Today marks the beginning of what is likely to be a closely watched courtroom battle—the murder trial of George Zimmerman for the fatal shooting of 17-year old Trayvon Martin in Sanford, Florida on February 26, 2012.

While there has been ongoing coverage of the case and the run-up to the trial, it may be hard to remember just how big—and polarizing—the racially charged story was when it broke more than a year ago.  In the five years that Pew Research Center tracked weekly news coverage (January 2007-May 2012), the Martin killing received the highest level of sustained coverage of any story with a major racial component. And public interest in the story broke down along racial and partisan lines, with blacks and Democrats paying much more attention to news about the case than whites and Republicans.

While the shooting death of Martin quickly began generating attention on social media, mainstream media coverage started slowly, taking several weeks after the February 26 killing to build.

According to our data, the Martin case emerged as the No. 1 story in the mainstream press the week of  March19-25, 2012—following the release of Zimmerman’s 911 calls. That week, it accounted for 19% of the newshole, making it the first story in 2012 to generate more coverage in a single week than the presidential campaign. (The term newshole refers to the space devoted to each subject in print and online and time on radio and TV.)  At that point, about one-third of Americans (35%) said they were following news about the case very closely, making it one of the top stories in 2012 in terms of the level of public attention.

It is also clear that public interest in the story split along both racial and political lines. A Pew Research Center survey found that from March 29-April 1, 2012, 58% of African-Americans said the Martin case was the story they were following most closely, compared with just 24% of whites. At the same time, twice as many Democrats (38%) as Republicans (19%) said it was the story they were following most closely.  A similar split was seen over the quantity of media attention, with whites and Republicans far more likely to say there was too much coverage (43% and 56%, respectively) than blacks (16%) and Democrats (25%).

That partisan divide seems to have been reflected in some of the cable coverage last year. A study of cable news during part of the peak coverage period—from March 19-28, 2012—found very different levels of attention on MSNBC and the Fox News Channel. On the former, with its liberal-leaning prime time lineup, the Martin killing accounted for 49% of the airtime studied during that period.  Fox, with its conservative-tilting prime time hosts, devoted only 15% of its airtime to the case. (On CNN, the story accounted for 40% of the airtime studied.)

Griffin was responding to a significant decline in MSNBC’s ratings, which the Times reported was down 18% in prime time in the second quarter of 2013 compared with the same period in 2012. In May 2013, MSNBC—which often has the second highest cable news ratings behind the Fox News Channel—fell to fourth place, trailing even HLN, which was once known as CNN Headline News.

One theory for its current ratings woes is that the recent spate of big breaking news events— such as the Boston Marathon bombing, the Oklahoma tornados and the Jodi Arias trial—does not play to the strengths of a channel better known for opinion than newsgathering. The channel’s marketing slogan, “The Place for Politics,” fits with its prime-time lineup heavy on liberal-leaning commentary.

A Pew Research analysis of news content on the three major cable channels conducted late last year   found that the highly competitive world of cable news is a mix of reporting and opinion, with a good deal of the latter, particularly in prime time. But the analysis of 108 hours of cable programming over three days in November and December 2012 showed that MSNBC was an outlier compared with its rivals.

In the Pew Research sample, two of the three major cable news channels had a fairly even distribution of airtime devoted to opinion and to newsgathering. CNN was the only one to feature more reporting (54%) than opinion (46%) overall. At the Fox News Channel, the split leaned toward moderately more opinion (55%) than reporting (45%).

On MSNBC, however, the mix of news and commentary skewed heavily in one direction. Fully 85% of the channel’s airtime in the period studied was devoted to opinion. Only 15% of its programming was filled with reporting.  And the time of day really didn’t matter. The percentage of MSNBC airtime devoted to opinion was more than 80% in the morning (6-10 a.m.), mid-day (12-3 p.m.) and evening (6-10 p.m.)

The Pew Research analysis offers a snapshot of cable content, but the reporting/opinion gap between MSNBC and its two top competitors is striking. And the numbers buttress Griffin’s acknowledgement that covering breaking news is not his channel’s sweet spot.

In an earlier Pew Research report that monitored YouTube news videos from January 2011 through March 2012, another horrific natural disaster generated the most interest in that period. It was the earthquake and tsunami that struck the Northeastern Coast of Japan on March 11, 2011 and killed more than 18,000 people. In the seven days following that tragedy, the 20 most viewed news-related YouTube videos were all devoted to that subject. And combined, they were viewed more than 96 million times.

With the growth of smartphones and technology advancement in online video, citizen journalists’ role in chronicling major events has grown. Almost 40% of the most watched news videos in the 15 months from January 2011 through March 2012 came directly from citizens. Even some of the videos bearing the logo of a news organization were originally shot by citizen onlookers, a sign of today’s new kind of professional/amateur news partnership.

Online and digital news consumption, meanwhile, continues to increase, with many more people now getting news on cell phones, tablets or other mobile platforms.

And perhaps the most dramatic change in the news environment has been the rise of social networking sites. The percentage of Americans saying they saw news or news headlines on a social networking site yesterday has doubled – from 9% to 19% – since 2010. Among adults under age 30, as many saw news on a social networking site the previous day (33%) as saw any television news (34%), with just 13% having read a newspaper either in print or digital form.

These are among the principal findings of the Pew Research Center’s biennial news consumption survey, which has tracked patterns in news use for nearly two decades. The latest survey was conducted May 9-June 3, 2012, among 3,003 adults.

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

There are few things journalists like to discuss more than, well, themselves and the long-term prospects for their industry. How long will print newspapers survive? Are news aggregation sites the future? Or are online paywalls — such as the one the New York Times just launched — the way to go?

As media organizations plot their future, it’s worth discarding some misconceptions about what it will take to keep the press from becoming yesterday’s news. Here are five frequent, if faulty, allegations:

1. Traditional news media are losing their audience.
2. Online news will be fine as soon as the advertising revenue catches up.
3. Content will always be king.
4. Newspapers around the world are on the decline.
5. The solution is to focus on local news.

To find out the facts behind these five prevailing myths about the future of the news media, read the full article at washingtonpost.com.