Credibility of Traditional vs. Online News Media: A Historical Change in Journalists’ Perceptions?

Current research is mixed with regard to the question of how the credibility of information published on news websites compares with the credibility of information offered by the traditional news media, although evidence is scarce at this point. The main goal of this paper is to verify whether the rise and expansion of news websites brought about a change in journalists’ perceptions of media credibility. The authors present results of a survey of a random sample of 106 journalists in Slovenia, asking them to evaluate the credibility of different types of media, to explain their reasons for rating particular media as more credible, and to describe their criteria for evaluating credibility. The key finding of this survey is that the majority of journalists still believe that the traditional media are the most credible; they hold a conservative standpoint in the matter of journalistic credibility and its criteria. The negative judgment of news websites may be partially a result of a will to defend the established authority of one’s own profession. It may also be attributed to the weakly developed online media scene in Slovenia, where the online media mostly