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    NY Times’ McCain Story Draws Public Interest – And Disapproval

    Summary of Findings An overwhelming majority of Americans (81%) are aware of news reports that John McCain may have had an improper relationship with a female lobbyist several years ago. About half (48%) of the public has heard a lot about this story, which first appeared in the New York Times late last week. Another […]

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    Where Men and Women Differ in Following the News

    A look at the public’s news interests over the past year shows continuing differences between women and men in the types of news stories that they follow very closely. Women consistently express more interest than men in stories about weather, health and safety, natural disasters and tabloid news. Men are more interested than women in […]

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    Housing Crisis More Visible Than Other Economic Problems

    Summary of Findings Public interest in economic news soared last week amid continued stock market volatility and concerns about a possible recession. More than four-in-ten Americans (42%) followed news about the condition of the U.S. economy very closely and 20% listed this as the single news story they followed more closely than any other. That […]

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    New Hampshire Teaches National News Media a Lesson

    It wasn’t quite “Dewey Defeats Truman,” but after the Jan. 8 Granite State primary confounded many of the pollsters and pundits, one of the key story lines that emerged in coverage of the McCain and Clinton victories was the media’s proclivity to predict and pre-analyze the results.

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    The Public’s Not-So-Happy New Year

    Summary of Findings The American public begins the new year with a highly negative view of national conditions and tempered expectations for 2008. Half of Americans say that as far as they are concerned, 2008 will be a better year than 2007, while 34% say it will be worse. In December 2006, and in several […]

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    The Media Verdict on the Iowa Caucuses is Loud and Clear

    The media were busy anointing winners after the Jan. 3 Iowa caucuses. And the theme of change and surprise also resonated throughout much of the commentary. But a PEJ look at the caucus post-mortems finds that perhaps the most distinct aspect of the coverage was the certainty that something major had occurred that night in Iowa.

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    What Was — and Wasn’t — On the Public’s Mind in 2007

    As in previous years, public opinion played an important role in shaping many of 2007’s major news stories. This year, fewer dominant trends were carryovers from the preceding year and those that were assumed a somewhat different — and in the case of the Iraq war less pessimistic — cast. Read full analysis at Pewresearch.org

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    The Portrait from Iraq – How the Press Has Covered Events on the Ground

    What image of war did journalists—challenged with reporting events from Iraq—portray to the American public in the first 10 months of 2007? What role did violence play in the coverage? Who did reporters rely on for information? A new study of Iraq war coverage addresses these questions.

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    Gas Prices, Disasters Top Public’s News Interests In 2007

    Summary of Findings Man-made and natural disasters dominated the list of the public’s top news stories in 2007. Nearly half of Americans (45%) tracked news about the shootings of 33 students at Virginia Tech University very closely, while nearly as many paid very close attention to reports on the Minneapolis bridge collapse and the California […]