Numbers, Facts and Trends Shaping Your World
The overall quality of news coverage — including issues ranging from decreased accuracy to increased sensationalism — remains the most important problem area in journalism today, according to the press. But its relative seriousness has plummeted compared to the loss of credibility with the public. When asked about the validity of various criticisms of the […]
The number of Americans who go online to get news has tripled in the last three years. In 1995, just 4% of Americans went online for news at least once a week. Now, anywhere from 15% to 26% go online for news on a weekly basis, according to recent Pew Research Center surveys. This range […]
Introduction and Summary The Internet audience is not only growing, it is getting decidedly mainstream. Two years ago, when just 23% of Americans were going online, stories about technology were the top news draw. Today, with 41% of adults using the Internet, the weather is the most popular online news attraction. Increasingly people without college […]
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 The Pew Research Center’s biennial news use survey finds that overall Americans are reading, watching and listening to the news just as often as they were two years ago. But the type of news Americans follow and the way they follow it are being fundamentally reshaped by technological change and the post-Cold […]
Overwhelmingly, Americans place a premium on accuracy and timeliness and, to a somewhat lesser degree, information that is helpful and hard to find. Fully 90% say that it is important that the news is accurate; 88% say it is important for the news to be timely and up-to-date. Over three-quarters (78%) want the news to […]
About this Survey Results for the main survey on Media Consumption are based on telephone interviews conducted under the direction of Princeton Survey Research Associates among a nationwide sample of 3,002 adults, 18 years of age or older, during the period April 24-May 11, 1998. For results based on the total sample, one can say […]
Public satisfaction with the state of the nation has lifted out of the doldrums of the early 1990s, with 46% today saying they are satisfied. While this is up 20% points or more from the period 1993 through mid-1996, half of all Americans (50%) still describe themselves as dissatisfied with the way things are going. […]
Survey Findings An analysis of public attentiveness to more than 500 news stories over the last ten years confirms that the American public pays relatively little attention to many of the serious news stories of the day. The major exceptions to this rule are stories dealing with natural and man-made disasters and U.S. military actions. […]
Budget Agreement Clearly, Bill Clinton’s continued high ratings, despite Whitewater and the DNC fund raising scandal, seem more tied to a reduction in economic anxiety than to success with the budget. News interest in the budget debate once again edged down at the very time the President and Republican leaders had come to their historic […]