During the 2008 presidential election, a journalist-only list serve called ‘Journolist’ was exposed. In this online environment, left-leaning journalists were discussing the formation of narratives which supported Democrats and damaged Republicans.
A new study has found that little has changed since then, and it seems Twitter is the new Journolist.
Katie Jerkovich writes at the Daily Caller:
New Study Finds Reporters In DC Might Be ‘More Insular Than Previously Thought’A new study of Twitter use by reporters based in Washington, D.C. finds that those journalists might be “more insular than previously thought.”The study found that by observing the reporters interactions on the social media site those journalists congregate in even smaller “microbubbles,” according to the University of Illinois News in a piece published Wednesday.The study looked at the online conversations of more than 2,000 D.C.-based journalists and found that Beltway journalism “may be even more insular than previously thought,” study authors Nikki Usher and Yee Man Margaret Ng shared.
Is anyone surprised by this?
Here’s more from the study, University of Illinois article by Craig Chamberlain:
Journalists’ Twitter use shows them talking within smaller bubblesJournalists in Washington, D.C., have long been accused of living in a “Beltway bubble,” isolated from the broader public, talking too much to each other.Their interactions on Twitter, however, show them congregating in even smaller “microbubbles,” says a recent study. The journalists within each communicate more among themselves than with journalists outside the group.That means Beltway journalism “may be even more insular than previously thought,” say study authors Nikki Usher and Yee Man Margaret Ng, “raising additional concerns about vulnerability to groupthink and blind spots.”…Their “elite/legacy” cluster was the largest, including about 30% of the journalists covered in the study, with The Washington Post, NBC News, NPR and The New York Times among the major newsrooms represented.A congressional journalism cluster included another 20%. The other clusters centered around CNN, television producers, local political news, regulatory journalists, foreign affairs, long-form/enterprise reporting and social issues.
This apparent progressive ‘cool kids club’ explains why so many of these journalists always land on the same side of any given issue, and why so many of them sometimes get something completely wrong, like the story of the Covington Catholic School kids.
If you have the time, I recommend watching Tim Pool’s analysis of this. It’s entertaining, and he is not as kind as I was:
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