News Interest vs. News Coverage March 17-23
The big economic news story last week was the buyout of Wall Street investment bank Bear Stearns by J.P. Morgan Chase with the financial backing of the Federal Reserve. Almost half of the public said that they followed news about the buyout either very closely (21%) or fairly closely (26%), but the story attracted far less interest than the condition of the U.S. economy in general (78% very or fairly closely). Those in the top income tiers paid closer attention to news about the Bear Stearns buyout than did those with lower annual incomes. Among those earning $75,000 annually, 27% reported following this story very closely compared to 17% of those earning between $30,000 and $49,999 and 16% of those earning less than $30,000. Income differences do not affect the level of attention paid to the condition of the U.S. economy in general.
One-in Three Americans (34%) paid very close attention to news about the presidential campaign and roughly the same proportion (32%) listed this as their most closely followed story of the week. Republicans and Democrats followed campaign news equally closely last week. Coverage of the campaign well surpassed all other major stories. Campaign coverage accounted for 39% of the newshole and was particularly dominant on cable news television, where the campaign made up three-quarters (73%) of all news.
The Iraq war was the public’s third most closely followed story last week (11% called it their top story). Three-in-ten continue to follow news about the situation in Iraq very closely, generally unchanged from recent surveys. Public interest in the Iraq policy debate, which was back in the news last week largely because of the 5th anniversary of the war, was unchanged from its level in early December. One-in-five (21%) followed the Iraq policy debate very closely and 3% said this was the story they followed most closely. The national news media devoted 3% of its overall coverage to events in Iraq and 5% to the Iraq policy debate.
There was relatively little public interest in violent protests in Tibet against the Chinese government. Overall, just 12% say they paid very close attention to this story, roughly equal to the number who followed the news about pro-democracy protests in Burma last fall (13% followed Burma very closely). Just 4% listed violence in Tibet as their most closely followed story while, for the national news media, stories about China and Tibet were the third biggest news story of the week accounting for 4% of total coverage.
News Interest vs. News Coverage  | March 17-23  | 2008 Campaign  | 39  | 32  | Economy 24  | 16  | Situation in Iraq  | 11  | Bear Stearns buyout  | Violence in Tibet  | Iraq policy  | Interest: percent who followed this story most closely  | Coverage: percent of news coverage devoted to story 