Bloggers should have same legal rights as mainstream media, survey says

Most Americans believe bloggers should enjoy the same Constitutional protection as traditional journalists, but a majority said they still prefer to get their information from the mainstream media, according to a recent survey reported at InternetNews.com.

Fifty-two percent of those surveyed in a poll conducted by Web hosting company Hostway said bloggers should have the same protection under the First Amendment of the Bill of Rights as the mainstream media, while 27 percent expressed no opinion on the subject.

But the survey suggests that bloggers are not taken as seriously as the traditional media. Thirty-nine percent said they found blogs less credible than newspaper articles, and 38 percent said blogs were less credible than television news. Nearly one-fourth found magazine advertising to be more credible.