‘Facebook’: A complete waste of time or an invaluable tool for journalists?

Today I have been sent four drinks, a bunch of flowers and a pair of otters. I’ve discovered that my friend Nick is bored at work, Jenny is counting down the days to her birthday in seven months time and Alice is ill, but happy none the less. All seems a complete waste of time doesn’t it?

But amazingly Facebook has nearly 40 million viewers, it is currently the 7th most visited website in the world and as a nation we are spending 233 million hours scouring the site every month. And it’s not just for the kids anymore. More importantly, the growth of Facebook points to a cultural shift. Today, people of all ages are getting increasingly comfortable with the idea of interacting with each other online; a trend we haven’t really seen before.

But despite the growth and the hype, we have to ask ourselves: What's in it for journalists? And what’s in it for Journalism as an industry?

Facebook has ultimately become a society within a society and within this Internet society are hundreds of stories that we may not hear about in the “real world”. Now it’s true that social networks have been key to journalists forever. I mean what journalist does not have a network of sources? However, what Facebook enables us to do is make it easy to expand this network and to send and receive messages to and from the entire network very quickly.

This social networking can also be an invaluable tool when looking for information for a story. With the site being used by so many, there is a good chance that someone caught up in the news for whatever right or wrong reason, could well have a Facebook page - a place on which they house their personal online identity.

But is there a danger in using this medium? As journalists, do we sometimes put the story before feelings of insensitivity in approaching potential sources? A number of publications used Facebook to their advantage during the Virginia Tech shootings. In the aftermath of the event, support groups were started by local students and through the site they were contacted to give their input on how the shootings affected them. In a backlash, groups were started by the same students in disgust over this tasteless 'new form of journalism’. A site that appears to be no more than flowers, drinks and otters, was being used as a instrument for covering mass murder.

However with a network spanning the globe, if used in the right ways, this tool could turn out to be invaluable. Any major news topic will have people wanting to voice their opinion. When working on articles, browsing for related Facebook groups may well provide good sources of information; sources that would not have been previously avaliable.

Facebook can also be credited for the way in which it has brought journalists together. The NUJ (National Union of Journalists) group on Facebook has 912 members whilst Journalism.co.uk has 1,202. Additionally, a group titled ‘Journalists and Facebook’ that discusses this so called ‘Facebook Journalism’ has proved immensely popular with those discussing their experiences. What’s more it could also prove to be a very useful tool for writers and editors alike, looking to connect with fellow workers they do not yet know. A quick search on Facebook opens up a world of journalists and editors. A quick look at their friends list opens up an awful lot more.

What Facebook has at the moment is potential; potential to open up a whole new world of online journalism. For most of us it connects us to people we know, re-unites us with people we forgot about and to information we care about. But perhaps the site really is nothing more than this? Surely it doesn’t have to always be journalism and surely it's okay to be selective with the technology and digital tools we use as journalists.

But if we are to report on the world we live in, then we have to fully live in it. And anything we can do to open the doors to our newsrooms, and give people a glimpse inside, is an asset to readers. And with the incredible popularity of Facebook it has become part of our world, thus it becomes impossible to ignore it. At the moment it helps you find sources. Hopefully one day it will also help better sources find you.