In response to Lucas Grindley‘s comment on my gnomic post Blogging and the future of journalism, I should perhaps unpack my thoughts better.

Lucas: From what I can glean, your point is that the numbers from the Zogby poll must be wrong because although people say blogging is important, they don’t understand the importance of a community of neighbors? And the journalists who say blogging is important don’t really mean it because they don’t blog?

The numbers aren’t wrong (Margin of Error +/-1.4%), but they are lower compared to other things that are important to the future of journalism, and the Zogby‘s press release spins them up (e.g. Press release: “74% said citizen journalism will play a vital role”/Poll: 34.8% said citizen journalism was “very important to the future of journalism.”). Blogs don’t do well as a news source, or on trust.

Lucas: I’m inclined to believe a poll when it comes from Zogby, which I consider a more credible source than my own friends and neighbors, or even you, as a blogger.

You’re right – this blog is one person’s unchecked, self-policed, best effort at accuracy (Margin of Error +/-???%).

Lucas: And this poll’s news about blogging seems to coincide with other reports about the recent explosion in page views for newspaper blogs.

Hmmm. Do the public see “newspaper blogs” as newspapers, websites or blogs? For example, I would consider David Carr‘s Oscars blog, as part of the New York Times website, not as a standalone blog, like Iain Dale’s Diary. Confusingly the same newspapers and big media that the public claim not to trust or be satisified with, provide much of the content they read with pleasure online.

Lucas: What does strike me as suspect in the poll is this assertion that people aren’t satisfied with the news. It’s not odd because I don’t believe it, but it is odd because it contradicts recent research released by the Readership Institute that says folks trust newspapers more than any other medium. Saying newspapers are doing a bad job seems to contradict with saying one trusts them.

Me too. It’s an age-old conundrum. They don’t trust the media and aren’t satisfied with it, but they keep consuming it on ever-changing platforms. They like communities but don’t trust their friends and neighbours to tell them anything! They don’t like big business but shop at Wal-Mart.

IMHO some of the problem with news and satisfaction relates to the content itself. We know people’s strongest psychological triggers are shame and disgust. As the tongue seeks out the ulcer, so news is often information packaged to prompt responses we’re not very proud of. Journalism may just be the messenger we’d like to shoot.

Although the current ‘trust’ polling crisis only really kicked off in the mid-1980s, there’s plenty of qualitatative evidence that distrust is the default relationship people have with the news.

I won’t go further because I’m writing a book about media trust, and can easily bore for much longer.