Summary of Findings

The public divided its attention last week between two major stories: the aftermath of the deadly earthquake and tsunami in Japan and the budget battle in Washington that nearly led to a government shutdown.

About a third say they followed news about the aftermath of the disasters in Japan (34%) or the budget brinksmanship (31%) more closely than any other major story, according to the latest News Interest Index survey, conducted April 7-10 among 1,004 adults. No other story comes close this week.

For its part, the media devoted the most coverage to the budget drama that played out in Washington and the last-minute compromise that averted a shutdown last weekend. This story accounted for 29% of coverage – roughly four times the amount of coverage devoted to the Japan disaster (7%) and far more coverage than for any other story, according to a separate analysis by the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism (PEJ).

For much of 2011, foreign news stories – starting with pro-democracy protests in Egypt, followed by the Japan earthquake and tsunami and then the allied airstrikes against Libya – have dominated the media’s agenda. (See “Public Stays Focused on Japan as Media Turns to Libya, March 30.”) But that changed this week, as the budget showdown accounted for nearly twice the coverage of Japan and Libya combined.

Interest in the Week’s Top Stories

Nearly half of the public (47%) says they followed news about the budget fight very closely. Comparable numbers tracked news about Japan and news about the U.S. economy very closely (46% each). Still, just 13% say economic news was their top story last week.

Interest in the budget fight increased as the sides reached an agreement just before mid-night on April 8 on major spending cuts for the remainder of the 2011 fiscal year. In interviewing conducted prior to the deal (April 7-8), 43% followed news about the threat of a government shutdown very closely. After the agreement (April 9-10), 51% of those interviewed say they followed this news very closely.

For the entire survey period (before and after the agreement), there are no partisan differences in interest in the budget fight. About half of Democrats (51%), Republicans (49%) and independents (45%) say they followed this news very closely. Among Republicans and GOP-leaning independents who agree with the Tea Party, 58% say they followed the budget news very closely. That drops to 40% among all other Republicans and GOP-leaners.

Interest in the aftermath of the disasters in Japan also remained strong, despite a continuing decline in coverage. Four-in-ten women (40%) say they followed news about Japan most closely, compared with 27% of men.

Men, on the other hand, expressed greater interest in news about Libya and news about the economy. Men and women reported comparable interest in news about the shutdown fight.

About three-in-ten (28%) say they followed news about the situation in Libya very closely. That is down from last week, when 37% said they very closely followed news about the military air strikes in Libya by the U.S. and NATO allies. Just 7% say Libya was their top story of the week.

While the economy trailed Japan and the budget fight as a top story, at least four-in-ten in most demographic and partisan groups say they followed economic news very closely. Economic news accounted for 11% of coverage, including reporting on the 2012 federal budget plan unveiled last week by House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan.

Two-in-ten (20%) say they very closely followed news about new safety checks on Boeing 737 airplanes after a piece of a jet’s roof ripped open during a Southwest Airlines flight; 3% say this was the news they followed most closely last week. News about airline safety issues accounted for 2% of coverage.

About one-in-ten (8%) say they followed news about violent conflict in the African nation of Ivory Coast very closely. Less than 1% say this was their top story of the week. The unrest in Ivory Coast accounted for 2% of coverage.

These findings are based on the most recent installment of the weekly News Interest Index, an ongoing project of the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press. The index, building on the Center’s longstanding research into public attentiveness to major news stories, examines news interest as it relates to the news media’s coverage.  The weekly survey is conducted in conjunction with The Project for Excellence in Journalism’s News Coverage Index, which monitors the news reported by major newspaper, television, radio and online news outlets on an ongoing basis. In the most recent week, data relating to news coverage were collected April 4 to 10, and survey data measuring public interest in the top news stories of the week were collected April 7 to 10, from a nationally representative sample of 1,004 adults.

The News Interest Index is a weekly survey conducted by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press aimed at gauging the public’s interest in and reaction to major news events. This project has been undertaken in conjunction with the Project for Excellence in Journalism’s News Coverage Index, an ongoing content analysis of the news.  The News Coverage Index catalogues the news from top news organizations across five major sectors of the media: newspapers, network television, cable television, radio and the internet.  Each week (from Monday through Sunday) PEJ compiles this data to identify the top stories for the week.  (For more information about the Project for Excellence in Journalism’s News Coverage Index, go to www.pewresearch.org/pewresearch-org/journalism.) The News Interest Index survey collects data from Thursday through Sunday to gauge public interest in the most covered stories of the week.

Results for this survey are based on telephone interviews conducted April 7-10, 2011, among a national sample of 1,004 adults 18 years of age or older living in the continental United States (673 respondents were interviewed on a landline telephone, and 331 were interviewed on a cell phone, including 138 who had no landline telephone). The survey was conducted by interviewers at Princeton Data Source under the direction of Princeton Survey Research Associates International. A combination of landline and cell phone random digit dial samples were used; both samples were provided by Survey Sampling International. Interviews were conducted in English. Respondents in the landline sample were selected by randomly asking for the youngest adult male or female who is now at home. Interviews in the cell sample were conducted with the person who answered the phone, if that person was an adult 18 years of age or older.

The combined landline and cell phone sample are weighted using an iterative technique that matches gender, age, education, race, Hispanic origin, region, and population density to parameters from the March 2010 Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey. The sample is also weighted to match current patterns of telephone status based on extrapolations from the 2010 National Health Interview Survey. The weighting procedure also accounts for the fact that respondents with both landline and cell phones have a greater probability of being included in the combined sample and adjusts for household size within the landline sample. Sampling errors and statistical tests of significance take into account the effect of weighting. The following table shows the sample sizes and the error attributable to sampling that would be expected at the 95% level of confidence for different groups in the survey:

Sample sizes and sampling errors for other subgroups are available upon request.

In addition to sampling error, one should bear in mind that question wording and practical difficulties in conducting surveys can introduce error or bias into the findings of opinion polls.