For the second time in a decade, the believability ratings for major news organizations have suffered broad-based declines. In the new survey, positive believability ratings have fallen significantly for nine of 13 news organizations tested. This follows a similar downturn in positive believability ratings that occurred between 2002 and 2004.

The falloff in credibility affects news organizations in most sectors: national newspapers, such as the New York Times and USA Today, all three cable news outlets, as well as the broadcast TV networks and NPR.

Across all 13 news organizations included in the survey, the average positive believability rating (3 or 4 on a 4-point scale) is 56%. In 2010, the average positive rating was 62%. A decade ago, the average rating for the news organizations tested was 71%. Since 2002, every news outlet’s believability rating has suffered a double-digit drop, except for local daily newspapers and local TV news. The New York Times was not included in this survey until 2004, but its believability rating has fallen by 13 points since then.

These are among the major findings of a survey by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, conducted July 19-22 among 1,001 adults. The survey asks people to rate individual news organizations on believability using a 4-point scale. A rating of 4 means someone believes “all or most” of what the news organization says; a rating of 1 means someone believes “almost nothing” of what they say.

The believability ratings for individual news organizations – like views of the news media generally – have long been divided along partisan lines. But partisan differences have grown as Republicans’ views of the credibility of news outlets have continued to erode. Today, there are only two news organizations – Fox News and local TV news – that receive positive believability ratings from at least two-thirds of Republicans. A decade ago, there were only two news organizations that did not get positive ratings from at least two-thirds of Republicans. By contrast, Democrats generally rate the believability of news organizations positively; majorities of Democrats give all the news organizations tested ratings of 3 or 4 on the 4-point scale, with the exception of Fox News.

A mounting body of evidence finds that the spread of mobile technology is adding to news consumption, strengthening the appeal of traditional news brands and even boosting reading of long-form journalism. But the evidence also shows that technology companies are strengthening their grip on who profits, according to the 2012 State of the News Media report by Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism.

The annual State of the News Media report is a comprehensive analysis of the health of journalism in America, which includes detailed analysis of eight different media sectors as well as an overview that identifies key trends and key findings of the essential statistics about news in the last year.

This year’s study also includes special reports on the impact of mobile technology and social media on news. Those reports, which feature new survey data, finds that rather than replacing media consumption on digital devices, people who go mobile are getting news on all their devices. They also appear to be getting it more often, and reading for longer periods of time. For example, about a third, 34%, of desktop/laptop news consumers now also get news on a smartphone. About a quarter, 27%, of smartphone news consumers also get news on a tablet. These digital news omnivores are also a large percentage of the smart phone/tablet population. And most of those individuals (78%) still get news on the desktop or laptop as well.

A PEJ survey of more than 3,000 adults also finds that the reputation or brand of a news organization, a very traditional idea, is the most important factor in determining where consumers go for news, and that is even truer on mobile devices than on laptops or desktops. Indeed, despite the explosion in social media use through the likes of Facebook and Twitter, recommendations from friends are not a major factor yet in steering news consumption.

Read the full report on the health of American journalism, which also includes findings on:

• How mobile devices are affecting news consumption
• The growing influence of technology giants on the future of news
• How new devices may be helping magazines
• The role of social media in news
• Which media sectors experienced revenue growth last year
• How a visually oriented year helped TV news in 2011
• How Native American communities are turning to cellphones for news

Chapters of the report:

• Overview
• The year in the news
• Newspapers
• Network television
• Local television
• Cable television
• Mobile devices and news consumption
• Digital platforms
• What Facebook and Twitter mean for news
• Audio landscape
• Magazines
• Alternative weeklies
• Community News

for Excellence in Journalism and the Pew Internet & American Life

Project in partnership with the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.

The survey, which looks in a new and detailed way at how people learn about community by breaking down local information into 16 key topic areas, also finds that the internet already has a strong hold in the local community. Web-only outlets are now primary source of information on key subjects like education, local business and restaurants. And greater disruption seems to lie ahead. For the 79% of Americans who are online, in addition to Americans ages 18-39, the internet ranks as a top source of information for most of the local subjects studied in the survey.

Read the full report for a detailed breakdown of the top sources of information for 16 different local topics. You’ll also find information on what the most popular local topics are, the use of mobile devices, the impact of social media and differences among demographic groups when it comes to what interests them and where they find their information. Use our interactive graphic to browse the survey results for each news and information topic.

