Meas uring News Interest Week of November 10-16 56
In other news last week, a third of Americans (32%) paid very close attention to news about plans for the new Obama administration, and another 37% followed this story fairly closely. One-in-five (19%) listed this as their most closely followed story of the week. Democrats were much more interested than Republicans in news about the Obama transition (48% of Democrats vs. 19% of Republicans followed very closely).
In other political news, 16% of the public followed stories about Sarah Palin very closely. The Alaska governor granted a host of television interviews last week, and by week’s end she had become the focus of 4% of the overall national newshole. Republicans followed news about Palin much more closely than did Democrats (27% vs. 14% followed very closely).
One-in-five Americans (21%) followed the wildfires in Southern California very closely last week and another 28% paid fairly close attention. Coverage of the fires accounted for 3% of the national newshole, according the Pew’s Project for Excellence in Journalism. Public interest in last week’s fires was nowhere near as high as last year’s devastating fires in that region. In late October, 2007 40% of the public was following the California wildfires very closely.
Meas uring News Interest  | Week of November 10-16  | 56  | Economy  | 43  | 32  | Obama transition  | 19  | 21  | California fires  | 10  | 30  | Auto industry  | 8  | 16  | Sarah Palin  | 5  | 24  | Situation in Iraq  | 5  | Percent who followed this story very closely  | Percent who named story as their most closely followed 