July 27, 2010, 4:43 pm
By CLAIRE CAIN MILLER
Where are people going to find news and information they trust, in a world with a dwindling number of print publications and an ever-expanding number of online publications?
Readers have not yet figured out the answer to that, according to a recent report released by the Center for the Digital Future at the Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism at the University of Southern California.
Almost a quarter of Internet users who also read newspapers would miss the print edition of their newspapers if they disappeared, according to the study, and 18 percent have stopped subscribing to a newspaper or magazine because they can read the same material online. More than three-quarters ranked the Internet as an important source of information, yet just over half said newspapers were important.
While most people get their information online these days, they do not necessarily trust their new sources of news. Just 39 percent of people said that most or all of the information they read online is reliable, the lowest percentage since the university began doing annual studies a decade ago. Fourteen percent said that only a small portion or none of the information online was reliable, the highest level ever.
If that makes you think that people read the sites they trust and distrust the others, think again. Almost a quarter of people said that half or less than half of the information they read on sites they visited regularly was reliable.
As for print publications that are trying to figure out a way to make money from the flood of readers that are abandoning print for the Web, either by running ads or selling subscriptions, the study offered a bleak outlook.
Internet users overwhelmingly do not want to pay for access to Web sites that they already view free, yet half said they never clicked on Web ads and 70 percent called Internet advertising annoying. Still, just over half said they would rather see ads than pay to see Web sites.
“Online providers face major challenges to get customers to pay for services they now receive for free,” said Jeffrey I. Cole, director of the Center for the Digital Future.
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