Mashable posted an article today about how social media can enhance quality journalism. Vadim Lavrusik says that although gossip stories and fluff pieces are read online at a high rate, the most shared articles are the ones about hard news. When online users share hard news stories with their friends and followers, it creates referrals for that story that would not have been there before if someone was just searching on Google.
The article goes into topics such as social search, social media optimization and social content. Towards the end, Lavrusik has this to say about social media enhancing journalism:
Journalists have always “curated” content by grabbing pieces of information and contextualizing it into a story. The difference is that social media now provides efficiency in getting that information, often through first-hand sources who are micropublishing to their social profiles.
You can read the full article here.
Do you think social media is enhancing journalism? Why or why not?