Trumblog

Americans trust bloggers more than the Congress, Senate or the Media in general according to a recent survey by BIGresearch. That statement is going to get the press and what got my attention, but the good news is that over 70% of people don’t trust any of them.

Why is that good news? I am in favor of a healthy dose of skepticism. But when I thought about people trusting bloggers, who may provide no references or credentials for their news or punditry, more than politicians who in comparison have very open records on who contributes, how they spend, who they meet with, what they say and how they vote, not to mention the check on their trustworthiness provided by the media. That concerned me. The same is true for the mainstream media who are kept relatively unbiased or clearly identified as partisan by media consumers.

That bloggers seem more trustworthy just hit me as short sighted. How can the individual blogger, who you may know nothing about be more trustworthy than other groups with plenty of disclosure on who they are are what they do? Maybe doing the homework on politicians is just too difficult? Maybe a blogger’s independence and clear point of view gives the appearance of trustworthiness? Maybe the interactive nature of the medium bestows a level of trust? Maybe”trust” is defined differently for each group? Maybe trusting a blogger is different from trusting a mainstream news story is the truth or that a politician will do what they say regardless of what we know about the source?

But then the fact that more than 70% of those surveyed don’t trust the president, congress, senate, media or bloggers made it clear that the slightly higher trust in bloggers is overwhelmed by a high level of general distrust in all of them. That is the news in this survey and it gives me hope. Skepticism is alive an well.

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