Negative opinions about the performance of news organizations now equal

or surpass all-time highs on nine of 12 core measures the Pew Research

Center for the People & the Press has been tracking since 1985. However, these bleak findings are put into some perspective by the fact that news organizations are more trusted sources of information than are many other institutions, including government and business.

Fully 66% say news stories often are inaccurate, 77% think that news organizations tend to favor one side, and 80% say news organizations are often influenced by powerful people and organizations.

The public’s impressions of the national media may be influenced more by their opinions of cable news outlets than their views of other news sources, such as network or local TV news, newspapers or internet news outlets. When asked what first comes to mind when they think of “news organizations,” most name a cable news outlet, with CNN and Fox News receiving the most mentions by far.

Read the full report at people-press.org for more discussion on where most Americans get their news; what Democrats, Republicans and independents think of the media’s news coverage; and a detailed look at the public’s positive and negative evaluations of the press.

Whatever the future of journalism, much of it depends on understanding the ways that people navigate the digital news environment — the behavior of what might be called the new news consumer.

Despite the unprecedented level of data about what news people consume online and how they consume it, understanding these new metrics has often proven elusive. The statistics are complicated, sometimes contradictory, and often introduce new information whose meaning is not clear.

To shed more light on Web news behavior, the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism has conducted an in-depth study of detailed audience statistics from the Nielsen Company. The study examines the top 25 news websites in popularity in the United States, delving deeply into four main areas of audience behavior: how users get to the top news sites, how long they stay during each visit, how deep they go into a site, and where they go when they leave.

Overall, the findings suggest that there is not one group of news consumers online but several, each of which behaves differently. These differences call for news organizations to develop separate strategies to serve and make money from each audience.

Read the full report at journalism.org.

By several measures, the state of the American news media improved in 2010.

After two dreadful years, most sectors of the industry saw revenue begin to recover. With some notable exceptions, cutbacks in newsrooms eased. And while still more talk than action, some experiments with new revenue models began to show signs of blossoming.

Among the major sectors, only newspapers suffered continued revenue declines last year — an unmistakable sign that the structural economic problems facing newspapers are more severe than those of other media. When the final tallies are in, we estimate 1,000 to 1,500 more newsroom jobs will have been lost — meaning newspaper newsrooms are 30% smaller than in 2000.

Beneath all this, however, a more fundamental challenge to journalism became clearer in the last year. The biggest issue ahead may not be lack of audience or even lack of new revenue experiments. It may be that in the digital realm the news industry is no longer in control of its own future.

News organizations — old and new — still produce most of the content audiences consume. But each technological advance has added a new layer of complexity — and a new set of players — in connecting that content to consumers and advertisers.

In the digital space, the organizations that produce the news increasingly rely on independent networks to sell their ads. They depend on aggregators (such as Google) and social networks (such as Facebook) to bring them a substantial portion of their audience. And now, as news consumption becomes more mobile, news companies must follow the rules of device makers (such as Apple) and software developers (Google again) to deliver their content. Each new platform often requires a new software program. And the new players take a share of the revenue and in many cases also control the audience data.

Those data may be the most important commodity of all. In a media world where consumers decide what news they want to get and how they want to get it, the future will belong to those who understand the public’s changing behavior and can target content and advertising to snugly fit the interests of each user. That knowledge — and the expertise in gathering it — increasingly resides with technology companies outside journalism.

In the 20th century, the news media thrived by being the intermediary others needed to reach customers. In the 21st, increasingly there is a new intermediary: Software programmers, content aggregators and device makers control access to the public. The news industry, late to adapt and culturally more tied to content creation than engineering, finds itself more a follower than a leader in shaping its business.

Meanwhile, the pace of change continues to accelerate. Mobile has already become an important factor in news. A new survey released with this year’s report, produced with the Pew Internet & American Life Project, in association with the Knight Foundation, finds that nearly half of all Americans (47%) now get some form of local news on a mobile device. What they turn to most there is news that serves immediate needs — weather, information about restaurants and other local businesses, and traffic. And the move to mobile is only likely to grow. By January 2011, 7% of Americans reported owning some kind of electronic tablet. That was nearly double the number just four months earlier.

The migration to the web also continued to gather speed. In 2010, every news platform saw audiences either stall or decline — except for the internet. Cable news, one of the growth sectors of the last decade, is now shrinking, too. For the first time in at least a dozen years, the median audience declined at all three cable news channels.

