Friday, April 01, 2005

Internet ranks 2nd-to-last as trustworthy source among 18-34 set Dan Gillmor picked up on an important report for the Carnegie Foundation. Entitled "Abandoning the News." For any mainstream media (MSM) outlet that's doing some soul searching (which they should be doing) and that's looking for some survey data on the perception of their medium (newspaper, TV) versus the Internet, this report is backed by a revealing PowerPoint presentation that gets into the heads of 18 to 34 year-olds (obviously, a very important group).  Why the established media should care: In no small way, it articulates the the challenges that the MSM will face as a result of democratized news provision. Relevance to transparency: First and most important, trustworthiness is listed as one of the top three criteria in selecting information sources (it appears at the top of the list but it's not clear whether list order is an indicator of importance). Timeliness is listed second. While the Internet gets high marks for timeliness, it's perceived to be the second worst in terms of trustworthiness. So, given that transparency is about credibility and trustworthiness... well, now you understand the relevance. 9:34:38 AM    comment []