MUMBAI: With the US Presidential election around the corner Euro RSCG Worldwide has released an online survey of 2,000 US respondents.

63.1 per cent of the participants said that the news matters more now than it did five years ago.

This especially applies to women, the young and the less educated. What is intersting is that Americans don't seem to be reading the papers more frequently than they used to (equally split 35.1 per cent vs. 37.2 per cent).

Nearly 50 per cent said that they don't trust the media per se. However they place trust on specific TV anchors and newspaper columnists.

The internet unsurprisingly is growing as an information source. A third of the respondents now get a lot of their information from "unofficial" sources on the Internet -- such as blogs.

The most trusted media appear to be network TV news shows (24.5 per cent), daily newspapers (24 per cent) and cable news shows (20.3 per cent).

55.5 per cent of the respondnents have a group of trusted media. But they also "scavenge" for information elsewhere. The American is also likely to vote on 2 November. Over 50 per cent of the respondents felt that it was irresponsible not to do so. This was especially true of voters over 55 (73.6 per cent) than those between 18-34 (46.3 per cent).