Overview

The devastating tornadoes that ripped through the Midwest last week dominated the public’s news interest and received much more coverage than any other story.

About half of the public (48%) says they followed news about the powerful tornadoes that struck Joplin, Mo., more closely than any other news last week. None of the week’s other top stories comes close, according to the latest weekly News Interest Index survey conducted May 26-29 among 1,000 adults by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press.

News about the tornadoes made up 22% of all coverage, according to a separate analysis by the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism (PEJ). News about the tornadoes made up 46% of network news airtime and 38% of cable news coverage examined last week.

More than four-in-ten Americans (45%) say they very closely followed news about the tornadoes. Half of women (50%) say they followed this news very closely, compared with 38% of men. And though this week’s devastation occurred in the Midwest, interest was comparable across the country: 48% in the South, 45% in the Northeast, 43% in the Midwest and 40% in the West say they followed news about the tornadoes very closely.

A Year of Major Breaking Stories

The public showed only modest interest in the week’s other top stories, continuing a trend seen throughout much of 2011. A series of major breaking news stories – including the shootings in Tucson, the upheaval in the Middle East, the disasters in Japan and the killing of Osama bin Laden – has dominated the news agenda for both the media and the public this year. And that has routinely resulted in less public attention to other news, such as the debate in Washington over how to address the federal deficit and long-term debt and the early stages of the 2012 presidential campaign.

A quarter of the public (25%) says they very closely followed the ongoing discussions in Washington last week over how to handle the federal budget deficit and reduce the national debt; just 8% say this was the news they followed most closely. The only week this year when the deficit debate drew substantial public interest was in early April, when a government shutdown loomed. In the April 7-10 News Interest survey, 47% followed news about the threat of a shutdown very closely and 31% followed this story most closely.

Two-in-ten say they followed news about the 2012 presidential campaign very closely last week, up slightly from a week earlier (15%) and matching the high for the year hit in mid-April. Still, just 5% say this was the news they followed most closely. News about the campaign, focused on the potential Republican candidates, made up 9% of coverage.

About a quarter (26%) say they followed news about state and local budget problems very closely; 7% say this was the news they followed most closely. News about state and local budget problems made up just 1% of the national coverage analyzed by PEJ, though these are often local stories covered more closely by local and regional media.

Nearly two-in-ten (18%) say they followed news about the conflict between the Israelis and the Palestinians very closely; 5% say this was the news they followed most closely. News about the conflict – and the response to efforts by President Obama to restart negotiations over creation of a Palestinian state – made up 5% of coverage.

Meanwhile, about one-in-ten (11%) say they followed news about Obama’s trip to Europe last week very closely. Just 3% say this was the news they followed most closely. The president’s trip made up 3% of coverage.

Most Aware of Oprah’s Final Show

Nearly three-quarters of the public (73%) say they heard at least a little about the end of Oprah Winfrey’s daytime talk show; 36% say they heard a lot about this while 37% say they heard a little. About a quarter (26%) say they heard nothing at all.

In November 2009, when Winfrey announced her show would end this year, comparable numbers had heard this news. At that time, 33% said they had heard a lot about this and 45% said they had heard a little; 21% said they heard nothing at all.

Women are much more likely than men to say they heard a lot about Winfrey’s final talk show (45% vs. 27%). And African Americans are much more likely than whites to say they heard a lot about Winfrey’s final program (55% vs. 34%).

Two-thirds of the public (66%) say they heard at least a little about a judge finding Jared Loughner not fit to stand trial on allegations that he killed six and severely wounded Rep. Gabrielle Giffords in a January shooting spree in Tucson, Ariz. About a quarter (23%) say they heard a lot about the ruling, while 43% say they heard a little. A third (33%) say they heard nothing at all about this.

More than six-in-ten (63%) say they heard at least a little about the latest allegations against Lance Armstrong, the bicycle racing champion who has been accused of using performance enhancing drugs. About two-in-ten (19%) say they heard a lot about this, while 44% say they heard a little. More than a third (37%) say they heard nothing about this.

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 May 23-29, and survey data measuring public interest in the top news stories of the week were collected May 26-29, from a nationally representative sample of 1,000 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 May 26-29, 2011, among a national sample of 1,000 adults 18 years of age or older living in the continental United States (670 respondents were interviewed on a landline telephone, and 330 were interviewed on a cell phone, including 125 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.