Numbers, Facts and Trends Shaping Your World

News Media Trends

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    Obama Fatigue – 48% Hearing Too Much About Him

    Summary of Findings As he has since January, this week, Barack Obama enjoyed much more visibility as far as the public was concerned than did John McCain. By a margin of 76% to 11% respondents in Pew’s weekly News Interest Index survey named Obama over McCain as the candidate they have heard the most about […]

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    Obama’s Trip a Top Campaign Event for Public

    Summary of Findings Barack Obama’s weeklong tour of the Middle East and Europe dominated campaign coverage last week, and 90% of the public heard at least something about his travels. Obama’s trip became one of the biggest campaign events thus far, with 62% saying they heard a lot about it. The only campaign development more […]

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    Democrats Highly Critical of New Yorker Cover, Republicans Say It Was Okay

    Summary of Findings As Barack Obama prepared for a major international trip last week, a controversial magazine cover here at home drew more public attention. Fully four-in-ten Americans heard a lot about a satirical cartoon on the cover of the New Yorker magazine showing Obama and his wife in the Oval Office — the candidate […]

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    The Changing Newsroom

    Newspapers are suffering historic cuts in staffing and drops in revenue, while technological advances are creating new opportunities. What is disappearing from newspapers and what is being added?

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    Candidates’ Policy Positions Still Not Widely Known

    Summary of Findings While Barack Obama has been the dominant figure in the presidential campaign, both in press coverage and public visibility, most Americans say they do not know very much about his policy positions. Only 40% say they know a lot or a fair amount about his positions on foreign policy; 59% say they […]

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    For Public, Oil Prices and Economic News Overshadow Campaign

    Summary of Findings News organizations continued to focus a great deal of attention on the presidential campaign last week, but the public was more interested in news about the rising price of oil and the overall economy. As the price of oil reached a new record, a solid majority (57%) followed news about rising oil […]