Do You Trust the Internet for Your News?

An recent article in The Age newspaper titled 'Internet gains trust as news source', outlines the findings of a recent Reuters poll where 10,230 participants from 10 countries were asked to name their most trusted news sources.

Not suprisingly, national television was the most trusted news source overall for 82 per cent of the participants. This was followed by newspapers and radio. 25 per cent said they trusted internet sources, such as blogs, while another 23 per cent admitted they did not trust blogs.

However, internet sources were seen as the most important news source among 19 per cent of those participants aged between 18 to 24. No suprises there either.

I depend on a few blogs and aggregators to report and break news stories, especially in the areas of the web and technology. But like anything else, you need to choose your sources carefully.

Now, if a story I watch on TV interests me, I will sometimes follow it up online where I can see people's pics of it on Flickr, read eyewitness accounts on blogs and discuss it with others on Metafilter. There's a convergence of different mediums happening, which enables the viewer to also become the participator.

Do you follow up news stories online? If so, what other techniques and sites do you use to do this?

Technorati Tags: poll, news, sources, trust, convergence