Scoop hunters in the digital world

Abstract

Specialized journalists in getting exclusive news or scoops in newspapers represent the last frontier of the profession that resists the influence of social networks. This statement is expressed by five journalists from the largest Spanish newspapers who were interviewed during an ethnographic study about how they have worked several scoops published in 2012. In these focused and semistructured interviews, these reporters value the exclusive information as the most valuable content of their newspapers. Nevertheless, they express critiques about the usefulness of the social networks in their profession, they are reluctant to use them, they contradict the criterion of their own publishing companies and even they are in favor of keeping the scoops away from digital environment, option that media develop today.