For the first time, too, more people said they got news from the web than newspapers. The internet now trails only television among American adults as a destination for news, and the trend line shows the gap closing. Financially the tipping point also has come. When the final tally is in, online ad revenue in 2010 is projected to surpass print newspaper ad revenue for the first time. The problem for news is that by far the largest share of that online ad revenue goes to non-news sources, particularly to aggregators.

In the past, much of the experimentation in new journalism occurred locally, often financed by charitable grants, usually at small scale. Larger national online-only news organizations focused more on aggregation than original reporting. In 2010, however, some of the biggest new media institutions began to develop original newsgathering in a significant way. Yahoo! added several dozen reporters across news, sports and finance. AOL had 900 journalists, 500 of them at its local Patch news operation. By the end of 2011, Bloomberg expects to have 150 journalists and analysts for its new Washington operation, Bloomberg Government. News Corp. has hired from 100 to 150, depending on the press reports, for its new tablet newspaper, The Daily, though not all may be journalists. Together these hires come close to matching the jobs that we estimate were lost in newspapers in 2010, the first time we have seen this kind of substitution.

A report in this year’s study also finds that new community media sites are beginning to put as much energy into securing new revenue streams — and refining audiences to do so — as creating content. Many also say they are doing more to curate user content.

Traditional newsrooms, meanwhile, are different places than they were before the recession. They are smaller, their aspirations have narrowed and their journalists are stretched thinner. But their leaders also say they are more adaptive, younger and more engaged in multimedia presentation, aggregation, blogging and user content. In some ways, new media and old, slowly and sometimes grudgingly, are coming to resemble each other.

The result is a news ecology full of experimentation and excitement, but also one that is uneven, has uncertain financial underpinning and some clear holes in coverage. Even in Seattle, one of the most vibrant places for new media, “some vitally important stories are less likely to be covered,” said Diane Douglas who runs a local civic group and considers the decentralization of media voices a healthy change. “It’s very frightening to think of those gaps and all the more insidious because you don’t know what you don’t know.” Some also worry that with lower pay, more demands for speed, less training, and more volunteer work, there is a general devaluing and even what scholar Robert Picard has called a “de-skilling” of the profession.

Among the features in this, the eighth edition of the State of the News Media produced by the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism, is a report on how American newspapers fare relative to those in other countries, two reports on the status of community media, a survey on mobile and paid content in local news, and a report on African American media. The chapters this year have also been reorganized and streamlined: each is made up now of a Summary Essay and a longer, separate Data Section where all the statistical information is more easily searchable and interactive.

Read the full report at journalism.org.

Overview

There are many more ways to get the news these days, and as a consequence Americans are spending more time with the news than over much of the past decade. Digital platforms are playing a larger role in news consumption, and they seem to be more than making up for modest declines in the audience for traditional platforms. As a result, the average time Americans spend with the news on a given day is as high as it was in the mid-1990s, when audiences for traditional news sources were much larger.

Roughly a third (34%) of the public say they went online for news yesterday — on par with radio, and slightly higher than daily newspapers. And when cell phones, email, social networks and podcasts are added in, 44% of Americans say they got news through one or more internet or mobile digital source yesterday.

At the same time, the proportion of Americans who get news from traditional media platforms — television, radio and print — has been stable or edging downward in the last few years. There has been no overall decline in the percentage saying they watched news on television, and even with the continued erosion of print newspaper and radio audiences, three-quarters of Americans got news yesterday from one or more of these three traditional platforms.

In short, instead of replacing traditional news platforms, Americans are increasingly integrating new technologies into their news consumption habits. More than a third (36%) of Americans say they got news from both digital and traditional sources yesterday, just shy of the number who relied solely on traditional sources (39%). Only 9% of Americans got news through the internet and mobile technology without also using traditional sources.

The net impact of digital platforms supplementing traditional sources is that Americans are spending more time with the news than was the case a decade ago. As was the case in 2000, people now say they spend 57 minutes on average getting the news from TV, radio or newspapers on a given day. But today, they also spend an additional 13 minutes getting news online, increasing the total time spent with the news to 70 minutes. This is one of the highest totals on this measure since the mid-1990s and it does not take into account time spent getting news on cell phones or other digital devices .

The biennial news consumption survey by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, conducted June 8-28 on cell phones and landlines among 3,006 adults, finds further evidence that the combination of digital and traditional platforms is leading to increased news consumption.

