---
"title": "Economy, Election Are Public’s Top Stories"
"description": "Overview The public continued to track news about the economy and the presidential election, while paying less attention to another important political story – Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s victory in a hard-fought recall election. The latest weekly News Interest Index, conducted June 7-10 among 1,000 adults by the Pew Research Center for the People & […]"
"date": "2012-06-12"
"authors":
  -
    "name": "Pew Research Center"
"url": "https://alpha.pewresearch.org/pewresearch-org/politics/2012/06/12/economy-election-are-publics-top-stories/"
"categories":
  - "Economic Conditions"
  - "Economy & Work"
  - "Election 2012"
  - "Election News"
  - "Election News"
  - "News Content Analysis"
  - "News Coverage"
"datasets":
  -
    "name": "June 7-10 2012 Weekly Survey"
    "url": "https://alpha.pewresearch.org/pewresearch-org/dataset/june-7-10-2012-weekly-survey/"
---

# Economy, Election Are Public’s Top Stories

## Table of Contents
1. [Economy, Election Are Public’s Top Stories](https://alpha.pewresearch.org/pewresearch-org/politics/2012/06/12/economy-election-are-publics-top-stories/markdown)
2. [About the News Interest Index](https://alpha.pewresearch.org/pewresearch-org/politics/2012/06/12/about-the-news-interest-index-3/markdown)

## Overview

[![](https://alpha.pewresearch.org/pewresearch-org/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2012/06/6-12-2012-1.png){.alignright width=280}](https://alpha.pewresearch.org/pewresearch-org/politics/?attachment_id=20043258)

The public continued to track news about the economy and the presidential election, while paying less attention to another important political story – Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s victory in a hard-fought recall election.

The latest weekly News Interest Index, conducted June 7-10 among 1,000 adults by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, finds that 35% say they followed reports about U.S. economic conditions very closely while 30% tracked news about the presidential election very closely.

The public expressed less interest in news about the Wisconsin recall election (21% very closely), European economic problems (18%) and the CIA killing of an al Qaeda leader in a drone strike in Pakistan (16%).

The Wisconsin recall election attracted more interest among Republicans (31% very closely) than Democrats or independents (20% each).

[![](https://alpha.pewresearch.org/pewresearch-org/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2012/06/6-12-2012-2.png){.alignright width=280}](https://alpha.pewresearch.org/pewresearch-org/politics/?attachment_id=20043259)

Just 6% of Americans say they very closely followed news about recent conflicts between the Vatican and U.S. nuns. Fewer than one-in-five (14%) followed this story either very or fairly closely; 84% say they followed this news not too closely or not at all closely.

Even among Catholics, this story attracted little interest. In fact, nearly identical percentages of Catholics (16%), Protestants (14%) and the religiously unaffiliated (14%) paid very close attention to the conflicts between the Vatican and American nuns. White Catholics are somewhat more interested than are white Protestants (22% very closely vs. 13% very closely).

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, building on the Center’s longstanding research into public attentiveness to major news stories.

---

**Next:** [About the News Interest Index](https://alpha.pewresearch.org/pewresearch-org/politics/2012/06/12/about-the-news-interest-index-3/markdown)