As of June 2015, 63% of people today get their news on Twitter and 59% use Twitter to keep up with a news event as it happens live, according to a recent Pew Research Center report. It is no secret that social media has been and will continue to change the way people consume their news and entertainment, but how is it affecting the world of traditional journalism? There are three large components of how it is changing journalism; it allows for news and new information to spread quickly, it allows for more audience participation, interaction, and conversation and lastly it raises the standards of ethics for defined journalists. Twitter, being the most prominent news breaking form of social media has changed the game in skills of releasing information fast. Because of the real time updates from witnesses all around the world, journalists gather 80% of their information from …show more content…
Since so many people these days have social media there are many more “citizen journalists.” Citizen journalists are the people who potentially break a big news story or event and the people journalists get their information from. With the power of social media, it allows the journalists to not only gather the information from these people but also contact them and talk to them about what is going on directly and gather more information. It also allows the people to question something from a journalist or news organization. If someone knows that a situation has more facts or it happened differently than the way it has been posted, they have the ability to reach out to that post publically and inform them and the rest of the audience of more information. Social media also allows for journalists to reach a different audience, which tends to be the younger generations that don’t utilize traditional media such as T.V. or newspapers anymore