The groups that are driving the increase in time spent with the news — particularly highly educated people — are most likely to use digital and traditional platforms. Fully 69% of those with some post-graduate experience got news through a digital source yesterday; this also is the group that showed the largest rise in time spent with the news from 2006-2008 to 2010 (from 81 minutes yesterday to 96 minutes). There also has been a modest increase in time spent with the news among those ages 30 to 64 — but not among older and younger age groups.

Digital platforms are supplementing the news diets of news consumers, but there is little indication they are expanding the proportion of Americans who get news on a given day. The vast majority of Americans (83%) get news in one form or another as part of their daily life. But even when cell phones, podcasts, social networks, email, Twitter and RSS feeds are accounted for, 17% of Americans say they got no news yesterday, little changed from previous years.

Moreover, while young people are most likely to integrate new technologies into their daily lives, they are not using these sources to get news at higher rates than do older Americans. Rather, those in their 30s are the only age group in which a majority (57%) reports getting news on one or more digital platforms yesterday.

The integration of traditional and digital technology is common among those in older age groups as well. Nearly half (49%) of people in their 40s, and 44% of those between ages 50 and 64, got news through one or more digital modes yesterday — rates that are comparable to those 18 to 29 (48%). Digital news consumption is low only among those ages 65 and older, just 23% of whom used one or more digital modes for news yesterday.

Print Newspaper Decline Only Partially Offset by Online Readership

Only about one-in-four (26%) Americans say they read a newspaper in print yesterday, down from 30% two years ago and 38% in 2006. Meanwhile, online newspaper readership continues to grow and is offsetting some of the overall decline in readership. This year, 17% of Americans say they read something on a newspaper’s website yesterday, up from 13% in 2008 and 9% in 2006.

But the online audience is only partially stemming the decline in the share of Americans who turn to newspapers; even when all online newspaper readership is included, 37% of Americans report getting news from newspapers yesterday, virtually unchanged from 39% two years ago, but down from 43% in 2006. (These percentages still may miss some people who access newspaper content indirectly through secondary online sources such as news aggregators or search engines.)

In general, daily newspaper readers tend to be older on average than the general public, but the regular readership of some of the major national newspapers — USA Today, the Wall Street Journal, and especially the New York Times — defy this trend. More than half of regular USA Today and Wall Street Journal (55% each) readers are younger than age 50 — a profile that largely matches the nation as a whole (roughly 55% of all adults are between 18 and 49). Fully two-thirds (67%) of regular New York Times readers are younger than age 50, with a third (34%) younger than 30 — making its audience substantially younger than the national average (55% younger than 50, 23% younger than 30).

The young profile of the regular New York Times readership is undoubtedly linked to the paper’s success online. Nearly one-in-ten internet users younger than age 30 (8%) — and 6% of all internet users — volunteer the New York Times when asked to name a few of the websites they use most often to get news and information.

Cable News Audiences in Flux

Overall, cable news continues to play a significant role in peoples’ news habits — 39% say they regularly get news from a cable channel. But the proportions saying they regularly watch CNN, MSNBC and CNBC have slipped substantially from two years ago, during the presidential election.

Only Fox News has maintained its audience size, and this is because of the increasing number of Republicans who regularly get news there. Four-in-ten Republicans (40%) now say they regularly watch Fox News, up from 36% two years ago and just 18% a decade ago. Just 12% of Republicans regularly watch CNN, and just 6% regularly watch MSNBC.

As recently as 2002, Republicans were as likely to watch CNN (28%) as Fox News (25%). The share of Democrats who regularly watch CNN or Fox News has fallen from 2008.
 
In terms of specific programs, Fox News hosts Sean Hannity, Glenn Beck and Bill O’Reilly have succeeded in attracting conservative and attentive audiences. This is also the case for radio host Rush Limbaugh.

Most of those who regularly watch O’Reilly (63%) and Hannity (65%) are 50 or older; 44% of the public is 50 or older. By contrast, the “Daily Show” and “Colbert Report” have the youngest audiences of any outlet included in the survey. Large majorities of those who say they regularly watch the “Colbert Report” (80%) and the “Daily Show” (74%) are younger than 50; 55% of public is 18 to 49.

News Audiences’ Political Views

Ideology continues to be closely associated with people’s choice of certain news sources. Eight-in-ten Americans (80%) who regularly listen to Rush Limbaugh or watch Sean Hannity are conservative — roughly twice the national average of 36%. And at the other end of the spectrum, the New York Times, Keith Olbermann, the “Daily Show,” the “Colbert Report” and Rachel Maddow have regular audiences that include nearly twice the proportion of liberals than in the public.

