Finally, while the mainstream media and pollsters might be chagrined by their middling trust scores, they’ll be encouraged to know that they are still doing much better than the so-called ‘new media’. Both social media in general and bloggers in particular receive very low trust levels. The future of news may be digital but many Canadians are scanning social media and blogs with deep skepticism.
According to the referenced survey only 8% of Canadians trust bloggers.
Which begs the obvious question, indeed so obvious that the professional pollster quoted above didn't bother asking it: Have 8% of Canadians even read a blog?
Those of us who comprise the mostly unpaid army of bloggers are perfectly aware that we are a niche. Really thousands of little niches. Most people do not get their news or commentary from blogs, or at least from blogs not affiliated with an MSM outlet. It's why we call the MSM the MSM, they're the mainstream and we're the outsiders. So when you ask Bob and Mary Canadian do you trust bloggers, a term they're probably only vaguely familiar with, they'll say no.
Does anyone trust something they know almost nothing about?
What's impressive is that the MSM has trust ratings in the 32-33% range, despite decades of incumbency and powerful distribution networks. When most people are very familiar with your product, and still think you stink, that's a huge credibility issue. Bloggers are doing this for the hell of it and some spare change. The MSM is doing this for a living. If upstart amateurs have one-quarter the trust level of professional journalists, that says far more about journalists than bloggers.
Pollsters, ironically, scored lower than journalists.
The upper end of the trust scale is dominated by nurses, doctors and teachers. Trusting the first two is a matter of life and death. You don't really have much of an option when you're sick. Teachers trust levels have been steadily slipping for decades. This suggests that the public might be catching on that public school teacher's unions are mostly interested in protecting public school teachers jobs. They're a union after all. It's what they do. For decades thousands of otherwise unemployable educators, educrats and union organizers have profited immensely from the Norman Rockwell image of teachers.
The slightly pretty and somewhat slim young female teacher, the apple on the desk and the wholesome children dutifully sitting in perfectly aligned desks. How much of that image was ever reality is debatable. The Blackboard Jungle was set in the supposedly idyllic era of the 1950s. Still the image is powerful enough that it clouds the perceptions of people who never experienced anything like it. In part the Rockwell image of education is what we want to believe. Just as we trust doctors because we have little choice, so many of us trust teachers because we have to. Education is a near government monopoly. Most people send their children to the nearest state run school.
It takes two to trust. The actions of one person read through the perceptions of the other. It's surprising how long it can take for questionable actions to alter unrealistic expectations. But in time they do alter. With that trust goes an entire business and political model.
But don't worry too much. The bloggers will still be here.
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