Forrester Research has a new report out in which it asks what I'll call “information consumers” whether they tend to trust information based on the environment in which they find it.
Happily — for those of us in the news business — newspapers ranked very high on the 'trust factor'. I think smart media company managers recognize the value that trust has for their brands in the face of ever-increasing information choices that consumers have and will tend to nurture and protect that trust.
Mind you, less than a majority of Forrester's survey respondents said they trust the information in print newspapers.
Newspapers ranked highest among all mass media.
The most trustworthy source, according to Forrester was “Email from people you know” with 77 per cent ranking this source as 'trustworthy', followed by “Consumer product ratings/reviews” (60%), “Portals/search engines” (50%), the offline Yellow Pages (48%) and then print newspapers (46%)
Forrester maintains a 'panel' of several thousand people that it routinely surveys on a variety of technology and media issues. No data is presented in the report, however, on the size of the panel for this survey. (I used to rely a lot on Forrester's work when I was a tech reporter and they had, at that time, a pretty good reputation for solid research.)
For the trust question, Forrester asked its panel to rank, from 1 to 5, how much they trusted information from a variety of sources. The percentages above and below reflect the number of people who scored the given medium a 4 or a 5.
Corporate blogs ranked at the bottom on the trust scale with just 16 % saying they trust them. Personal blogs (but surely not this one!) ranked third lowest at 18%.
Results for the mass media:
- Print newspapers: 46%
- Radio: 39%
- TV: 38%