[icernet] Study finds many rely on Web for news

[Arul Selvan]

As many as 61% of people surveyed say that the Internet is just as important
a news source as TV and newspapers, according to Editor & Publisher
Online. The UCLA Center for Communication Policy conducted the telephone
survey of 2,000 households from April to June. Participants put more
importance on Web info than radio and magazines; however, only 53% of those
who deem the Web important say they trust most of what they read online,
down 5% from the year before. Amid worries over increased identity theft,
Beau Brendler, director of the nonprofit Consumer WebWatch online
credibility project, said, "It should be a potent signal to Web sites that
they should do a better job ensuring that information is credible and Web
sites are safe and secure." Some subjects said that the key to finding
trustworthy information was to look it up from credible new sources and
journals. According to the study, 30% of those surveyed don't use the
Internet because they don't have access to it, but  half of them plan to get
it within the next year.

Source:
http://www.editorandpublisher.com/editorandpublisher/headlines/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1807342