News Interest vs. News Coverage
About a third (34%) say they followed stories about the continued attempts by pirates to hijack ships more closely than any other story last week, while 27% say they followed stories about the U.S. economy most closely. More than half of the public (52%) says they followed economic news very closely, while about four-in-ten (41%) say they followed news about the pirates very closely.
In terms of coverage, a separate content analysis by Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism finds that stories about the economic crisis took up 18% of the newshole last week, stories about the pirates took up 16% and stories about the tea party protests took up 7%. The protest stories made up a significantly larger share – 14% – of the cable network newshole.
About one-in-ten (9%) say they followed the tea party protests more closely than any other story, while just more than a quarter (27%) say they followed the protests very closely.
News Interest vs. News Coverage  | April 13-19  | Pirates  | 16  | 34  | Economy 27  | 18  | C  | Tea parties  | 3  | 6  | Obama abroad  | 3  | Cuba policy  | 2  | CIA memos  | Interest: percent who named story as most closely followed  | Coverage: percent of news coverage devoted to story 