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News Media Trends

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  • report

    Media, Race and Obama’s First Year

    As a group, African Americans attracted relatively little attention in the U.S. mainstream news media during the first year of Barack Obama’s presidency — and what coverage there was tended to focus more on specific episodes than on examining how broader issues and trends affected the lives of blacks generally.

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    The Reconstruction of a Media Mess

    The Shirley Sherrod saga started with a video posted online and ended with a flurry of finger pointing.  In a special report, PEJ reconstructs a chronology of how the story reverberated around the media echo chamber before dramatically changing course. And this week’s News Coverage Index finds that the tale of the USDA employee prematurely forced out of her job was the No. 2 story in the news agenda.

  • report

    Media, Race and Obama’s First Year

    The fallout from the firing of Agriculture Department official Shirley Sherrod and the one-year anniversary of the controversial arrest of African American Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr., have put race back in the news. How much coverage do African Americans receive? What role did race play in coverage of the Obama Administration? A new study examining media coverage of African Americans in the first year of the Obama presidency offers answers.

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    Oil Leak News Viewed as Mix of Good and Bad

    Summary of Findings Amid reports that BP has been able to at least temporarily stem the flow of oil from its ruptured underwater well, the public and the media last week again focused on the disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. And, after several months of relentlessly bad news about the spreading spill, the possibility […]

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    Modest Decline in Oil Leak Interest, Sharp Decline in Coverage

    Summary of Findings As the public continues to closely track news about the environmental disaster unfolding in the Gulf of Mexico, few Americans say news organization are giving the oil leak too much coverage. The Gulf oil leak once again topped both public interest and media coverage last week, though the percent following the story […]

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    Public Sees Economic News Turning More Negative

    Summary of Findings Public perceptions of economic news have turned much more negative. Currently, 42% say they are hearing mostly bad news about the economy, the highest percentage in a year. Last month, 30% of the public said they were hearing mostly bad news about the economy. The proportion saying they are hearing a mix […]

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    Public, Media Track Oil Leak, Diverge On McChrystal

    Summary of Findings The public remained focused on the unfolding environmental disaster in the Gulf of Mexico last week, while the media divided its attention between two top stories: the oil leak and controversial comments by Gen. Stanley McChrystal that led to his ouster as commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan. More than half of […]

  • presentation

    How Media Consumption Has Changed Since 2000

    Consumption of news, information and entertainment has radically changed, and not just online. In this talk, Director Lee Rainie presents the latest data and trends.

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    Public Reacts Positively To Extensive Gulf Coverage

    Summary of Findings While the oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico has accounted for an overwhelming proportion of recent news coverage, most Americans say the press is giving the right amount of attention to the still-unfolding disaster. The latest News Interest Index survey conducted June 17-20 among 1,009 adults by the Pew Research Center […]