1% Credible

Via Maz, in the comments, this item at Reason;

[A]mong the people increasingly “less trusting of the professional behavior” of journalists are . . . journalists! A survey of professional journalists by Euro RSCG Magnet, a PR and marketing outfit, and Columbia University, found that “45 percent of journalists are less trusting of the professional behavior of their own colleagues — up from 34 percent in 2003.” Many of these journalists were unhappy about the recent unpleasantness involving Dan Rather: “78 percent believe that Rathergate has profoundly altered the media’s credibility.”

I wonder if the survey included a question about how many professional journalists believe that the Rathergate memos were “fake but accurate”? That might provide a clue or two about this “altered credibility” issue.

The welcome news is that “93 percent of journalists said they are being ‘excruciatingly careful’ in fact-checking their stories in 2005 — a huge increase from 59 percent in 2003, likely a reflection of the press’s declining credibility.” The grabber here is here is that in 2003, 41 percent of journalists said they were being something other than ‘excruciatingly careful’ in fact-checking their stories.
The survey actually focused on journalists’ attitude toward blogs. “[O]nly 1 percent believe blogs are credible,” yet “more than half of journalists use Weblogs regularly, with 28 percent relying on them for day-to-day reporting.” Assemble those responses as you wish. Many pro journalists use blogs, the survey reported, to find story ideas and sources.

I presume those surveyed were excluding their own blogs in the “not credible” demographic making up 99% of their blog reading. The only thing growing faster than the blogosphere is the subgroup of professional journalists who are getting on board. There’s nothing wrong with that, but the least these latecomers might do is drop the sniffy ‘tude – the blogosphere exists because millions of their own customers are dissatisfied with the quality, accuracy and honesty in professional journalism, and have taken control of their own news gathering. They might do their own profession a favour by setting aside their assumptions about the imperfect nature of blogging for a while, and listening to bloggers and our readers. We are, after all, the very people they’ve been hard at work alienating over the past two decades.
Or not. Whatever. We’ll continue doing what we doing and they can continue fretting over ratings declines, staff cuts and dropping circulation numbers, and delude themselves that the two phenomenon are unrelated.
From the E marketer piece;

“The findings of the study validate what we have known for some time: that blogs are playing a more significant role in the way information is transmitted to readers and journalists alike, and may profoundly alter the media and communications landscapes,” said Aaron Kwittken, CEO of Euro RSCG Magnet. “The fact that the media are using blogs for reporting and research also demonstrates that blogs have an enormous potential to not only influence the general public, but to influence the influencers – journalists and the media – as well.”
The study finds that some 70% of journalists who use blogs do so for work-related tasks. Most often, those work-related tasks involve finding story ideas, with 53% of journalist respondents reporting using blogs for such purposes. But respondents also turn to blogs for other uses, including researching and referencing facts (43%) and finding sources (36%). Fully 33% of journalists say they use blogs as a way of uncovering breaking news or scandals.

You don’t say. Although things are slowly improving, there is a continuing pattern of blog chatter (and hard research) weaving its way into editorials and mainstream reporting without attribution.
Is it not time for the profession to establish protocols that give the credit due when they lift information from “citizen journalists”?