Numbers, Facts and Trends Shaping Your World
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The public’s news interests help explain the relative resilience of these news sources. Crime, health and community — the focus of much of today’s local news — are the subjects that most interest Americans. The public expresses considerably less interest in news about political figures and events in Washington and international affairs — topics which […]
Introduction and Summary Washington’s leaders and the American public are out of step with one another. Public distrust of government is paralleled by a belief among members of Congress, presidential appointees and senior civil servants that the American public is too ill-informed to make wise decisions about important issues. Washington leaders also significantly underestimate the […]
Does Specifity Equal Quality? Having a more detailed characterization of sources is no guarantee that a story is accurate. Some stories that have held up well have barely characterized the sources. The Washington Post’s publication of the details of Clinton’s deposition in the Paula Jones litigation effectively offered no guidance at all about the source–even […]
Is there really a trend toward entertainment as news?
In all, 21% of the reporting was based on anonymous sources. Given the nature of a story involving a grand jury and an ongoing investigation, that may not be so surprising, and some of this reportage three weeks later holds up well. In general, however, the track record of stories with multiple anonymous sources appeared […]
Design of the Influential Americans Survey Sample The results of the Opinion Leaders survey are based on Americans who are influential in their chosen field. The sample was designed to represent these Influentials in ten professional areas of expertise: media; business and finance; foreign affairs; defense; state and local government; think tanks and academia; religious […]
Opinion of National Media Slumps Increased criticism of specific press practices may have contributed to the more general decline in favorability toward various news media outlets. Favorable ratings for the national network television news have fallen to a twelve year low. Only 15% of Americans now have a very favorable opinion of the network TV […]
About 12% of Americans go online to get information on current events, public issues and politics. On average, one third of these said they go online for news as many as three days a week. This level of online use has remained fairly stable across six studies completed by the Center this year. Compared to […]