Trust: Social Network Sites vs. Local Newspapers

You don't often find survey questions like the one below:

How would you compare news on social-networking sites to news on Web sites operated by your local newspaper – do you trust news on social-networking sites more, less or about the same?

It's an interesting question (entire questionnaire here), an apples and oranges comparison.  A foregone conclusion, you'd think; one is about trivia or people's lives, a bit about news but often about what they had for lunch, the other full of serious news but also horoscopes and sports and stuff like that.  The results?

Trust Social Networking Sites

• More:  4 percent
• Less:   38 percent
• Same:  36 percent
• Dunno: 22 percent

So I take some solace in the notion that only 4 percent trust social networking sites more.  I wonder about the 36 percent who see them as equal (and I pray they don't actually vote).  And I love the 22 percent who either don't know, don't care, or who find the comparison so deeply flawed as not worthy of their valuable time to answer.

Source of survey: First Amendment Center