Reuters reports that an online poll sponsored by We Media/Zogby Interactive has 64 percent of Americans dissatisfied with the quality of journalism in their communities. Nearly half of the respondents said their primary source of news and information is the Internet, up from 40 percent just a year ago. Here’s the twist:
Howard Finberg, of the Poynter Institute in St. Petersburg, Florida, said the public often doesn’t understand that the sources they are accessing online such as Google News and Yahoo News pull stories from newspapers, television, wire services and other media sources. “It’s delivered in a non-traditional form, that doesn’t necessarily mean there isn’t traditional journalism underneath it,” he explained.
Meanwhile, Edelman Public Relations has published its 2008 “Trust Barometer” (this link goes to a PDF) which reports survey results indicate that blogs, video sites like You Tube and social media like Facebook as the least used and least credible sources for information about businesses. So what do people find credible on the Internet: increasingly, it’s Wikipedia.