News audiences also vary widely when it comes to opinions about current issues and topics. For instance, those who describe themselves as supporters of the Tea Party movement make up disproportionately large proportions of the audiences for Limbaugh’s radio show and Fox News opinion programs. This also is the case for supporters of the NRA (National Rifle Association).

By contrast, supporters of gay rights make up large shares of regular New York Times readers, viewers of the “Colbert Report” and NPR listeners. Several ideologically divergent news audiences — including Wall Street Journal readers and viewers of the “Colbert Report” and Glenn Beck’s show — include larger-than-average percentages of self-described libertarians.

News Outlets’ Appeal: From Breaking News to Entertainment

News audiences are drawn to different sources for different reasons. A substantial majority (64%) of regular CNN viewers say they turn to the network for the latest news and headlines; far fewer say they turn to CNN for in-depth reporting (10%), interesting views and opinions (6%) or entertainment (4%). Similarly, the main appeal of network evening news, USA Today and daily newspapers is the latest news and headlines.

Regular Fox News viewers offer somewhat different reasons for tuning into that network: 44% say they go to Fox News for the latest news, but a sizable minority (22%) volunteers several reasons or say that all apply.

Regular readers of the Wall Street Journal and New York Times are drawn particularly by in-depth reporting; 37% and 33%, respectively, say they mostly read those papers for in-depth reporting, the highest percentages for any new outlet.

For the audiences of evening cable programs — whether liberal or conservative — interesting views and opinions are the primary appeal. That is the case for regular listeners of Rush Limbaugh as well, although many Limbaugh listeners cite multiple reasons or say that all apply.

For some news audiences, such as regular NPR listeners, no single reason stands out as to why people watch, read or listen: 28% of regular NPR listeners cite several, or all, of the reasons listed, while nearly as many say they listen for the latest news (21%) or for in-depth reporting (20%).

Entertainment is by far the biggest reason why regular viewers of the “Colbert Report” and the “Daily Show” tune into those programs; 53% of the regular Colbert audience and 43% of the “Daily Show” audience say they mostly watch those programs for entertainment. Yet entertainment also is a factor for many regular viewers of morning news shows (18%), readers of USA Today (16%) and other audiences.

Fewer Liberals Enjoying the News

Overall, the share of Americans who say keeping up with the news is something they enjoy a lot has dipped, from a consistent 52% in recent biennial news consumption surveys, including 2008, to 45% in 2010.

The decline is linked to partisanship and ideology: in 2008 67% of liberal Democrats said they enjoyed the news a lot, compared with just 45% today. By contrast, about as many conservative Republicans say they enjoy keeping up with the news today as did so two years ago (57% now, 56% then). This has resulted in a switch in news enjoyment. Today, conservative Republicans enjoy keeping up with the news more than any other ideological and partisan group; just two years ago it was the liberal Democrats who held that distinction.

Other Key Findings

• While 26% of all Americans say they read a print newspaper yesterday, that figure falls to just 8% among adults younger than 30.
• Far more men (50%) than women (39%) get news on digital platforms, such as the internet and mobile technology, on any given day. Men are more likely to get news by cell phone, email, RSS feeds or podcasts than are women. But men and women are equally likely to get news through Twitter or social networking sites.
• More people say they mostly get news “from time to time” rather than at “regular times.” The percentage of so-called news grazers has increased nine points (from 48% to 57%) since 2006.
• Search engines are playing a substantially larger role in people’s news gathering habits — 33% regularly use search engines to get news on topics of interest, up from 19% in 2008.
• About three-in-ten adults (31%) access the internet over their cell phone, but just 8% get news there regularly.
• Most Facebook and Twitter users say they hardly ever or never get news there.
• One-in-four adults (25%) who have Tivos or DVRs say they program them to record news programs.
• About eight-in-ten (82%) say they see at least some bias in news coverage; by a 43%-to-23% margin, more say it is a liberal than a conservative bias.
• Roughly a third (35%) read a book yesterday, which is largely unchanged over the past decade. Of those, 4% read an electronic or digital book.
• The public struggled with a four-question current events quiz — just 14% answered all four correctly. But about half (51%) of regular Wall Street Journal readers aced the quiz, as did 42% of regular New York Times readers.
• Among news audiences, Obama gets his highest approval ratings among regular viewers of Keith Olbermann (84% approve) and Rachel Maddow (80%); his rating is nearly as high among regular readers of the New York Times (79%). Obama gets his lowest ratings among regular Sean Hannity viewers (7%) and Rush Limbaugh listeners (9%).
• Partisan gaps in media credibility continue to grow, with Republicans far more skeptical of most major news sources than Democrats. The one exception is Fox News, which twice as many Republicans believe all or most of (41%) than Democrats (21%).

