And nearly half are turning to the Internet for news. I find this statistic a little hard to believe. The reason I’m skeptical is that when I recently did jury duty I was the only one out of the jury pool who stated that I got my news from the Internet (and quite a few people were called before me).
Nearly 70 percent of Americans believe traditional journalism is out of touch, and nearly half are turning to the Internet to get their news, according to a new survey.
While most people think journalism is important to the quality of life, 64 percent are dissatisfied with the quality of journalism in their communities, a We Media/Zogby Interactive online poll showed.
BTW, I totally buy the 64% and I’m surprised it’s so low 
Haven’t the 36% watched the snow reports on TV? The reporters are interviewing people who are shoveling their walks as if it were news. And you have to believe that they’ve never driven in the snow when they warn their viewers not to drive after a 1 inch snowfall.
Updated: Well, I’m not the most observant blogger on the world wide web! The much more observant Alan pointed out that it was an online poll which would explain why so many people are getting their news from the Internet.
posted March 2, 2008 at 5:38 pm
If it was an online poll, it would obviously be biased toward people who use the internet, and even further biased toward people who are active enough to take part in online polls. It’s easy to see why it produced such high numbers. The results would be very different if they just walked around with a clipboard and asked people at random.
posted March 2, 2008 at 5:52 pm
OK, you would think that I would have noticed that it was an online poll but I totally skipped that part of the sentence! Duh! You’re right, the statistic makes a heck of a lot more sense now.
posted March 3, 2008 at 12:59 am
Well, remember, most folks on juries are people who did not have the brains to avoid it so it is not surprising that they do not get their news from the internet. Porn sites don’t carry a lot of news.
The snow reports on the news are hilarious, especially here in Wisconsin where snow is a permanent feature of our lives (we worry about it in July saying, “Sure, it’s 95, but tomorrow we’ll get a blizzard!”). But to watch the local news you would think the world is coming to an end even if we only get flurries in January. After a major story about snow shovels, it is pretty hard to take anything anyone says on the news seriously other than the weatherman, who is often the rare voice of reason.