The online credibility gap, APME study finds
Readers visit online news sources for their local news, no surprise there. But once you get into the details of commenting and networking, readers and editors diverge. This doesn’t sum up the entire report by the Associated Press Managing Editors, but it’s pretty close. The entire report is a whopping 89 pages long, but you can read the executive summary here.
I can’t say I am surprised. Throughout much of journalism history, editors have balked at using pseudonyms, and rightly so. But readers submit online comments with made-up names. Similarly, readers favored journalists joining the online conversation and presenting their opinions way more than editors:
In the editors, 27% thought it will be beneficial to good journalism online, 58% harmful, and 15% neutral. In comparison, 50% of the public said it will be beneficial, 36% harmful, and 14% neutral.
The good news: If people are looking for local news, they visit a newspaper Web site 37 percent of the time, more than any other traditional news outlet.
Also, 75 percent of readers regard online and print news equally, 15 percent of readers (24 percent of editors) trust print more, and 10 percent of the public and 3 percent of editors trust web reports more than print.
It would be interesting to compare this to historical data, but I would bet online credibility is increasing over time.