Numbers, Facts and Trends Shaping Your World
Summary of Findings Paris Hilton’s legal problems became a national news story last week. Coverage of Hilton being released from and then returned to jail filled 4% of the newshole, making it the fifth most heavily covered story of the week. Roughly a third of Americans (34%) said they followed news about Hilton very or […]
Summary of Findings In the first six months of 2007, the Iraq war has captivated the public’s interest and eclipsed most of the year’s other major news stories, including the 2008 presidential election, two major Washington political scandals, and news from other international trouble spots. Iraq has been the most closely followed news story in […]
Summary of Findings In spite of their general criticisms of the media, Americans have good things to say about the major broadcast and cable news networks. The public draws few distinctions among the news divisions of the big three broadcast networks. There is much less consensus about the major cable news networks. Nearly half of […]
The second biggest story of the first three months of 2007 was the kickoff of a new presidential election season. The general election is still a full 17 months away, but with open primary races in both political parties, the campaign—at least according to the press—is already in full swing. It accounted for 7% of […]
Pew Forum Faith Angle Conference Key West, Florida Some of the nation’s leading journalists gathered in Key West, Fla., in December 2007 for the Pew Forum’s biannual Faith Angle Conference on religion, politics and public life. Stephen Prothero, chair of the Department of Religion at Boston University, discussed the issue of religious illiteracy in the […]
Topline PEJ News Coverage Index December 31, 2006 – March 31, 2007 Percent of Newshole for Major Stories Story All Media Cable TV Network Evening w/ PBS Network Morning Newspapers Online Talk Radio News Radio Iraq War Total (3 threads) 22% 23% 33% 18% 18% 23% 22% 22% Iraq Policy Debate 12 16 16 […]
Summary of Findings At this early stage of the 2008 campaign, about half of the public believes that press coverage of the Democratic and Republican presidential candidates has been fair. But there are sizable partisan differences in evaluations of campaign coverage. Notably, a plurality of Republicans believes the press has gone too easy on Democratic […]