Is Information More Valid in Print?

Most every morning I wake up, brew a pot of coffee, and check up on the news with the New York Times on the iPad, and I might look at the NYT crossword on my iPhone. I usually won't start the crossword until after my first cup of coffee, so I am a bit sharper. My news primarily comes from electronic resources, although Jen and I recently discussed subscribing to the Times daily delivery. (Man, that's expensive!) In the online content of the Times earlier this week, I read this article about the perception of printed versus electronically delivered news:

Bits: Readers Are Abandoning Print, Yet Don't Trust the Web, by Claire Cain Miller

This article raised the question in my mind: Why do readers see print sources (books, papers, magazines, etc) as being more authoritative over the same content found online? Take, for example, this quote from the article:

Just 39 percent of people said that most or all of the information they read online is reliable, the lowest percentage since the university began doing annual studies a decade ago. Fourteen percent said that only a small portion or none of the information online was reliable, the highest level ever.

I suppose my first question is to ask if this is simply a matter of perception. We live in a world where the containers of information are in flux. They were once books and newspapers, but these containers are quickly being replaced with electronic mediums - iPads, Kindles, and the like. Because we still associate books with authority (this being a reason many people keep books in their homes and offices) do we then trust print resources less?

Or, is it a question of murky veracity of online and electronic resources? According to the research I have read, many people have difficulty in discerning "good" information online from "bad" information. By this I mean when a source is reliable, or when it's just someone's opinion or is a satirical article. Does this difficulty lead to people distrusting all online resources?

I suppose there are two ways to look at it - the same content published in print and online, as well as content solely found online versus content solely found in print. This would help us discern if information being in print lends the information more authority, or if there are other issues involved. What do you think? Are you generally distrustful of information online? Do you still read a physical newspaper? What do you think this perception means for libraries? Information literacy?