BulletProofBlog the blog on crisis communications

According to a Zogby poll released this week, the most trusted name in news can no longer be found on the television or in newsprint. To the chagrin of newsroom directors and cable producers around the country, Americans have signaled a firm shift in their news gathering habits with a majority saying for the first time that they trust information found on the Internet more than any other medium.

For anyone still looking ahead to the day that digital media overtake traditional news sources in terms of popularity and reliability, that day has now come and gone.

When asked which news source they would opt for if they could choose only one, 56 percent of respondents selected the Web - more than doubling the number that chose television (21 percent) and more than quadrupling those that chose newspapers and radio (10 percent each).

What is most surprising - and newsworthy - about the survey' s findings, however, is the fact that Americans now trust the accuracy of online news more than any other source. When asked which information source they believed to be most reliable, 37 percent of respondents chose the Internet - again more than doubling those that selected television (17 percent), newspapers (16 percent), and radio (13 percent).

While some may find these figures hard to believe, John Zogby himself dispelled any notion that the results were skewed by younger adults or any other factors in an op-ed published by Forbes.com this morning. Rather, he explained the findings by stating that "The Internet allows people to seek information from thousands of blogs, [news] aggregators and social networks, and to migrate to those that share their point of view."

No matter the reason, it' s clear that we' ve reached the tipping point. The shift to digital media isn' t in the windshield; it' s in the rear-view mirror. Since online news first arrived on the scene, traditional journalists have stated that they still matter because they are the most trusted source for commentary and analysis. Now, that trust is migrating online - just as the traditional news audience began doing more than a decade ago.

If your communications approach is still centered on the stone tablets of traditional media, here' s your wake-up call. When crisis strikes, you don' t want to be caught flatfooted in a digital environment that your stakeholders now inhabit and trust more than any other. If you are still waiting for the aged news to tell you what is happening in the world today, you are missing a key reputation management and brand protection tool already available and at your fingertips.

Read my post last month for more information on this migration and for a quick guide to the basics of social and digital media engagement.

Dallas Lawrence is Vice President of Digital Media at Levick Strategic Communications and a contributing author to Bulletproof Blog.