Steve Rubel, Edelman PR's Director of Insights, posts an insightful chart from an international survey (PDF) Edelman conducted. It shows that "opinion elites," defined as college-educated people in the top income quartile of their country who report a significant interest in and engagement with the media, business news, and policy affairs — that's you! — mostly trust people like themselves. Who's at the bottom of the trust-o-meter? Bloggers, who fell well behind company CEOs. Regular company employees are given much more credibility. This is why Google's PR people slap engineers' names on those blog posts the marcom specialists type up, and why Nick Denton announces changes at Gawker Media by letting me "leak" them. Trust me, I'm a blogger.

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