Numbers, Facts and Trends Shaping Your World
Just a quarter of Americans (25%) say they have a favorable opinion of Congress, while 70% have an unfavorable view. This is among the lowest favorable ratings for Congress in more than two decades of Pew Research Center surveys. The number expressing a favorable opinion of Congress has fallen by nine points since March (from […]
Following Barack Obama’s June 22 speech about the Afghanistan war, there has been little change in public opinion about the president’s plans for drawing down the number of U.S. combat troops in that country. As in early March, a plurality (44%) says they think Obama will remove troops at about the right pace. About three-in-ten […]
The stalemate over deficit reduction and the entry of another candidate into the crowded 2012 presidential race made the economy and election the two leading stories last week. Meanwhile media attention to Afghanistan fell dramatically, highlighting the episodic and uneven coverage of that decade-old conflict.
Coverage of the economy ballooned last week with the high stakes political skirmishing over the deficit and debt limit, while on the other side of the Atlantic the scandal enveloping Rupert Murdoch’s media empire generated a significant increase in media attention in the U.S.
The long-awaited debt ceiling deal in Washington triggered a torrent of overwhelmingly negative economic coverage that easily proved to be the dominant story of the week. And two major newsmakers earlier in the year, al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and Congresswoman Gabrielle Gifffords, re-emerged in the headlines last week.
The growing News of the World scandal drew increased media attention last week, but not enough to stanch interest in the debt deliberations in Washington, which have fueled the top story for five weeks running. A record-breaking heat wave, the end of an era at NASA and a relatively quiet presidential campaign also ranked among the top stories last week.
Though the economy topped the mainstream news agenda, Obama’s troop drawdown announcement gave Afghanistan its biggest week of coverage in a year. And while mainstay subjects—the campaign and the Mid-East—continued to make news, the surprise arrest of one of the FBI’s most wanted dominated the end of the week.
There were no late summer news doldrums last week as the apparent conclusion of a civil war and a pair of natural disasters topped the news. The rebel takeover of Libya generated the biggest week of attention to that conflict in five months while an earthquake and a hurricane brought the media focus back to the Northeast United States.
Coverage of the U.S. economy led the news agenda for the third week in a row, thanks to some drama in the deficit talks. The unexpected conclusion to a high profile trial generated plenty of press attention while a major British media scandal made its way across the Atlantic.