14 percent of readers of major Norwegian newspapers believe that the ethical standard is lower at the online edition. That’s one of the results of a survey of almost 22.000 readers of 49 online editions, produced at the Oslo University College (link to text in Norwegian). The larger the newspaper, the less readers seem to trust the online editions.

As the researcher Arne Krumsvik notes here, it’s paradoxical (and more than a little worrying) that the newspapers that invest the most resources in their online editions, also have the most skeptical audiences. Skepticism towards the quality of journalism produced by online journalists is also very common in the business generally. Krumsvik also notes that very students at journalist schools want online jobs.

Some of the criticism of online journalism is unwarranted. But still it’s amazing that this is the state of affairs 10 years after online journalism was introduced. Clearly editors have done too little in promoting high standards of reporting. Generally they tend to stay leave journalism debates to print and broadcasting colleagues.

It would be very interesting to learn how the (probably) most critical audience of online news, active bloggers, view our online journalism. Some reactions have been noted here before.