the Internet for, 87% of journalists stated "monitoring the news and topics", directly followed by research work, primarily to find sources and contact details (85%) and to obtain information and additional material (84%). Internet use for in-depth research into complex issues is already noticeably lower at 76%. Journalists use the internet less frequently to check the credibility of sources (62%) or to evaluate a topic (57%).Digital tools not fully utilizedSearch engines and email are by far the most important internet services for journalistic research (93% and 90% respectively). Only between 46% and 51% of the journalists surveyed consider the websites of companies, public authorities, clubs and associations to be important for their research. Social networks are considered important by 29% of those surveyed, with the websites of political parties and politicians lagging even further behind at just 17%.Financing journalism Over two thirds of the journalists surveyed work for advertising-financed media, while more than half work for media that are financed by the sale of journalistic work, for example via subscriptions, magazine sales and online models. At 96 percent, almost all journalists stated that the medium for which they mainly work provides journalistic content on the Internet. The majority publish free of charge and without registration, 30 percent of the media use partially or completely fee-based models, such as freemium, paywall, light (low contribution or registration) and contingent or so-called "metered" models, i.e. distribution formats with volume restrictions. Of the journalists surveyed, 38 percent stated that they, as readers, would not pay any money for the online edition of their own medium. Only 44 percent, on the other hand, indicated their willingness to pay.