As reported by Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism, news is becoming a social experience, with many people finding out about news items through people they know or through social media. One of the interesting findings is that, while blogs shared the same lead story with traditional media in just 13 of the 49 weeks studied, newspapers and broadcast networks generated more than 99 percent of the stories linked to by bloggers. 

Only approximately one quarter of all top stories in blogs matched those found in mainstream media. Twitter had even fewer related articles. While traditional news outlets usually share leading news stories, on social media platforms that is rarely the case. During the 29 weeks that YouTube, Twitter and the blogosphere were tracked, they shared the top story only once. 

While many blog and Twitter posts track back to mainstream media, traditional news sources do not tend to pick up on social media headlines unless there is a large groundswell of interest. Over the year the study took place, only one story ("Climate-gate") gained traction in the blogosphere before mainstream media began picking up the thread a week later. 

Staying with a news topic is not a top priority for social media. Attention spans online are brief, and these outlets stick with a story for a very short time. For example, only slightly more than half of the top news stories on Twitter remained after 24 hours. 

The study concluded that while most original reporting is derived from traditional media, social media can influence a story's total impact.