Print and Web Readers Differ
By Brett Bralley
Knight Fellow in Community Journalism, University of Alabama
[Download the research report]

Alabama readers who mostly get their news from the newsprint-and-ink version that lands on the lawn seem to trust their newspaper more, while those who primarily turn to the Web format seem to have less confidence in their newspaper.

This is what about a thousand Alabama newspaper readers indicated in an online survey that they chose to answer in March and April 2010. The survey, which was conducted by the Knight Fellows in Community Journalism at the University of Alabama, asked readers questions about their use of their newspaper, how they got their news, and what they valued in terms of digital and mobile media. The survey was voluntary and only given online, therefore it likely reached newspaper readers who frequented the Web more often and who were more Web savvy.

Readers were asked to indicate how credible they found their newspapers as well as indicate which format of their papers they used the most often. The data revealed that while respondents generally trusted their newspapers, their levels of confidence varied depending on which media format they used. Read the rest of this entry »