Eat The Press

America: Bloggers, Citizen Journos All Right By Us!

Eric Kuhn |  Posted Thursday February 15, 2007 at 03:14 AM

A new WE Media/Zogby Interactive survey says that 55% of Americans feel that bloggers are key to the future of American journalism. 74% of those polled on the same online survey believed citizen reporting will be crucial to journalism's future.

"When it comes to blogs and journalism, the cat is out of the bag, the train is out of the station, the plane has pushed back from the gate," pollster John Zogby said in a statement to ETP.

72% of adults surveyed nationally told Zogby they were unhappy with the current quality of American journalism and three in four (76%) say the Internet has had a positive impact on the overall quality of journalism.

86% of 'media insiders' questioned felt that bloggers will play an important part in journalism's future. "The most important aspect of the phenomenon is that among the biggest fans are the professional journalists themselves\," said Zogby. "They are the ones who tell us that they use the blogs, they rely on the blogs, they blog on the blogs."

Sixty-five percent of those surveyed said they felt traditional journalism was out of touch with what Americans want from their news. 40% of those polled online said the Internet was their top source of news and information, versus 32% citing television, 12% turning to newspapers and 12% to radio.

Said Zogby: "Despite the squeamishness about content, about veracity, about verification and so on, this is a situation where the people are taking the lead, the technology is taking the lead, and the rest of us are running like hell to catch up. I don't know if we ever will catch up, but it sure is fun running."

The survey polled 5,384 adults nationwide from Jan. 30-Feb. 1, 2007. For more information in the full survey, click here. For a video that we're not entirely sure counts as citizen journalism but has Shaquille O'Neal wishing a very happy Chanukah "to all my Jewish people" click here.