Despite calls to conceptualize credibility as three separate concepts-source credibility, message credibility, and media credibility-there exists no scale that exclusively measures message credibility. To address this gap, the current study constructs and validates a new scale. Results from a confirmatory factor analysis suggest that message credibility, specifically in the context of news, can be measured by asking participants to rate how well three adjectives describe content: accurate, authentic, and believable. Validity and reliability tests are reported, and contributions to credibility research are discussed.

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This study examines the effects of grammatical errors on the credibility of news stories and the amount of time and effort required to read them. Such errors increase reading difficulty and lower readers' perception of credibility as well as what they can recall..

Using four between-subjects experiments ( N1 = 106, N2 = 166, N3 = 159, and N4 = 164), this project tests the ways audiences process grammatical errors in news articles. In all, results suggest that readers perceive stories with grammatical errors to be lower in quality, credibility, and informativeness, but the number of errors needed is relatively large. Analysis shows amplified effects for people who report concern about grammar, and, to a lesser degree, people with knowledge of grammar rules. Given these results, the findings suggest a nonlinear, nonuniversal effect of grammatical errors on readers of news articles.