Twitter and the News -- Not

Half of Americans dunno what Twitter is.  The other half don't think much of it as a source of news.

A new report by the First Amendment Center includes some questions about social networking, including Twitter (scroll to the bottom for these questions).

Three percent see Twitter as "very reliable" and 14 percent as "somewhat reliable" as news source.  Thirty-four percent see is as unreliable (49 percent have no opinion, meaning to them Twitter is something birds do, not people).

Interesting factoid: African-Americans (11 percent) and Hispanics (10 percent) are more likely than whites (1 percent) to say Twitter is a very reliable news source.  This might impress you if it wasn't for the small number of these folks in the overall sample (10 percent of the sample black, 5 percent Hispanic).  The margins of error here are big enough to drive a truck through, making any interpretation of these numbers tricky.  But it is suggestive.  A racial/ethnic oversample might uncover some interesting trends, though off the top of my head I can't see any reason why one group would trust or distrust Twitter more.

Constitutional Knowledge

Asked what rights are mentioned in the First Amendment and, over the years, people have been okay at naming them.  Not great, but okay.  The First Amendment Center does this survey (full report here).

If you look at the table you'll see few dramatic changes from 1997 to 2009:

•  The ability to identify Freedom of the Press as a right has slightly increased from 11% to 16%.
• Freedom of Speech rose from 49% to 63%, then in 2009 hit 55%.
• Freedom of Religion has hovered around the 20% mark over time, with a few blips up and down.
• Right of Assembly/Association inched up from 10% to 14%.
• Right to Petition Doubled!!!  Okay, to be fair, only from 2% to 4%.

It's hardly surprising that Freedom of Speech gets nailed most often.  We almost treat the First Amendment and the right to piss and moan and speak out as one in the same.  "It's my First Amendment right," you'll often hear someone say.  It's a bit disappointing that so few people recognize the freedoms of religion and the press as being in an amendment that reads:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

 I'll discuss more of the trends found in these surveys as the week progresses.