Now, there seem to be new opinion polls every day showing that people don't believe what they read, or don't even read...

But this one , while not entirely surprising, is a little more disturbing than most.

We can't really continue to hold onto the belief that the great mass news consumers discriminates between the sources of their information, when there are simply so many. While the challenge for the established press is to fight to regain the credibility and trustworthiness audiences in the past gave us credit for, sometimes we have to just hold up our hands and admit that - yes - audiences gravitate towards the delivery channel that best matches their needs, prejudices and capacity for understanding.

Example - on CSpan the other day, Rod Nordland, Newsweek's former Baghdad correspondent was the guest on a phone-in about "where to now for Iraq". It was illuminating, but ultimately soul destroying, to hear the number of people who called in (on the "support President Bush" number) and didn't want to discuss what Nordland had to say, but dismissed his direct observations out of hand because "Newsweek is owned by the Washington Post..."

Of course, we have to work in the context of our audience. Doesn't mean we have to put up with their uninformed, small-minded, blinkered attitudes.