CNET is reporting that Hostway polled 2,500 Americans on blogging. The headlines tonight and tomorrow will parrot what CNET said - that 80% of respondents support at least some censorship. I am choosing to look at the bright side. I have worked on enough PR surveys to know that the sponsoring companies typically write the questions to generate sexy, media-friendly findings. Look deeper however, and I think there's a lot to be excited about...
- 30% of those surveyed read blogs. That's a lot, people.
- The majority, 52% of those surveyed, said bloggers should have
the same rights as traditional journalists, while 27% did not express
an opinion. Whoa!
- A minority, 39%, said that they found blogs less credible than
newspaper articles. However an additional 32% said they either did not
know or had no opinion. To me, this means that there is an opening for
bloggers to be respected.
Call me pollyanna, but I think there's more here than meet headlines screaming Americans Support Censoring Blogs. It will be interesting to see how the blogosphere reacts to this.
