The concept of blogs as marketing tools has found validation from new research that cites the importance of blogs to journalists - 51 percent of whom use blogs regularly, with 28 percent relying on them to help in their day-to-day reporting - ClickZ reports. The research was conducted by Euro RSCG Magnet and Columbia University. According to one of the pollsters, the study "demonstrates that blogs have an enormous potential to not only influence the general public, but to influence the influencers - journalists and the media." Journalists mostly used blogs for finding story ideas (53 percent), researching and referencing facts (43 percent) and finding sources (36 percent); 33 percent said they used blogs to uncover breaking news or scandals. However, despite their use of blogs, only 1 percent found them credible.