Who Do You Trust More: George Bush or Wolf Blitzer?
May 8th, 2006
According to this BBC/Reuters/Media Center poll, people worldwide tend to trust media more than they do government (61 vs. 52 percent). That’s not the case in the U.S., though, where government is trusted more than media (67 vs. 59 percent).
In the U.S., people generally trust local newspapers the most (81 percent) and blogs the least (25 percent). The most trusted specific news sources mentioned without prompting are Fox News and CNN (11 percent mention each).
Oddly enough, people have high trust in local and national/regional newspapers (81 and 74 percent respectively), but that trust doesn’t carry over to the Internet. News Web sites are trusted by just 54 percent of respondents. I guess the sites of those local and national/regional newspapers still have a lot of work to do.
May 9th, 2006 at 12:08 am
That’s very odd indeed. Perhaps people’s inherent mistrust of the internet has something to do with it.
Possible steps to correct it:
a> do not require subscriptions to access free content, find another way to do it.
b> set higher standards for banner advertising.
-ie, reduce or remove “disguised” adverts.
-do not allow those “winner winnder, “1-bajillionth visitor”, etc. banners.
c> Open up reader journalist relationships (some are doing this).
d> Understand that paper has a tangible connection vs. the intangibilty of the internet.
e> Allow users to have more ability to personalize the news site.
my $.02