Continue reading the full report at people-press.org.

Among eight groups tested, whites and middle-class people are the only groups that majorities say are treated fairly by the press; 57% say that news coverage of whites is generally fair while 56% say the same about coverage of middle-class people.

Notably, about a third (32%) say that coverage of wealthy people is too positive — the highest percentage for any group included in the survey. About as many see coverage of the wealthy as too positive as say it is generally fair (31%).

These are the results of latest weekly News Interest Index survey, conducted Aug. 12-15 among 1,005 adults by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, which also finds that Americans continued to track the oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico last week more closely than other major stories. With coverage of the leak down significantly, the public’s high interest likely reflects the perceived importance of the story; 44% say this was the story they followed most closely, while the spill accounted for just 3% of the newshole, according to the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism.

The survey also shows that the public is divided over whether news organizations devote too much coverage to race relations in this country. Still, close to half (48%) say the media make relations between the races seem worse than they actually are, while about a quarter (24%) say they reflect race relations as they really are.

Just more than a third (34%) say news organizations give too much attention to race relations, while a comparable 31% say they give these difficult issues too little coverage and 25% say the amount is about right.

African Americans are much more likely than whites to say news organizations give too little attention to race relations (51% vs. 24%), though pluralities in both groups (42% for blacks, 50% for whites) say the media make race relations seem worse than they actually are.

About four-in-ten Democrats (41%) say news organizations give race relations too little coverage, compared with 20% of Republicans and 32% of independents. Republicans, on the other hand, are much more likely to say that race relations get too much coverage (47%), compared with 29% of Democrats and 32% of independents.

Those 18-29 are more likely than other age groups to say that the media gives too little attention to race relations. About half (49%) say this, compared with 18% of those 65 and older. Again, the differences narrow when people are asked to assess the coverage. For example, 41% of those 18-29 say news organizations make race relations seem worse than they are, just about the same as the 44% of those 65 and older who say this.

Press Coverage of Muslims

When assessing news coverage of Muslims, older people are less likely than others to say coverage is too negative — just 24% of those age 65 and over say this, compared with more than four-in-ten of those in younger age groups.

College educated Americans are significantly more likely than those who have not attended college to say media treatment of Muslims is too negative; a majority of those with college experience (53%) say this, compared to just 30% of those with a high school education or less.

And while a 59% majority of Democrats say press coverage of Muslims is too negative, Republican and independent opinion is somewhat more divided. Republicans and independents are about equally likely to say coverage is generally fair (38% of Republicans and 35% of independents) as to say it is too negative (36% of Republicans and 39% of independents).

African Americans See Coverage of Blacks as Too Negative

Nearly six-in-ten African Americans (58%) say that news coverage of blacks is generally too negative. A sizeable minority of whites (31%) also says that blacks are portrayed too negatively in news stories. Still, nearly half of whites (48%) say media treatment of blacks is generally fair (just 28% of blacks say this). African Americans also are more likely than whites to say that media coverage of Hispanics is too negative (48%, compared with 32% of whites).

Pluralities of both blacks (49%) and whites (60%) say that news coverage of whites tends to be fair, while just 16% of whites and 12% of blacks say it is too negative. Blacks are somewhat more likely than whites to say media coverage of whites is too positive, although just 26% of blacks say this (compared with 11% of whites).

There also are substantial partisan differences in these views. Majorities of Democrats say news media coverage of blacks (52%) and Hispanics (52%) is too negative; about two-in-ten Republicans say this about news coverage of each group (22% for both blacks and Hispanics). About a third of independents say press coverage of blacks (35%) and Hispanics (33%) is too negative.

Similarly, Democrats are about twice as likely as Republicans to say news coverage of gays and lesbians is too negative (40% vs. 22%); 30% of independents see coverage of gays as too negative. Younger people also are more likely than older people to say portrayals of gays and lesbians in the press are too negative; 36% of those younger than 50 say this, compared to 27% of 50 to 64 year olds and just 19% of those age 65 and older.

