News Interest vs News Coverage Economy 21 Health care reform 21
The state of the U.S. economy and the health care debate in Washington shared the position of American’s top story last week. One-in-five named either the economy (21%) or health care (21%) as the news they followed more closely than any other. These two stories also received comparable levels of new coverage according to a separate analysis by the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism: 13% of total news was devoted to the economy and 11% to the debate on reforming health care.
News Interest vs News Coverage  | 113  | Economy 21  | Health care reform 21  | Michael Jackson 17  | 22  | Sonia Sotomayor 14  | 3  | 5  | CIA program  | Indonesian bombings  | Interest: percent who named story as most closely followed  | Coverage: percent of news coverage devoted to story 