Numbers, Facts and Trends Shaping Your World
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Summary of Findings As oil from an undersea well continued to flow into the Gulf of Mexico last week, Americans tracked the worsening environmental disaster much more closely than any other major news story. About half (49%) say this was the story they followed most closely. Press coverage was divided between the oil leak (17% […]
Summary of Findings Public perceptions of economic news have turned much more negative. Currently, 42% say they are hearing mostly bad news about the economy, the highest percentage in a year. Last month, 30% of the public said they were hearing mostly bad news about the economy. The proportion saying they are hearing a mix […]
The Shirley Sherrod saga started with a video posted online and ended with a flurry of finger pointing. In a special report, PEJ reconstructs a chronology of how the story reverberated around the media echo chamber before dramatically changing course. And this week’s News Coverage Index finds that the tale of the USDA employee prematurely forced out of her job was the No. 2 story in the news agenda.
As the debate in Washington heats up over new regulations on financial markets, the public is divided evenly over whether the Republican Party or Democratic Party (36% each) can do a better job of dealing with banks and financial institutions. Another 28% offer no preference between the two. The parties are also even when it […]
Over the past year, the Tea Party movement has emerged on the political scene. A majority of the public has heard about the Tea Party protests that have taken place in the U.S. and about a quarter of Americans say they agree with the movement. Tea Party backers overwhelmingly identify with or lean to the […]
A total of 882,000 Hispanics of Colombian origin resided in the United States in 2008, according to the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey.
Nearly one-third of online adults use digital tools other than websites to get information from government agencies or officials As government interactions move beyond the website, citizens are increasingly being offered the chance to learn about and communicate with government agencies and officials in a wide range of online spaces such as blogs, social networking […]
The media scrambled last week as authorities arrested a suspect in the Times Square terror case, the Gulf oil spill grew more ominous, Wall Street went briefly into free fall and floods took a deadly toll in Tennessee. All of which left little room for coverage of a crucial overseas election.
Summary of Findings The public and the media focused on economic issues last week, with 24% of Americans saying they followed news about the economy more closely than other major stories. Another 9% say they followed news about proposals for stricter regulation of banks and financial institutions most closely. Americans also continued to closely track […]