大象传媒

18% trusting blogs seems an odd statistic when so many blogs - especially from a UK perspective - are people's little self-indulgences about kittens and the fat bloke they saw on the train on the way to work.

Noticably, the survery also showed that the majority of people have no interest in blogging (by answering questions specific to blogging with n/a). The fact remains that this is very much a minority activity, that is being massively overhyped (and yes, I run one myself).

Bloggers learn very quickly how to sniff out a genuine blog. You take part in a wider conversation. It's a bit like natural selection. Mainstream media is mostly one-way traffic so there is less feedback. You trust those you know.

It's a little naive of on-line readers to "trust" website news more than newspapers. As an ex-journalist I now read two or three news websites including the 大象传媒. One of the sites is a direct AP wirestory link. Guess what?? If you have read the wires, you have read the newswebs as well. Even the 大象传媒 and CNN appear to rely heavily on the old fashioned wire reports, just like the newspapers do. It appears to me that websites have simply provided a new display window for the same sources of news, far from the early assumption they would be new and independent. The fact is a website can't afford worldwide coverage so it buys into the existing old systems. New is not necessarily different

It depends what you mean by trust and what that trust relates to.

Trust of a blog is in terms of good faith on the part of the blogger, and not necessarily simply in terms of correctness in the traditional sense. There is a strong personal dimension dependent upon the blogger's perceived reputation, and that cannot be present in the case of, for example, the 大象传媒 or CNN websites.

More is expected of the 大象传媒 and CNN websites than of a blog with regard to correctness and impartiality. It is mostly to these elements that the trust of such sources relates.

People trust the blogs more because bloggers are protected by their anonymity, that which makes them fearless.

If you really want to know what's going on, the Bloggers have the real news. They're not constrained by political intervention, big money. If for instance you really do want to know about American politics, take a look at Buzzflash it's veeery revealing! Newspapers as we knew them are dying. Now we select and cherry pick from the net. Now we get our groceries delivered via the net. So why go out and buy a paper that's loaded with adverts and general stuff that you don't want to read. In a few years these papers will no longer exist!

Not knowing whether we are pioneers in this area or not, a domestic news website I work for, , is attempting to settle these two areas. Our website gets quite a good coverage. In a country of about 300.000 people we get around 220.000 unique visitors per week.

We offer a free blog service, , for those who wish to blog freely with 50mb of free space for media files such as images.

Also, those who have blog accounts get a special button for each newsitem which they can click on to express their views via their blogs on the topic of the newsitem. Under the story, we then publish a box with the latest 5 entries connected to the newsitem for the casual viewer to read.

On top of that various categories which bloggers use are displayed around the website where it might interest the casual reader.

It would be nice to hear of other such projects on the internet where serious news websites are offering their readers a chance to express their opinions without editorial approval.