Tuesday's quick reads: public trust in corporations, ghostwriting, and the personal touch

1.) Amassing a massive audience is rarely the right strategy. (Advertising Age) -- In the world of social media, scale is everything. Media darlings Twitter and Facebook boast, what, 30 sextillion members? It's enough to cause marketers to practically foam at the mouth. But is scale really everything?

2.) Survey: Trust in corporations increasing modestly. (Politico/Public Strategies) -- A new polls shows that trust in government has decreased since March, while trust in businesses has generally improved. Voters are also more inclined to believe business (68%) will play a larger role than government (32%) in the nation’s economic recovery.

3.) Lest we forget, a personal touch still matters. (Advertising Age) -- Marketing blogs are often trumpeting "digital-this" and "social networking-that." The Twitterverse is constantly buzzing, and Facebook updates come faster than e-mails. A writer asks: what happened to the personal touch?

4.) Senator probes medical journals for ghostwriting (Medical Media & Marketing) -- Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) asked eight journals to provide information about their medical ghostwriting practices and policies, in an effort to “shed light on the role companies may play in the dissemination of information about their products through medical literature.”