I don’t think people really trust the media — new or old.
Courtesy of Micro Persuasion, I found an interesting British study reported at E&P about the trustworthiness of media — traditional and new. In the study, “1000 respondents were asked what percentage of the information they received from various sources was accurate, true and unbiased.”
TV: Scored a 66 percent accuracy mark; this was on a line with information respondents received from friends.
Newspapers: 63 percent accurate.
Radio: 59 percent accurate.
Web sites: 35 percent accurate.
Web logs: 24 percent accurate.
I can understand the difference in the levels of trust between traditional media like TV and newspapers and Web sites and blogs. Blogs, for the most part, are not news-gathering media. They are opinion. Very rarely do you see any form of real journalism. And, for most people, b-l-o-g is a four-letter word, even in the U.S.
But, what that study says to me is that, on average, people only believe two-thirds — at the most — of what they see/hear/read from the traditional media.
One-third of what you see on the TV news is not accurate? Holy cow! That is discouraging, and very disheartening.
In addition to the staff reductions, competition from non-traditional media and labor strife, I think traditional media has a fourth problem to worry about.
– Mike
Technorati tags: media distrust, media, TV, newspapers, radio, blogs
