Newspaper\'s Journalists Using Internet as Information Source in Taiwan

This study examines how the newspaper journalists use Internet as news sources. This research sampled 169 journalists from the China Times and the Commercial Times through questionnaire survey with response rate 94.08﹪ at 1999. The survey showed that over 80﹪of journalists have used Internet to search for news sources.

The reasons of using the Internet for the news sources are enhancing the efficiency and competency. Besides, the speed of Internet also affects the journalists\' will of using it. The following web sites are journalists\' favorable types：(1)web sites which are set up by news media,(2)the search engines, and (3)the governmental public information sites.

They often use search engines such as Yam, Kimo,and Chinese Yahoo. Under 30% of the journalists\' news sources is now fromInternet. The journalists often use WWW, newspaper developed databases, and online databases to search for the general information, raw data, and context information.

Further analysis shows that most journalists search for the general information in WWW, Bulletin Board Systems, and Usenet Group. They search for the raw data in Newspaper-Developed Databases, Online Databases, and CD-ROM. They also search for the statistics in Electronic Public Records.

Very few journalists use the information from Internet for finding quotes or specific information on people. In general, the journalists show low confidence in evaluating the credibility of the information from Internet. They rate higher in credibility for the information which come from the Newspaper-Developed Database, Electronic Public Record, and Online Databases, than those from the Bulletin Board Systems, and Usenet Group.

Furthermore, the different kind of newspapers did not show the significant differences in using the Internet as news sources. But the journalists of Soft News teams rate the credibility of Usenet Group higher than the journalists of Hard News teams do. Besides, the factors of the job title, working experience, and age have different degree of influences on using the Internet in the respectively different functions.