Last but not least: User content distracts journalists from their actual tasks

The reviewing and editing of self-generated content that users of online news sites send to the relevant editorial offices distracts the journalists working there from their actual tasks. This is the conclusion of a study by British scientists that was recently presented at the "Future of Journalism" conference at Cardiff University, according to Pressetext.ch. Journalists have to sift through the increasing amount of user-generated content and prepare some of it for further publication. These activities take up time that they should be spending on other tasks that they believe are more important in their job. However, news organizations would be well advised to integrate user-generated content into their online presence in order to achieve greater reader loyalty, according to Hendrik Zörner, press spokesman for the German journalists' association DJV, in an interview with Pressetext.com. Editorial control of user-generated material is important in order not to jeopardize one's own credibility. However, due to the current situation, editorial offices have already reached their upper performance limit anyway. Zörner's advice at a time when there are reports of new redundancies and pay cuts in editorial offices almost every day: You would have to hire additional workers for the added tasks. Which, Zörner concludes, will be difficult to achieve in the current economic situation.