Report Summary At the beginning of each month the Times Mirror Center for the People and the Press conducts a nationwide survey to monitor public attentiveness to the major news events of the preceding four weeks. The survey measures how closely the public follows top national and international news stories, obtains public reaction to […]
Report Summary Americans paid a lot of attention to George Bush recently when he changed his mind about taxes, but few have changed their minds about him as a consequence. Bush’s reversal on taxes was the most closely followed story in June with 30% of the public saying they followed this story very closely. The […]
Report Summary In the days when LBJ was President, the phrase “generation gap” summed up the contrasting political and social values of young Americans and their elders. Today, a new but different generation gap exists. A major comparative examination of what young people know, what they pay attention to, and what media they use reveals […]
Report Summary Thirty-eight percent of the American public followed the Bush-Gorbachev summit “very closely” according to a new Times Mirror News Interest Index released today. While interest in the Washington summit was almost twice as great as public interest in last December’s meeting of the two world leaders off the coast of Malta (21%), the […]
Report Summary News about the release of American hostages in the Middle East has attracted more public attention than any other single story in 1990 so far. Close to half the public (46%) report that they have paid very close attention to stories about the release of Robert Polhill and Frank Reed. This is the […]
Report Summary Events overseas are overshadowing the importance of domestic news to the public. Americans are ten times more likely to cite an international news story (40%) than a domestic one (4%) as the most important event of the month. This is the fifth month in a row that Americans have named overseas stories more […]
Report Summary In a month in which no single news story dominated public attention, Americans registered a strong protest about the amount of news coverage devoted to the marital breakup of Donald and Ivana Trump. A record 55% said there was too much news about the Trumps. This is by far the largest “over covered” […]
Report Summary The crash of an Avianca Airlines jetliner near New York’s Kennedy Airport was the most closely followed news story in January, according to the latest Times Mirror New Interest Index, followed by the Charles Stuart murder case in Boston, the arrest of Washington Mayor Marion Barry, and the acquittal of defendants in California’s […]
Report Summary As George Bush completes his first year in the White House, he is far more popular than Ronald Reagan was eight years ago, but the American public doesn’t think so; and that perception may prove to be as important to the President as his actual standing in the opinion polls.
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