This is a summary of the results I got in response to the survey link I posted earlier in this unit. The rest of the assignment is after the jump break.
Earlier in this unit, I posted a ten question survey online on Facebook and my blog. I received seven responses in the time it has been available to take. Here are the responses so far.
The first question, “How often do you check the news?”, got a variety of answers. Only one person said they checked the news more than once a day, the remaining pairs said they checked daily, weekly, or “only when I hear something important is happening in the news”.
The next question, “What kinds of news do you most often seek out?” gave the option to select multiple answers. Local and entertainment news were the most sought after, with five votes each. Three of seven people said that they seek technology news. National, international, and health news all got two votes each. Of the seven, nobody responded with sports news or other.
My third question was, “What are your preferred news sources?” and all seven chose online news sources as one of their answers. With four votes, tv was the second most preferred source. Newspaper and magazines/tabloids only got one vote each. Radio, blogs, and other were picked zero times.
Next, I asked “Which online news sources do you most often visit?”, and four of my survey takers said that news.yahoo.com was their go-to site. CNN.com, Foxnews.com, and Other – “local news website” each got one vote. None of my responders chose MSNBC.com, Reuters.com, AP.org, or News.google.com.
I then asked survey takers to “Rate how trustworthy you believe these news media are in order from least to most trustworthy.” The options were tv, newspaper, magazine/tabloid, radio, online news, and blogs. Newspaper was voted most trustworthy with a rating average of 5.43. Second most trustworthy was tv, with a rating average of 4.43. Online news was third, with a 4.33, and radio got a 3.33. Blogs were second to least trustworthy with a rating of 1.83, and finally magazines/tabloids only got a 1.71 on the rating scale.
My next question was “How biased do you think these online news sources are?” I listed seven news websites and gave a rating scale for each. The most popular answers (four votes each) for CNN.com and MSNBC.com was “sometimes biased”. “Sometimes biased” and “rarely biased” were tied for the most picked answer for Reuters.org, AP.org, and News.google.com with two, three, and two votes each respectively. News.yahoo.com seemed to be least biased in the opinions of my survey takers with the most popular answer being three votes for rarely biased. And finally, Foxnews.com got the most votes for “Often biased” (three votes).
“Regarding ethics in the news media in general… (Check all that apply)” got only one vote stating that “The news media is open and honest, reporting only fact.” The same question got four votes for each of the following statements:
· “The news media is honest but sometimes biased.”
· “The news media hides information for their benefit.”
· “The news media fabricates stories for their benefit.”
When given the option to give any addition comments on the news media, I received two responses. The first states that the news media reports to the best of their knowledge, but sometimes its not as accurate as they make it out to be. The second suggests that the news controls people’s opinions and the responder would not be surprised if the media benefits financially from hiding or reporting certain stories. The same responder also states that they find it difficult to determine, especially with tv news, if a report is purely news or just an opinion segment.
My final two questions were to find out the demographics of who took my survey. Six of the seven who responded were female. Six of the seven who took this survey were between the ages of 18 and 24, and the one other responder fell into the 45-54 age ground. 
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