A new study shows that over half of journalists are using social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter to source or verify stories. This shows the rising importance of new media not only for the journalist whose charge it is to deliver a quality story, but for those with limited reach and less voice to run their stories up the public flag pole.

In their Digital Journalism Study, Oriella surveyed 600 journalists and discovered that more than half (55 percent) used social channels such as Twitter and Facebook to find stories from known sources, and 43 percent verified existing stories using these tools.

26 percent of respondents said that they used social media to find stories from sources they did not know, and almost one in five (19 percent) verified work in progress from sources unknown to them.

A portion of an infographic on the findings appears above. The graphic can be viewed in its entirety here.

The same report shows that in the United Kingdom the numbers are even higher with 75 percent of journalists using social media to research stories. The authors appear to be ahead of the editors, however. Just 52 percent of surveyed journalists said their employer had a Facebook page while 46 percent reported a Twitter account for their parent company.