Newspapers most trusted news source: poll

Newspapers are the most trusted source of news for most American adults, according to polling firm Lincoln Park Strategies of Washington, D.C., which interviewed more than 1,000 people.

The poll was commissioned by Craig Newmark, founder of Craigslist, who's become very involved with fact-checking, working with PolitiFact and calling for a conference.

Twenty-two percent overall called newspapers “very credible” for reporting on politics and elections, and 33 percent of respondents 18-35 years old preferred newspaper coverage to other media, such as network news (27 percent), cable news (23 percent), and Internet news sites (18 percent).

Overall, the ranking of more trusted news sources were Newspapers (22 percent), network news (21 percent), cable news (20.5 percent), talk radio (12.5 percent), Internet news sites (12.5 percent), and social media (5.5 percent).

Andrew Beaujon from Poynter commented, "Some newspaper managers may involuntarily cough up a little blood at an admonition to invest in fact-checking from a guy whose service has contributed to plunging bottom lines industry-wide."

How TV covers presidential candidates

Evening TV network newscasts about the presidential nominating contests have declined, according to a paper by George Mason University scholars, who found that news outlets often promise to focus on substantive issues and avoid polling numbers, but data show that “horse-race coverage has been dominant in the last three primary campaign cycles: 71 percent of the primary coverage in 2008 focused on the horse race, just slightly below the 78 percent we recorded in 2000 and 77 in 2004.”