Coverage of Wealthy, Middle-Class and Poor

Republicans and Democrats offer differing views of coverage of people at every income level. Nearly a third of Republicans (32%) say coverage of the wealthy is too negative, about the same number who say it is generally fair (33%); 24% of Republicans say press coverage of wealthy people is too positive.

By contrast, Democrats are substantially more likely than Republicans to say press coverage of the affluent is too positive (37%), while just 21% say it is too negative. Independent views of coverage of wealthy people mirror those of Democrats.

While majorities of Republicans (55%), Democrats (65%) and independents (54%) say news coverage of the middle class is generally fair, Republicans (31%) and independents (27%) are more likely than Democrats (17%) to say the media is too negative in its treatment of middle class people.

A clear majority of Democrats (61%) say the media is too negative in its coverage of the poor; 46% of independents and just 28% of Republicans say this.

The Week’s News

Public attention to the major oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico has yet to drop off as significantly as media coverage. Currently, 39% say they followed news about the leak very closely last week, not much different from the 42% that said this one week earlier. Still, that is down sharply from 59% in the July 22-25 survey. More than four-in-ten (44%) say this was the story they followed most closely last week.

The oil leak accounted for 3% of the coverage measured by PEJ, down from 11% one week earlier. With the underground well largely sealed, coverage has declined greatly since a peak of 44% of the newshole in mid-June.

More than a quarter (27%) say they followed news about the immigration debate very closely last week, while 12% say this was the news they followed most closely. News about immigration made up 4% of the newshole.

Two-in-ten (20%) say they followed news about this year’s congressional elections very closely, while 5% say this was the news they followed most closely. News about the elections, including several hotly contested primaries, proved to be the most covered news of the week, accounting for 15% of coverage.

Fewer than two-in-ten (17%) say they followed news about recent ups and down in the stock market very closely; 6% say this was the news they followed most closely. News about the financial markets accounted for 2% of coverage. Economic news more generally — including the market fluctuations — accounted for 12% of coverage, according to PEJ, making it the second most reported news of the week.

Just 8% say they very closely followed news about the floods in Pakistan; 1% say this was the story they followed most closely. The flooding accounted for 1% of coverage.

And 7% say they very closely followed news about the Alaska plane crash that killed former Sen. Ted Stevens; 3% say this was the news they followed most closely. The crash accounted for 5% of coverage.

Other Stories — Flight Attendant Saga Resonates

More than four-in-ten Americans (43%) say they heard a lot last week about the dramatic exit by JetBlue flight attendant Steven Slater from his plane at New York’s Kennedy Airport after an argument with a passenger. A quarter (25%) say they heard a little about how Slater had quit his job, opened the plane door and hopped on the emergency exit chute. About three-in-ten (31%) say they heard nothing at all about this story.

Fewer say they heard a lot (30%) about controversies over plans for mosques in several U.S. cities. Debate over building a mosque near the World Trade Center site in New York City continued to generate controversy this week, especially after a series of comments by President Obama about the issue over the weekend. About three-in-ten (29%) say they heard a little about this issue, while 41% say they had heard nothing at all. Close to four-in-ten Republicans (38%) say they heard a lot about this, compared with 28% of Democrats; 30% of independents say they heard a lot as well.

Just more than two-in-ten (22%) say they heard a lot about the debate about changing the Constitution so that children of non-citizens born in the United States would no longer automatically be U.S. citizens. Another 37% heard a little about this debate, while 40% say they heard nothing at all. On this, there are no significant differences among partisans.

Awareness of that story was similar to awareness of news about the arrest of a man suspected of stabbing as many as 20 people. About two-in-ten (21%) say they heard a lot about this story, 36% say they heard a little and 43% say they had heard nothing at all.

These findings are based on the most recent installment of the weekly News Interest Index, an ongoing project of the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press. The index, building on the Center’s longstanding research into public attentiveness to major news stories, examines news interest as it relates to the news media’s coverage. The weekly survey is conducted in conjunction with The Project for Excellence in Journalism’s News Coverage Index, which monitors the news reported by major newspaper, television, radio and online news outlets on an ongoing basis. In the most recent week, data relating to news coverage were collected Aug. 9-15, and survey data measuring public interest in the top news stories of the week were collected Aug. 12-15, from a nationally representative sample of 1,005 adults.

View the topline and survey methodology at people-press.org.